Hi Beth. I have read the original paper and it seems clear that they did in fact follow these dogs to the end of their life. It was a large retrospective study using many years of clinic data so it should have captured disease at most points in these dogs’ lives after the neutering operation. An additional point is that if you look at the other publications by the same authors, you’ll see that their own personal views appear to be against neutering, so you would not anticipate a bias in the opposite direction.

We had a beautiful female collie who was desexed at an early age (<6 months) and she developed lymphoma at age 9-10 years. I later learned that spaying early can increase a dog’s risk of developing cancer.

Needless to say, our new collie pup is now 9 months old and still intact. I was hoping for better information as to when or if to spay her.

Are there any studies that follow collies throughout their lives?

Hi Paul. If age of desexing has any effect on separation anxiety, it’s likely to be small. Therefore there isn’t a lot riding on your decision. I would follow your behaviourist’s advice.

Kind Regards
Paul Wainwright