Dissecting Research on Sterilization Age with guest Dr. Phil Bushby
What is the best age to sterilize dogs and cats? There are many opinions on both the benefits of sterilization as well as the risks, and most of the concerns expressed currently are based on research published from a referral hospital. But is the information applicable to all animals? What are the risks and benefits? And what are the implications of not sterilizing our pets?
Dr. Phil Bushby, Board Certified Veterinary Surgeon and Marcia Lane Endowed Chair of Humane Ethics and Animal Welfare at the College of Veterinary Medicine in Mississippi State, breaks down the research and helps clarify what the data tells us. In reviewing the research for and against early age sterilization, we discuss bias as well as the power of statistics and how numbers can be manipulated to prove significance when there may not be any.
There are risks and benefits in every decision we make for the pets in our lives. We hope that this episode can help clear some of the confusion behind this topic so that pet owners and caretakers can make educated decisions about their care.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction.
DrG:This is your host, Dr.
DrG:G.
DrG:And our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan.
DrG:Today's special guest is Phil Busby, a surgeon that actually was, uh,
DrG:one of the first individuals that I met when I started in this journey
DrG:towards high volume sterilization.
DrG:And even though he doesn't remember me, he left, uh, a very impactful memory in me.
DrG:So thank you, Dr.
DrG:Bushby for, for being here
Dr. Phil Bushby:today.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Well, thank you.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's a pleasure to be here.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, I'll give you a little bit of my background.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, I graduated veterinary school in the early seventies, 1972.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, I remember going to veterinary school.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I don't necessarily remember a whole lot that they taught us
Dr. Phil Bushby:that, you know, 50 years ago.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But I absolutely remember that in four years of veterinary school, , we
Dr. Phil Bushby:never talked about pet overpopulation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We never talked about the fact that in, in the early seventies, the
Dr. Phil Bushby:estimates are between 15 and 22 million dogs and cats were being euthanized
Dr. Phil Bushby:in the United States each year.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We never walked into an animal shelter, and so I graduated with no perception
Dr. Phil Bushby:of the issues that animal shelters face have certainly faced then.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No perception of pet over population.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I took an internship at the Henry Burg Memorial Hospital of
Dr. Phil Bushby:the A S P C A in New York City.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, upper East Side Manhattan.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, at that time, the A S P C A was animal control for all
Dr. Phil Bushby:five boroughs of New York City.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And in the year of my internship they euthanized over 136,000 dogs
Dr. Phil Bushby:and cats in that one facility.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I don't remember if they euthanized on weekends, but let's pretend they didn't.
Dr. Phil Bushby:so that equated to five, over 500 animals a day, five days a week,
Dr. Phil Bushby:week after week, year after year.
Dr. Phil Bushby:so welcome to the world of pet overpopulation and the urgency of
Dr. Phil Bushby:spay neuter, my interest or surgery.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I went on and did.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, surgical residencies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I went into private practice for a short period of time and ended up
Dr. Phil Bushby:at Mississippi State University, college of Veterinary Medicine, very
Dr. Phil Bushby:early in the history of that school.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They took their first students in 19, uh, 77, and I joined their faculty in
Dr. Phil Bushby:1978, and I've been there ever since.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Been there 45 years.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, I'm a board certified surgeon that did all of the referral
Dr. Phil Bushby:stuff and this type of thing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And then that draw kept pulling me back to, , the shelter world and spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And so since the early nineties, really that has been my focus for the last.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Literally the last 30 years, my focus has been on high volume spay neuter,
Dr. Phil Bushby:teaching students high volume spay neuter techniques, getting students into animal
Dr. Phil Bushby:shelters to recognize even today we still have problems with pet overpopulation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's really interesting because, should you spay neuter and at what age you
Dr. Phil Bushby:should spay, neuter, , used to be simple.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, for decades we were taught, and everybody basically assumed that the appropriate
Dr. Phil Bushby:age to spay and neuter an animal was between six and nine months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And that's what everybody did.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And the world was fine.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And, , we had no clue what we were doing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And that.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Magic number of six months of age , was just arbitrary.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It was not supported by any research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:In fact, until the, I would say the last 20 years, maybe 30 years,
Dr. Phil Bushby:there had been very little research on the impact of spay neuter and on
Dr. Phil Bushby:what ages you should spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Now there is a ton of literature out there, , dealing with that issue.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, I'll start by saying everyone has a bias.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I have a bias.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, I was impacted by, , the numbers of euthanasias at the Henry Bird
Dr. Phil Bushby:back in the early seventies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And that led me to a bias towards spay neuter, and I still have that bias.
Dr. Phil Bushby:sadly bias influences the research people do, and so there are also
Dr. Phil Bushby:people out there that have the exact opposite bias, that are either
Dr. Phil Bushby:opposed to spay neuter or certainly opposed to spay neuter at a young age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I have a stack on my desk right now.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I have a stack, , at least six inches high of articles, on the impact of
Dr. Phil Bushby:spay neuter and the age of spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And I guarantee anybody can find an article which supports their position
Dr. Phil Bushby:regardless of what their position is.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The research is all over the place.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, one study contradicts the last study, , and so thumb through the literature
Dr. Phil Bushby:and find what you find something that supports your opinion, , and run for it
Dr. Phil Bushby:seems to be, , the motto for, , today.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So, what I wanna do is start out by talking a little bit about the quality
Dr. Phil Bushby:of the research that's out there.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, you know, basically, basically what, what we should do in with any medical decision
Dr. Phil Bushby:is analyze the risk, benefit relationship.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Alright?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Is there a risk of performing spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Is there a benefit of performing spay neuter?
Dr. Phil Bushby:and which outweighs the other?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Is the benefit greater than the risk?
Dr. Phil Bushby:We can do that with the overall issue of should an animal be
Dr. Phil Bushby:spayed or dog or cat be spayed or should a dog or cat be castrated?
Dr. Phil Bushby:We can do that risk benefit analysis related to should they
Dr. Phil Bushby:be spayed at three months of age?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Should they be spayed at two years of age?
Dr. Phil Bushby:You know, we can look at do we wanna do spay neuter?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Should it, we, should we perform spay neuter?
Dr. Phil Bushby:And at what age should we perform spay neuter on?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Alright.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sadly, sadly, mark, let me let.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I'll, I'll get to sadly in a minute.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The ideal research would be randomized clinical trials with an
Dr. Phil Bushby:absolutely unbiased, , selection of subjects with a large numbers of
Dr. Phil Bushby:animals, with accurate and precise measurements of all of the variables
Dr. Phil Bushby:and all of the possible parameters.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And then with cautious and critical assessment of
Dr. Phil Bushby:results in an unbiased manner.
Dr. Phil Bushby:That's the perfect research project.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Those almost never exist in veterinary medicine.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Most of what we have in veterinary medicine are retrospective studies
Dr. Phil Bushby:where we go back into case records and try to analyze the data in those case
Dr. Phil Bushby:records, , to reach some conclusion.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And there are, and, and, and why, why is that the majority of the
Dr. Phil Bushby:research in veterinary medicine, it's quick, it's inexpensive.
Dr. Phil Bushby:we have data.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We already have data by pulling out medical records.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, so it's, it's relatively easy.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sadly, it's poor research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It cannot possibly determine cause and effect.
Dr. Phil Bushby:There's no way to control variables.
Dr. Phil Bushby:If I simply go to the case records, , you know, Mississippi's Veterinary School
Dr. Phil Bushby:has been around now for 46 years.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I could go and pull case records from all 46 years and try to reach some
Dr. Phil Bushby:conclusions about age of spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:but the data would be all over the place.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, we would have no control over the environments that the animals were
Dr. Phil Bushby:in no control over the, the diet.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No control over the , veterinary, medical care history of those animals.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's just data on a piece of paper with no control of variables.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And we try to reach some conclusions from it, right?
Dr. Phil Bushby:And that's what the majority of research that kind of opposes spay neuter, or
Dr. Phil Bushby:at least wants us to delay spay neuter, older age is retrospective studies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The majority of spay neuter, of research that says spay neuter is appropriate
Dr. Phil Bushby:and it's appropriate, , to spay neuter, , before six months of age,
Dr. Phil Bushby:most of that is retrospective studies with no control of variables.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Again, we can find whatever we want to support our own bias.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So, so we have, you know, and, and in the last 10 years, we've fallen
Dr. Phil Bushby:into the trend of publishing, , in public access journals.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So it's not just veterinarians now that read all of the studies out of
Dr. Phil Bushby:uc, Davis, or the other studies from other places that support spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's the public that's reading them too.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right?
Dr. Phil Bushby:And so we've created this confusion because the data is, you know, the,
Dr. Phil Bushby:the data is all over the map and it's no longer confined to a journal
Dr. Phil Bushby:that comes to your mailbox once a month or every couple of weeks.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's out on the internet at anybody can access it in an at any time.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, It seems like we don't know what we're doing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So, what I wanna do is, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna dissect a series of articles
Dr. Phil Bushby:that I'm gonna start with a series of articles that basically say
Dr. Phil Bushby:either don't spay, neuter, or wait.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And I'm gonna analyze those articles and I'm going to, uh,
Dr. Phil Bushby:kind of tear some holes in them.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And most of these articles have come out of UC Davis in the last 10 years and have,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, all had kind of the same
DrG:And have these articles.
DrG:They have the same authors, do they also use the same records, like the same
DrG:population for all of these articles?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Yes.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They're going back into the, , clinical record system from uc,
Dr. Phil Bushby:Davis, and it's, they have an extensive clinical record system.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They have all this data and, and they're simply trying to analyze the data as
Dr. Phil Bushby:they see it and publish that data.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And I don't fault them for that.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I just think people should understand that, uh, the research is not perfect.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And we're gonna try to explain a little bit why.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Alright, so the first we saw out of this group was entitled Neutering
Dr. Phil Bushby:Dogs Effects on Joint Disorders and Cancers in Golden Retrievers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It was published in 2013.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, it reported on 759 client owned Golden Retrievers, and they concluded
Dr. Phil Bushby:from analysis of their records that for males neutered under one year of age,
Dr. Phil Bushby:which I think back 10 years, , almost all males were neutered under one year of age,
Dr. Phil Bushby:the incidence of hip dysplasia was doubled that of hip dysplasia in intact dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Okay.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, the cranial cruset rupture was increased in dogs neutered,
Dr. Phil Bushby:uh, under one year of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, the incidence of lymphoma in, , dogs neutered under one year of age was
Dr. Phil Bushby:three times that of intact males.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And the incidence of of Hemangiosarcoma, interestingly, in females spayed
Dr. Phil Bushby:after one year of age was four times that of intact females.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Ooh, shockwaves.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Go through the, the profession.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Clients are now saying, wait a minute, should we even
Dr. Phil Bushby:spay and neuter our animals?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Because of this article published now, 10 years ago, that was followed
Dr. Phil Bushby:a year later with an article, long-term health effects of neutering
Dr. Phil Bushby:dogs, comparison of lab, Labrador, retrievers, and golden retrievers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So go back into the same record systems.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Pull out data from Labradors and compare it with golden retrievers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And in that article, they looked at, , just over, well, 1,015 goldens
Dr. Phil Bushby:golden retrievers, and 1500 Labradors.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And they found increases in certain orthopedic conditions and certain
Dr. Phil Bushby:cancers in sterilized Labradors.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But there were differences between the findings in the Labrador
Dr. Phil Bushby:and the golden retrievers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So yes, increases, but they were different than the, the goldens.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Follow that a year later, neutering of German shepherds, , dogs associated
Dr. Phil Bushby:joint disorder, cancers and urinary incontinence, 1,170 German Shepherds.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Incidence of having one joint disorder in dogs neutered less than
Dr. Phil Bushby:six months of age, they said was two to three times out of intact dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Incidents of one joint disorder in dogs neutered between six and
Dr. Phil Bushby:11 months of age was also two to three times that of intact dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And neutering in German Shepherds was not associated with any increase
Dr. Phil Bushby:in cancer compared to intact dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right, again, another large breed dog, basically large breed
Dr. Phil Bushby:dog with increased orthopedic issues apparently, and no increase in cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Differences now between Goldens, Labrador and German Shepherds.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Alright, let's really get confused.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And in 2016, one article, one article a year, let's just hit bam bam, bam, bam.
Dr. Phil Bushby:One article a year, gonadectomy effects on the risk of immune disorders
Dr. Phil Bushby:in the dog, a retrospective study.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, and it looked at the incidence of several immune disorders in neutered
Dr. Phil Bushby:dogs comparing them to intact dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And then we get 35 breeds of dogs assisted decision making on age of neutering for 35
Dr. Phil Bushby:breeds of dogs associated joint disorders, cancers, and urinary incontinence.
Dr. Phil Bushby:If you, if, if you start to think, okay, I don't wanna, I
Dr. Phil Bushby:don't wanna be real serious here.
Dr. Phil Bushby:This article was actually, um, somewhat humorous.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. The results were all over the map.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All over the map for male dogs, out of 35 breeds for 21 of those
Dr. Phil Bushby:breeds, the author said that they lack any noticeable occurrence of
Dr. Phil Bushby:increased joint disorders or cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And therefore, quoting from the article, those wishing to neuter should decide
Dr. Phil Bushby:on the appropriate age, you know, on 21 of 35, 2 thirds of the breeds,
Dr. Phil Bushby:they simply say, if you wanna neuter them, you decide on the appropriate
Dr. Phil Bushby:age because we don't have any data.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Female dogs, on 24 of the 35 breeds, there was no noticeable increase
Dr. Phil Bushby:in joint disorders or cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And they said, quote, those wishing to neuter should
Dr. Phil Bushby:decide on the appropriate age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And when, when you read that article, , the numbers were teeny.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, the, the most egregious one that they made a comment in St.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Bernard's, , in which they stated that the incidence of having at least one
Dr. Phil Bushby:joint disorder occurred in 100% of the St.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Bernard's in their study that was spayed under six months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All of them, all four.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They had four St.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Bernards in that category, right?
Dr. Phil Bushby:And, and they're publishing that data as if it has any significance whatsoever.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And then they come up.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Then the next one was mixed breeds, five weight categories.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Okay, let's get away from the, from the pure, pure breds.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Now let's just look at the mixed breeds.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And they divided into, uh, under 10 kilograms between 10 and 19, between 20
Dr. Phil Bushby:and 29, 30 and 39 and greater than 40.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Under 10 kilograms, no increase in joint disorders or cancers with
Dr. Phil Bushby:neutering under one year of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:10 to 20.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No increase in joint disorders or cancers with neutering under one
Dr. Phil Bushby:year of age, 20 to 30 kilograms.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Ooh, an increase in joint disorders if neutered.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Under one year of age, no increase in cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:30 to 39.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, kilograms, again, increase in joint disorders if
Dr. Phil Bushby:neutered under one year of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:and increase in cancers if they were not neutered.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Okay, now I'm getting confused.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Over 40 kilograms and males increase in joint disorders if
Dr. Phil Bushby:neutered under one year of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No increase in females, no increase in cancers with spay
Dr. Phil Bushby:neutered regardless of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right, so
Dr. Phil Bushby:plug all this data into your computer and when an animal walks through the
Dr. Phil Bushby:door, hit the keys on the computer and let the computer tell you, oh,
Dr. Phil Bushby:gee, this falls into this category.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We'd better not spay it.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We better not neuter it.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No, it's gotten crazy.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's gotten totally insane.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All those six articles all looked at the incidence of joint problems,
Dr. Phil Bushby:either cranial cruciate rupture, or hip dysplasia and and various cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And they were looking at lymphoma, hemangiosarcoma, osteosarcoma, and mast
Dr. Phil Bushby:cell tumors and immune disorders, and showed all over the map, some degrees
Dr. Phil Bushby:of increase in incidents of certain orthopedic conditions and neoplastic
Dr. Phil Bushby:conditions, , and immune disorders.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And it was all over the map.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But now here's the but.
Dr. Phil Bushby:These were all retrospective studies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:In the best research we've already made the comment that all
Dr. Phil Bushby:variables should be controlled except the ones you're measuring.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And retrospective studies can't do that.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Can you take a population of, you know, a thousand go and you'll
Dr. Phil Bushby:it will, it'll become real clear why we don't do this research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Take a population of a thousand golden retrievers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Put them all in an identical environment.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, Put them all on the exact same diet, put them all, uh, on the exact
Dr. Phil Bushby:same level of veterinary care, , follow them for 10 years and determine,
Dr. Phil Bushby:you know, and some of them were spayed at under six months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Some of them were spayed over six months of age, and some of them were left intact.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And now compare incidents of orthopedic disease and incidents of various cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And you might actually have some valid data.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But when you don't control any of the variables, you really can't make
Dr. Phil Bushby:any solid conclusions from the data.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Now, here are the flaws that I see in, in all six of those articles.
Dr. Phil Bushby:These were cases managed, at a referral institution,
Dr. Phil Bushby:right off the start, you have a biased selection of cases,
Dr. Phil Bushby:cases managed by primary care.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Veterinary clinics are not represented in these studies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And so why is this a concern?
Dr. Phil Bushby:The, the local PR practitioner, the primary care clinic, might very
Dr. Phil Bushby:well managed the dog with mammary neoplasia or the dog with pyometra,
Dr. Phil Bushby:but refer the case of osteosarcoma.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So now you're looking at the records from a referral institution, and you're not
Dr. Phil Bushby:seeing incidents of mammary neoplasia in those intact dogs because those
Dr. Phil Bushby:dogs don't show up at your institution.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But you are seeing the cases of osteosarcoma in sterilized dogs, right?
Dr. Phil Bushby:So there's a bias, it's, it's not intentional, but there's a bias built
Dr. Phil Bushby:into studies that are restricted simply to the records of referral institutions.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And this is a little bit of an overgeneralization, but in the United
Dr. Phil Bushby:States, there are two reasons why people don't spay and neuter their dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The most common is they can't afford the surgery, and the second
Dr. Phil Bushby:one is they intend to breed the dogs in order to sell puppies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So if people can't afford to spay and neuter their dog, what are their chances
Dr. Phil Bushby:of ending up at a specialty clinic or a, , university teaching hospital?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Because the dog is limping.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I can't afford to spay my dog.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's been limping for the last three months.
Dr. Phil Bushby:My local veterinarian says it is a, , cruciate rupture.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But I can't afford $6,000 to take it to a referral institution
Dr. Phil Bushby:to have a A T P L O performed.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So my dog, my intact dog, doesn't appear in the record system that
Dr. Phil Bushby:is used to generate these articles that we've been talking about.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Carry that one step a little bit further.
Dr. Phil Bushby:People who raise dogs to breed and sell puppies are much more
Dr. Phil Bushby:inclined to keep those dogs confined to kennels or whatever.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They're not running around the neighborhood.
Dr. Phil Bushby:and so there's a potential that just their environment is helping protect them from
Dr. Phil Bushby:cruciate ruptures or whatever, , whereas the intact dogs are
Dr. Phil Bushby:running around the neighborhood.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. Retrospective studies can
Dr. Phil Bushby:They cannot po they cannot show cause and effect.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right?
Dr. Phil Bushby:And, and the ridiculous example I use, , is in the past 15 years
Dr. Phil Bushby:in human medicine, the incidence of diabetes, , has increased.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And so is the incidence of people, doing yoga.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So does diabetes cause people to want to do yoga or does yoga create diabetes?
Dr. Phil Bushby:No.
Dr. Phil Bushby:You, you can't make those assumptions.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uc, Davis studies are reporting on relatively small numbers of
Dr. Phil Bushby:cases and just random variation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:If everything, if everything about the uc, Davis studies was perfect except
Dr. Phil Bushby:numbers of cases, random variation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:If the, the, the smaller the number of cases you have, the greater
Dr. Phil Bushby:the impact of random variation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So
Dr. Phil Bushby:my opinion, it's just my opinion is that what the uc Davis studies do for
Dr. Phil Bushby:us is point to the need for much better research to look at these issues, but
Dr. Phil Bushby:should not have any impact on the de the decisions that we make today.
DrG:So, yeah, you know what we do, right?
DrG:So we're a mobile sterilization clinic and we take care of those
DrG:individuals that cannot afford sterilization at larger practices.
DrG:And our clients are the ones that are very unlikely to follow up with referral.
DrG:And given the fact that everything that we see is unsterilized , we could say,
DrG:we could do our own research and say that all animals with cruciate disease
DrG:or arthritis are unsterilized, right?
DrG:Because everything that we see is unsterilized.
DrG:So a hundred percent of our cases are unsterilized animals of all ages,
DrG:whether it be younger dog for adult dogs.
DrG:And the other thing is that from how I see it, is we're ignoring the
DrG:genetic component because I know since the beginning of time you see a
DrG:German Shepherd that's walking stiff, gated or, or really low in the back.
DrG:And the first thing that you think of is hip dysplasia because
DrG:the German Shepherd has been the poster child for hip dysplasia.
DrG:So yeah, we are going to expect German Shepherds to be a higher
DrG:incidence of hip dysplasia.
DrG:And to your point, like a lot of the people that are going to be bringing
DrG:these animals to a referral practice, you're gonna think of them as responsible
DrG:pet owners that thus would've had their animals sterilized at an earlier age.
DrG:So that also is something that kind of has to be taken into consideration
DrG:that I don't feel that, that it is in some of these studies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So, so if you are, if you are breeding German
Dr. Phil Bushby:Shepherds and you know to sell German Shepherd puppies and you have a.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Dog with hip dysplasia, if you're a responsible breeder, you are
Dr. Phil Bushby:going to have that animal spayed.
Dr. Phil Bushby:You're not going to breed it.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right, so now that animal's data is entered into a system
Dr. Phil Bushby:that says this animal was spayed and it has hip dysplasia.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Well, it's spayed because it has hip dysplasia.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It doesn't have hip dysplasia because it was spayed and retrospective
Dr. Phil Bushby:studies don't figure that out.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They can't, , differentiate between those cases where the surgery was done
Dr. Phil Bushby:because of a problem as opposed to the problem occurring because of the surgery.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They can't do that.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So we have the need for those articles have a value, and the value is simply
Dr. Phil Bushby:they point to the need for more research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. But there's a ton of literature out
Dr. Phil Bushby:early age spay neuter, and, and we're gonna talk briefly about those, but, hey,
Dr. Phil Bushby:those are also retrospective studies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Almost all of them.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. There's a study out of the University of Georgia.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Reproductive capability is associated with lifespan and cause of death and
Dr. Phil Bushby:companion animals was published in 2013.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The same year the, the, the, uh, Davis study, the, the golden
Dr. Phil Bushby:Retriever study was published.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They looked at the data from 80,958 dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's a little more than.
Dr. Phil Bushby:You know, 150 or 600.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They looked at age of death and categorized the cause of death.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They compared age of death with gender and sterilization status.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They compared cause of death with sterilization status.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. The article could not, did not look at age, which the animal was
Dr. Phil Bushby:sterilized, but this is what they found.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sterilization was associated with increased longevity
Dr. Phil Bushby:in both males and females.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Male and female dogs that are sterilized live longer than those that are in intact.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No control over variables.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Maybe they live longer just because the sterilized ones get more veterinary care.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We don't know.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We don't know.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We cannot say that sterilization caused them to live longer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We just know that the sterilized dogs do live longer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Life expectancy was greater by 13.8% in males and by 26.3%
Dr. Phil Bushby:In females, we don't claim.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Huh?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sterilization causes them to live longer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We just recognize that they do live longer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:? They looked at cause of death.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. Intact animals.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The causes of death, the main causes of death, uh, death were infectious
Dr. Phil Bushby:disease, trauma, uh, vascular disease and degenerative disease.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And the, and sterilized the main causes of death were neoplasia
Dr. Phil Bushby:and immune mediated disease.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Alright.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Ooh gee.
Dr. Phil Bushby:That seems to support some of Davis's comments that, of increased cancer in
Dr. Phil Bushby:animals that have been spayed or neutered.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But it really shouldn't surprise us that sterilized dogs that live
Dr. Phil Bushby:longer might have a greater increase in certain cancers because cancers
Dr. Phil Bushby:seem to be associated more with age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And, and, and interestingly in the Davis German Shepherd study, they actually,
Dr. Phil Bushby:that study was published in 2015, two years after this Georgia study.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And so, uh, they actually referenced the Georgia Longevity Study and the author
Dr. Phil Bushby:said, and this is a quote, a study utilizing the US National veterinary
Dr. Phil Bushby:medical database, found that neutered males and females were more likely
Dr. Phil Bushby:to die of cancer than intact dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. But curiously, they failed to mention the sterilized dogs
Dr. Phil Bushby:live longer than intact dogs,
Dr. Phil Bushby:? Grandmothers have a much higher
Dr. Phil Bushby:That doesn't mean being a grandmother causes cancer, it just means they're
Dr. Phil Bushby:at an age where cancer is, uh, prevalent and teenagers aren't.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I, I'm, I'm sorry.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's as simple as that.
Dr. Phil Bushby:In that Georgia study, Increased transitional cell carcinomas, carcinomas,
Dr. Phil Bushby:ost, osteosarcomas lymphomas, mass cell tumors significantly decreased,
Dr. Phil Bushby:significantly decreased mammary neoplasia.
Dr. Phil Bushby:When we read any one of these articles and they, the article says, the incidence
Dr. Phil Bushby:of condition X was two times greater, in the spayed animals or the neutered
Dr. Phil Bushby:animals than in the intact animals.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We need to be willing to look at what is the overall incidence.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, in the incidence of osteosarcoma, transitional cell carcinoma, lymphomas,
Dr. Phil Bushby:and mass cell tumors is relatively small.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Doubling or tripling the incidence of a tumor that occurs in a very
Dr. Phil Bushby:small percentage of animals still leaves it occurring in a very
Dr. Phil Bushby:small percentage of animals.
Dr. Phil Bushby:2014, there was a study, it was a report from Banfield on the status
Dr. Phil Bushby:of pet health, where they looked at longevity, and reproductive status.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Again, it was a retrospective study, huge numbers of cases.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, it reported on, they analyzed data
Dr. Phil Bushby:And showed that sterilized female dogs, , live longer than, , intact females.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sterilized
Dr. Phil Bushby:male dogs live longer than intact dogs sterilized females
Dr. Phil Bushby:live longer than intact.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Female cats and sterilized males.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sterilized male cats lived, uh, life expectancy was 62% greater than intact.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We, we can kind of see why, but again, longevity and
Dr. Phil Bushby:longevity is going to influence.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Can the cause of death, , what's the, probably the most common cause
Dr. Phil Bushby:of death in, , Male cats, , under two years of age, it's probably
Dr. Phil Bushby:being hit by cars because they're out there roaming, looking for females.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, and the 12 years of age, it's probably cancer, So, all of a study you've
Dr. Phil Bushby:looked at so far basically show sterilized dogs and cats live longer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sterilized.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Dogs and cats have a higher incidence of certain cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Sterilized dogs and cats, uh, have a lower incidence of other cancers.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, some sterilized dogs may have higher incidents of some immune disease
Dr. Phil Bushby:diseases and intact dogs are more likely to die of infection and trauma
Dr. Phil Bushby:In 2007, Margaret Gor published an article looking at, the
Dr. Phil Bushby:incidence of conditions, , in dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, and
Dr. Phil Bushby:osteosarcoma was low.
Dr. Phil Bushby:transitional carcinoma, was low hemangiosarcoma, , frequency was very low.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, mammary neoplasia, the frequency was extremely high.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, pyometra frequency was very high, she didn't know it at the time,
Dr. Phil Bushby:but what she was doing was kind of preparing , a case for the fact that
Dr. Phil Bushby:not only do we have to look at, All conditions that that can impact health,
Dr. Phil Bushby:we can't make any judgements unless we know what the overall incidence is in the
Dr. Phil Bushby:population and therefore can determine the significance of an increase or decrease.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. So what, how do what?
Dr. Phil Bushby:What do I mean by all that?
Dr. Phil Bushby:If we could look into the future for any particular animal and determine
Dr. Phil Bushby:which animals were gonna develop o osteosarcoma, if they were sterilized
Dr. Phil Bushby:and which we're gonna develop mammary neoplasia or pyometra, if they
Dr. Phil Bushby:were not, we could make the best decision for each individual animal.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Since we can't do that, we really need to be base our recommendations
Dr. Phil Bushby:on population dynamics.
Dr. Phil Bushby:In the United States right now, approximately 80% of
Dr. Phil Bushby:adult female dogs are spayed.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The incidence of mammary neoplasia in adult female dogs is approximately
Dr. Phil Bushby:4%, but that is almost exclusively in the intact dogs or the dogs,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, that were spayed later in life.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So that makes the incidence of mammary neoplasia in, in tact dogs nearly 20%.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The incidence of osteosarcoma is 0.2%, and some of the articles
Dr. Phil Bushby:say that sterilization doubles the risk of osteosarcoma.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But since 80% of the dogs are sterilized, that doubling effect
Dr. Phil Bushby:is already represented in the 0.2%.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So
Dr. Phil Bushby:we can't treat mammary neoplasia and osteosarcoma as the same
Dr. Phil Bushby:because the difference in incidents overall in the categories we're
Dr. Phil Bushby:looking at are 0.2% to 20%.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Mammary neoplasia is all over the place in intact animals and
Dr. Phil Bushby:osteosarcoma is rare, even with 80% of the animals being sterilized.
Dr. Phil Bushby:In Sweden,
Dr. Phil Bushby:7% of the female dogs are spayed, and yet the in the incidence of pyometra in dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:By 10 years of age is 24 to 25%.
Dr. Phil Bushby:When we make decisions, we have to use population dynamics.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We have to be willing to, , look at all conditions, not just handpicked a few.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Oh gee, we find that cranial cruciate rupture seems to be increased.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Let's write an article supporting, uh, delay of spay neuter, or not spay
Dr. Phil Bushby:neuter because of that one condition.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Okay, so let's make sure that none of the animals get lame, but they all get
Dr. Phil Bushby:pyometra or, or mammary, , neoplasia.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We can't do that, So
Dr. Phil Bushby:we cannot make spay new dec decisions based on, on the incidence of
Dr. Phil Bushby:a small handful of diseases, we have to look at the entire health
Dr. Phil Bushby:of the animal and say, what's the impact on the health of the animal?
Dr. Phil Bushby:I'm not saying ignore cranial cruciate, R ruptures and ignore osteosarcoma.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I'm saying, look at everything.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And you make, you make your decisions based upon the impact on the
Dr. Phil Bushby:overall health and longevity of the animal, not just on a few things.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And we cannot focus on an increase in decrease of the incidence of a
Dr. Phil Bushby:condition if we ignore what the incidence of the condition is to start with.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It sounds so scary to say the incidence of O osteosarcoma is doubled or tripled.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And, I'm sorry, two to three times, almost nothing is still almost nothing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So we could go on and on and on and on and on.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I've come so far, I've completely ignored cats, and I'm gonna jump
Dr. Phil Bushby:into cats here for a few minutes,
Dr. Phil Bushby:but we've, we have seen
Dr. Phil Bushby:a significant decrease over the decades in pet overpopulation of dogs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Most of that, but not all of that associated with spay neuter.
Dr. Phil Bushby:A lot of it has been, some of it's been associated with the fact that since I,
Dr. Phil Bushby:you know, when, when I graduated from veterinary school, the typical dog lived
Dr. Phil Bushby:in the backyard, and now the typical dog lives in the roams in the house
Dr. Phil Bushby:and joins up, joins the Zoom meeting.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, cats are slightly different situation because we still see kitten season.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We still see shelters filled with kittens in the early to late spring.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, , kittens seem to explode.
Dr. Phil Bushby:There's nowhere near the number of articles on cats as there is on dogs
Dr. Phil Bushby:nowhere near, , And a lot of people are trying to assume, well, if it's true
Dr. Phil Bushby:in dogs, it's gotta be true in cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So they try to extrapolate from, you know, the scare of the, some
Dr. Phil Bushby:of the Davis articles to cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:When the Davis articles prove that you can't even extrapolate from one
Dr. Phil Bushby:breed of dog to another breed of dog.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We certainly can't extrapolate from, from dogs to cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Alright, so what should we do in cats?
Dr. Phil Bushby:We know cats , female cats can come into heat by four to five months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We know that kittens can give birth to kittens, basically, uh, there are
Dr. Phil Bushby:zero, and again, there's not been much research, but there are zero
Dr. Phil Bushby:articles out there that document.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Increase in orthopedic conditions or increased cancers
Dr. Phil Bushby:in early age, sterilized cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Cats should be spayed or neutered prior to five months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Pure and simple, it all boils down to we should spay and neuter cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:There are no adverse to the best of our knowledge.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We've not found any adverse effects of spay neuter of
Dr. Phil Bushby:cats under five months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No adverse health effects.
Dr. Phil Bushby:No adverse behavioral effects, nothing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So there's no reason not to, and there's every reason to spay ne to
Dr. Phil Bushby:prior to five months of age in cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And there several, several articles, uh, Lisa Howe out of Texas a and m uh, Victor,
Dr. Phil Bushby:Spain and Janet Scarlet out of Cornell, uh, looked at, uh, health impact on cats,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, and followed those cats for periods of times, all retrospective studies.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But whatever,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, there's a myth out there that's
Dr. Phil Bushby:sexual maturity can increase, , incidents of urinary obstruction, , and,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, feline lower urinary tract disease.
Dr. Phil Bushby:There is no evidence to that whatsoever.
Dr. Phil Bushby:In fact, there's been a couple articles that kind of disproved that, that occurs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, and I, I did a, uh, did a, a review of.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Every article that I could find that dealt with the incidents of urinary
Dr. Phil Bushby:obstruction and what, , the factors that caused urinary obstruction,
Dr. Phil Bushby:obstruction, or were associated with urinary obstruction in cats.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And not a single one of those articles mentions, , age of Castration as
Dr. Phil Bushby:an impacting urinary obstruction.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Everybody believes it that you castrate them prior to sexual maturity.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The urethra is smaller.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Yes, it is smaller, uh, and it predisposes to urinary obstruction.
Dr. Phil Bushby:There is zero evidence in literature that that occurs.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Zero.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So how do we, um, when we try to summarize, all right, cats spay
Dr. Phil Bushby:new to prior to five months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Small breed female dogs spay new to prior to five, uh, prior to six months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I still say prior to five months of age,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, large breed female dogs spay
Dr. Phil Bushby:The one exception I might make in my personal recommendation, so one
Dr. Phil Bushby:exception I might make is that I might suggest that in large breed
Dr. Phil Bushby:male dogs that are house pets,
Dr. Phil Bushby:you might delay castration until growth is stopped.
Dr. Phil Bushby:You might.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But you watch those dogs very carefully and you see what the behaviors are, right?
Dr. Phil Bushby:For that free roaming the dog, you know, I live in, out in the country.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I'm five miles from town.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I live on five acres.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, everybody who has dogs, the dogs just roam the neighborhood.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The large breed male dogs that are roaming the neighborhood castrate
Dr. Phil Bushby:prior to five months of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:now I've said all that because I'm biased.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Okay?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, there is nothing that's been published in the literature that changes
Dr. Phil Bushby:that bias because the literature is so poor, the research is so weak.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We may reach a stage where we actually have valid information.
Dr. Phil Bushby:You know, we do an, we do a risk benefit analysis, and we make our decisions the
Dr. Phil Bushby:best decision we can can, based upon the data we have and the value of that data.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Someone may put together a very, very good solid prospective research
Dr. Phil Bushby:study that looks at these issues and, publishes new data, which is very valid.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We should be open to changing our mind.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We should be willing to change our recommendations on spay neuter and
Dr. Phil Bushby:the age of spay neuter if we get good, solid data from good solid research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We don't have that yet.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And so I think the the confusion caused by the, by the Davis
Dr. Phil Bushby:studies is extremely unfortunate.
Dr. Phil Bushby:we should either keep that six months, if you're comfortable
Dr. Phil Bushby:at six months, that's okay.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I like to go even earlier.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, but there is nothing that the Davis studies have have shown that should
Dr. Phil Bushby:argue that we should wait on spay neuter for either dogs or cats, nothing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So how we get the public to understand that, how we get
Dr. Phil Bushby:veterinarians to understand that that's what you're trying to do.
DrG:With the, with the cats, I worked in emergency for a period of
DrG:10 years and that that whole thing about intact male cats do not get
DrG:blocked as often as neutered male cats.
DrG:How many people want an intact male cat inside of their home?
DrG:The answer is very few to none.
DrG:Right?
DrG:Because they spray, they smell horribly.
DrG:They're constantly wanting to chase after girls.
DrG:So if a male cat is going to obstruct, unfortunately it's gonna be an
DrG:outdoor cat, we're never gonna know.
DrG:It's probably going to to die outside.
DrG:In emergency though, because we did low cost emergency, we did see a significant
DrG:number compared to what I saw in previous private practice of intact cats that were
DrG:presenting because they were obstructed.
DrG:The other thing too is that a lot of these sterilized cats, we are not
DrG:taken into consideration all the other compounding factors of obstruction,
DrG:whether it be obesity, the fact that they're not stimulated behaviorally,
DrG:they have an increased risk of stress.
DrG:Their diet is not the same as what is outside.
DrG:So as you mentioned, we are not controlling all of the variables involved.
DrG:And then we're just saying, okay, this is what we're seeing in practice is all
DrG:these sterilized cats and the majority of cats that come blocked are sterilized.
DrG:So clearly that must be causation, whereas in reality, it's just correlation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Right, right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Yeah, and again, the, the sterilized cats are the ones that are more
Dr. Phil Bushby:likely to show up at the veterinary clinics in the veterinary clinic.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Intact cats are.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Are not in people's homes, they're roaming outside and they're not
Dr. Phil Bushby:gonna get the veterinary care that the sterilized ones do.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So again, that's a, that's a perfect example of biased patient
Dr. Phil Bushby:selection, not intentional bias.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It's just biased because one category of cat doesn't show
Dr. Phil Bushby:up in the veterinary clinic.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Just like there's categories of dogs that don't show up at
Dr. Phil Bushby:uc, Davis Teaching Hospital.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, DrG: anyway.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Good point.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Yeah.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. And then for dogs, uh, I've had two great Danes that were sterilized early in age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They were sterilized, uh, before six months of age,
Dr. Phil Bushby:and both dogs died of cancer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Now the one dog had developed an osteosarcoma of her right elbow at
Dr. Phil Bushby:almost 11 years of age, and the other one developed an osteosarcoma on her
Dr. Phil Bushby:left shoulder at 13 years of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So, as you said, it's, you know, if they had not been spayed, perhaps they
Dr. Phil Bushby:would've died younger and not gotten old enough to develop these cancers
Dr. Phil Bushby:that were ultimately what took them.
Dr. Phil Bushby:But a 13 year old Great Dane, I'll take that any day of the week, right,
Dr. Phil Bushby:because it's, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't occur that, that frequently,
Dr. Phil Bushby:and I can say, I mean she was, , she was sterilized young, but also she
Dr. Phil Bushby:always had a good body condition.
Dr. Phil Bushby:She was on a good diet.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, she had preventive care, so she had a lot of different things that
Dr. Phil Bushby:contributed to her extended life.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Um, yeah.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So she has to eventually die of something, and that's what eventually
Dr. Phil Bushby:took her was cancer on her shoulder.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I had a, uh, female, I, I, I call it a, a do
Dr. Phil Bushby:beddor half doberman, half Labrador, Doberman, Labrador, mixed dog female
Dr. Phil Bushby:that I spayed at six weeks of age,
Dr. Phil Bushby:that died at 14 and a half years of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Was euthanized at 14 and a half years of age because of complete
Dr. Phil Bushby:urinary tract obstruction with a transitional cell carcinoma.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Now, I don't intend that the surgery I did,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, at six weeks of age caused that cancer.
Dr. Phil Bushby:What caused that cancer was she was 14 and a half years of age.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, Yeah, it's, we have to be careful making changes in what we do based upon
Dr. Phil Bushby:very weak data that at best shows an association.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. Maybe what we should do is just euthanize all people that practice
Dr. Phil Bushby:yoga because they're gonna get diabetes so we can save them diabetes
DrG:from diabetes.
DrG:Yeah.
DrG:Statistics can be manipulated in any given number of ways, and you can take
DrG:a chart that is not significant and expand it and make it look significant.
DrG:And for somebody that doesn't understand the, the numbers behind
DrG:it and are just looking at a graph and saying, oh, this column is a
DrG:lot longer than the other column.
DrG:They don't really understand what that means.
DrG:And that's kind of the unfortunate side of statistics.
DrG:I love statistics, I love research, but I very well know that you can take numbers
DrG:and sadly, make a graph that represents that it means nothing, or make a graph
DrG:that represents that it means everything.
DrG:So we need to be really careful with how we share this information to the
DrG:public so that they can make an educated decision for the wellbeing of their pets.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Yeah, I, , I play pickleball.
Dr. Phil Bushby:. And,
Dr. Phil Bushby:, I'm, I'll be 74 at the end of this month.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Uh, and I was playing with a guy that was also in his seventies, , the
Dr. Phil Bushby:other day, and we were playing, , Two people in their thirties.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Pickleball games go to 11.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The first match, , we lost 11 to nothing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They killed us.
Dr. Phil Bushby:The second match we lost 11 to three, and at the end of that
Dr. Phil Bushby:match, I turned to my partner in the game and I said, we significantly
Dr. Phil Bushby:improved over the first match.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Other team didn't.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:They scored 11 both times.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We went from zero to three.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Look how good we were.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We could, we could have written an article and have published in, in an
Dr. Phil Bushby:online journal on , our improvement, while the other team stayed static.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And if you knew nothing about what the subject was, it would look like
Dr. Phil Bushby:we, we, we were really doing good.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We got killed both games,
DrG:and the one thing that, that we can, that we can agree is that
DrG:sterilized animals are not reproducing.
DrG:So sterilized animals are not adding to the overpopulation problem.
DrG:Right.
DrG:And sadly, euthanasia in shelters is killing more dogs than, more
DrG:than most cancers and most other problems that we are seeing.
DrG:Right.
DrG:So , I don't know it, as you say, I mean, I am biased as well because
DrG:I am, I care about the animals that are ending up in shelters.
DrG:The problem with the over population in shelters, the number of animals euthanized
DrG:for space, , and then the impact that that's causing on the profession, on the
DrG:wellbeing of the individuals that have to see these animals day in and day out.
DrG:And then they have to make the difficult decisions to euthanize them.
DrG:So, It's, it's what I see every day.
DrG:And then from a, from a high volume sterilization perspective, most of
DrG:the animals that I'm sterilizing, a lot of them are actually over the,
DrG:I would say three years and older.
DrG:And I am seeing a high incidence of mammary tumors.
DrG:Uh, we sterilize quite a few dogs and cats, both that have pyometras,
DrG:that have had ovarian tumors, that have had uterine cysts and tumors.
DrG:So I see the reality of what an intact pet is going to have, , , going on in age.
DrG:So,
Dr. Phil Bushby:so, yeah.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And none of the cases you ever see are ever going to
Dr. Phil Bushby:show up at a referral center.
DrG:So, right.
DrG:Exactly.
DrG:Exactly.
DrG:Yep.
DrG:Um, and yeah, it's, yeah, it, it's by, it's, there are biases
DrG:on, on both ways, as I said.
DrG:Like my clients are not gonna end up there, so they're not gonna
DrG:be part of any research, right.
DrG:They're just gonna be part of our local knowledge of how many
DrG:of these pets are presenting.
DrG:I mean, we diagnose a lot of hip issues because we put 'em on the table and
DrG:their legs are not stretching, right?
DrG:They have decreased range of motions.
DrG:So we know that there are issues and problems and
DrG:clearly not sterilized animals.
DrG:Another, another thing is how people say, well, if I spay my, my dog, she's gonna
DrG:gain weight and she's gonna be obese.
DrG:There are so many dogs that I sterilize that are overweight, and
DrG:clearly they are not sterilized.
DrG:So that had nothing to do with it.
DrG:So there, there are a lot of different things that, , that
DrG:cause changes on our pets.
DrG:And because sterilization is done at such an early age or has been.
DrG:Done at such an early age, everything is kind of getting blamed on that.
DrG:Um, I had somebody make a comment to me once about how there was an
DrG:increased risk of cancers in people that drank regular water, tap water.
DrG:Uh, it was somebody trying to sell me a filtration system for the water,
DrG:and he tried to talk statistics with the wrong person because I said, do
DrG:you know what's the most common thing in the people who don't have cancer?
DrG:They drink water too, so it's, you know, and then he had nothing to say to that.
DrG:I was like, just stick to your, to what you're going to do for my water end.
DrG:Please try to keep your, your statistics, your flawed statistics
DrG:out of it because you can, you can kinda show it one way or another.
DrG:We, we find, we find the information to prove what we wanna believe,
DrG:and then we can run with it.
DrG:Right.
DrG:Right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And I mean, I do the same thing.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I, I use the supporting articles, you know?
Dr. Phil Bushby:There are articles on spay, neuter and ages, spay neuter over the last 10 years.
Dr. Phil Bushby:I handpicked the ones that proved my point.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Mm-hmm.
Dr. Phil Bushby:When I'm speaking.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And Benjamin Hart.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Handpicks and ones that prove his point.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And the bottom line is 99% of all of this is crap anyway.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It should not change what we do.
Dr. Phil Bushby:It should just focus our research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So we're really answering the questions rather than just supporting our biases.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And oh, it'd be, it would be so powerful, to design a study that
Dr. Phil Bushby:involved, , all of the high volume spay neuter to clinics, , and have them
Dr. Phil Bushby:follow up their cases for 10 years.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We don't have a system to do that.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And you know, our shelter program at Mississippi State, we're now
Dr. Phil Bushby:over 110,000 surgeries since 2007.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, our longest follow up on any of them is three to four weeks, because they go back
Dr. Phil Bushby:into shelters and then they get adopted.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And one, they, once they're adopted, we completely lose
Dr. Phil Bushby:any fa ability to follow up.
Dr. Phil Bushby:And I, I suspect that almost every high volume clinic has a similar situation.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We don't have the money or the means to do the quality of research.
Dr. Phil Bushby:We need to really answer these questions.
Dr. Phil Bushby:So, in that absence
Dr. Phil Bushby:we need to try to solve the pet of the population problem.
Dr. Phil Bushby:That's still, in my opinion, that's still the number one issue, is stop 'em
Dr. Phil Bushby:from having, you know, I've used this analogy, you, you've heard me speak,
Dr. Phil Bushby:so you've probably heard me use this analogy before, but you, you wake up in
Dr. Phil Bushby:the morning and you discover the basement of your house is flooded, , and you go
Dr. Phil Bushby:down in the basement and you discover someone left the faucet running all night.
Dr. Phil Bushby:, and what do you do first?
Dr. Phil Bushby:You start bailing water, or do you turn the faucet off?
Dr. Phil Bushby:When you turn the frigging faucet off and turning the faucet off?
Dr. Phil Bushby:Spay neuter is turning the faucet off.
Dr. Phil Bushby:Anyway,
DrG:And that's an excellent analogy.
DrG:So yeah, it's, you know, overall we gotta, we gotta understand what the information
DrG:is telling us, and then we also have to look at the reality of what we're seeing.
DrG:Um, yeah.
DrG:And then make educated decisions based on, on what we see.
DrG:So I think that, I mean, thank you so much for dissecting all the research.
DrG:, you know, it, it, hopefully , both veterinarians and the public listening
DrG:can, can better understand what the numbers mean, what the reality of it
DrG:is, and then make better decisions that are in the best interest of their
DrG:animals, and then in the best interest of the community, keeping in, in, in
DrG:mind the overpopulation problem, the shelter, pets, and, and everything else.
DrG:So I, I really wanna thank you for, for spending this time with us and for
DrG:sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.
Dr. Phil Bushby:All right.
Dr. Phil Bushby:You take care.
