A friend has heard, and believes, that spaying a dog before she is first “in heat” is a bad thing that can lead to incontenence later in life. Any factual basis for this?
And is it incontenence or incontenance?
Incontinence is the word you’re looking for.
It can happen, although it’s not as common as the problems caused by not doing an early spay (like mammary tumors).
Get her spayed ASAP.
Anecdote alert:
FWIW, we have had two female dogs with spay incontinence. They were both spayed before first heat, but I have no idea about the cause-and-effect of that. I can tell you that dealing with it is easy. Emily took a pill (disguised in peanut butter on a saltine cracker) every night – she wouldn’t go to bed until she had gotten her cracker! And now Dottie takes a chewable twice a day – gobbles it right down. No big deal.
As always, the SMDB rocks. Thanks.
My spayed adult female (ten years old) started “dribbling” at about age seven. The vet told me that it’s because hormone levels sometimes effect bladder control. She put her on a once-weekly hormone pill called D.E.S which takes care of it. It’s a very small capsule, perfect for slipping inside a McDonald’s french fry (and I have never seen a dog turn down one of those!)
Not all spayed females have this problem, nor does it necessarily matter at what age they were spayed-- meaning that there’s no benefit in allowing them to go through one heat period before spaying.