We are proud to announce the start of our newest service – Canine Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).
As many of you know, last year Rise Vet began offering hormone-sparing sterilization options for dogs (ovary-sparing spays and vasectomies). While there are pros and cons of this vs. traditional spay and neuter practices, my professional opinion is that for most dogs, the pros of keeping sex hormones intact outweigh the cons.
It’s now well documented that the absence of sex hormones increases the risk of orthopedic issues, cancer, obesity, endocrine disorders, problematic behaviors, cognitive dysfunction, and urinary incontinence.
This begs the question – what do we do about all the dogs who are currently spayed and neutered that do not have the benefit of sex hormones?
Fortunately, a collection of veterinarians and academics have been working on this issue, and we now have options. Thanks to the dedicated work of Michelle Kutzler, DVM, PhD, DACT (Professor, University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine), Linda Brent, PhD, MBA (Executive Director, Parsemus Foundation), Peter Dobias, DVM, and numerous others, canine HRT shows promising health benefits for your spayed or neutered dog.
Set the research aside a minute and simply think about this. A term that’s been getting a lot of attention lately is “endocrine disruptors.” They have significant health impacts, and we’re all becoming more conscious of avoiding them. Now, consider how disruptive it is to remove entire endocrine organs. We would never consider removing sex hormones in a child or teenager, and if an adult human had severely inadequate sex hormone levels, it would be considered medical malpractice not to offer hormone supplementation. To be clear – this isn’t about which hormones, or whose. It’s about the complete absence of sex hormones altogether, which is a very different situation.
In the United States, we’ve been ignoring this reality in dogs for the past 5 decades. In most European countries, routine spay and neuter is no longer the default standard of care. Norway even has an animal welfare act that prohibits it. Our country’s spay and neuter policy was well intended. Back when it started, we were euthanizing over 10 million dogs a year. Fortunately, that number has dramatically improved. But we took a population-based model and made it dogma. In doing so, we disregarded the consequences to the individual.
The good news is that for all of us with dogs that are already spayed or neutered, we now have options. Canine HRT is available at Rise Vet, and we’d be happy to talk with you about the process. If you’re interested, please start by watching this summary video discussing all the details of HRT (bear with me…I’m new to making YouTube videos):
In addition, here’s another great YouTube link by Dr. Peter Dobias interviewing Dr. Michelle Kutzler on the benefits of HRT:
If you’re interested in pursuing this treatment for your dog, you can reach out to us at (303) 945-5313 to schedule a consultation.
Thank you for supporting our INDEPENDENT veterinary practice,
Andrew Boal