The Chastain Veterinary Medical Group provides medical and surgical veterinary care for small animals, birds and non-traditional pets, including reasonably priced spay and neuter services for dogs, cats and ferrets in the North Texas area. Our doctors have performed many thousands of these surgeries since we established our first clinic in 1991.
What is spay and neuter?
A spay is surgery to remove the female reproductive organs – i.e. the ovaries, the uterus and the fallopian tubes. After this surgery the female cannot go into heat or become pregnant.
A neuter is the surgical removal of a male animal’s testicles so that he cannot impregnate a female.
In everyday language it is often said that an animal has been ‘fixed’ or ‘altered’ and this just means that the animal has been spayed or neutered.
What to expect
The Chastain Veterinary Medical Group hospitals are all fully equipped with the latest veterinary surgical technology. Each hospital has a clean surgical suite and a post-op recovery area where our patients are closely monitored by skilled staff members during and after each procedure.
All surgeries are performed by a Texas-licensed veterinarian with one or two trained assistants. Non-emergency surgeries are performed on an appointment basis, Monday through Friday.
We perform pre-surgical exams and electrocardiograms on all patients before surgery and provide top quality anesthesia – the same as what is commonly used on children.
All of our surgeries include some basic blood testing. This helps reduce the overall risks and ensures your pet’s health and safety. After all, our pets can’t talk to us.
All of our surgeries include an IV catheter and IV fluids during the procedure for increased patient safety and a speedier recovery – just as is done for people.
We use a fresh, clean, sterilized instrument pack for each patient.
We use a CO2 laser scalpel at no extra charge on all spay and neuter surgery patients, because it produces less pain, less swelling and less bleeding.
All of our surgeries include pain relief medication during the procedure itself, and we will send pain relief medications home with your pet as well, to help ensure a restful recovery.
Before you make your appointment
We offer spay and neuter surgeries for dogs, puppies, cats, kittens and rabbits.
Surgery patients are admitted between 7 and 7:30 am. Males can usually be picked up after 5:30 pm the same day. Females spend one night in the hospital on pain relief medications and can be picked up after about 10 am the day after surgery.
Why have your pet spayed or neutered?
Each year across the United States, millions of unwanted animals are euthanized in shelters because they cannot find loving homes. Spaying or neutering a pet has several advantages.
Spaying or neutering reduces the number of homeless pets – Spaying or neutering your pet is a generally safe and 100% effective way to reduce the number of unplanned litters that find their way to area animal shelters. No matter how vigilant a pet owner may be, it takes just one unsupervised interaction with another animal to get your cat or dog pregnant.
Spaying or neutering helps prevent objectionable behaviors – Pets, especially males, tend to experience an increase in aggression following sexual maturity. When males begin to mature, hormones flow from the sex organs throughout the body causing developmental changes and increase their testosterone levels. By neutering your pet prior to this process, you can prevent the corresponding tendency toward aggression, roaming, distraction, and inability to follow instructions. Spaying females prevents them from undergoing estrus, which some say causes moodiness, and from entering heat, a period of sexual activity is often accompanied by erratic behavior, unruliness and vaginal discharge.
Spaying or neutering protects your pet’s health – Vets across the country recommend that pet owners spay or neuter their dogs, cats and rabbits. Not only can this prevent unwanted pregnancies, but also it will eliminate the risk of ovarian and uterine cancer in female pets and testicular and prostatic cancer in males. A 2013 study from the University of Georgia found that sterilized dogs will live on average, about 1.5 years longer than their intact litter mates. Many veterinary practices, such as ourselves, offer spay and neuter services at greatly reduced costs, without cutting corners, as a form of public service. This helps make it a little easier for families to move forward with this procedure.
