The Marvelous Miss Mabel Has a Spay Day

The marvelous Miss Mabel turned one year old on September 29, 2024 and since she is a larger dog I wanted to wait until she was fully grown before having her spayed. She had her first heat cycle at nine months old, but she wasn’t done growing. My plan was to have her spayed before her second heat and after the holidays.

Right before Christmas I noticed her temperament changed a bit, she seemed a little more dominant than normal. After about a week of this “attitude change” I suspected that her body was ramping up for a heat cycle. We decided we would schedule her spay day right after the New Year holiday. Initially Mabel’s spay day was scheduled for January 7th but due to the windstorm here in north Pasadena we rescheduled to January 10th. We had to reschedule again due to having to evacuate and the ongoing Eaton fire.

New spay day was scheduled for January 14th…late Thursday morning (01/09) I noticed some discoloration on her hind legs and I realized Mabel was in proestrus (menstruating). At this point I felt like the universe was telling me something so we decided to leave spay decision to our vet. I called and luckily our vet said to keep the scheduled surgery and that there should be no issue with her being in heat.

So Tuesday the 14th Miss Mabel went in for her spay. The morning of surgery instructions were as follows:

• Feed quarter meal no later than 7 AM.
• No water after 7 AM.

We dropped Mabel off at 8:45 AM and anxiously waited for a phone call from our vet. At 1:30 PM, our vet called with a good report: Mabel did well, there were no complications and she woke up from the anesthesia without issue. She was crying but he said, “she is a Husky and they’re dramatic.” They wanted to monitor her for another hour and we could pick our girl up at 2:30 PM.

By 2:30 we were petting our girl, she was still pretty out of it due to the anesthesia, but she was happy to see us and wanted to go home. Medications were sent home with us, gabapentin and Galliprant, we declined the traditional e-collar since I purchased and inflatable donut with a detachable cone. We were instructed to feed half meal for dinner and to resume normal diet the next day.

Mabel’s recovery spay day was typical, she laid on the floor and slept most of the day. I made her bland diet for dinner and she happily ate. Tuesday night she was restless most of the night and finally went to bed around 2:30 AM.

The hardest thing about Mabel’s spay has been trying to keep her calm…she is a big happy goof that wants to play constantly! After six days in the cone I took it off of her and put a surgical suit on her which worked well, I monitored her to make sure she wasn’t messing with the incision since she loves to groom herself but we had no issues at all. We are post eleven days surgery, her incision is healing beautifully and Miss Mabel will have a life without the worry of pyometra, mammary tumors and no puppies! She is also not diabetic but if she were she would have been spayed soon after her first birthday.

Spaying a diabetic is critical because hormone fluctuations due to heat cycles affects blood glucose levels. I want to quickly go over a heat cycle and why it is so important to spay them.

There are four stages in a heat cycle: proestrus, estrus, diestrus and anestrus. Please take a look at the chart I made below for further explanation.

If you have a diabetic female that is intact please contact your vet ASAP for a spay day. They absolutely can be spayed when in heat, shelters do it all the time and Mabel was spayed while in proestrus without issue. I have seen so many intact females in the group that went into diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) due to elevated progesterone levels. The other thing is that once those progesterone levels drop insulin needs to be reduced and most of the time by a large amount so consistent monitoring of BG levels is IMPORTANT.

Some quick takeaways from Miss Mabel’s spay day:

• Reduced meal can be fed before surgery. Speak with your vet about meal and insulin.
• Water can be given before surgery and should never be withheld from a diabetic dog.
• Reduced meal should be fed the night after surgery, this is to ensure they do not vomit from anesthesia (Mabel did vomit a couple times).
• The inflatable donut/cone is a good purchase and I would suggest getting two if you have an active dog. Link to the donut/cone I purchased is below.
• Post surgical suits are great to use but you need to monitor your dog when wearing one. I will post the link to two I purchased below.

If you have any questions about getting your diabetic dog spayed please let me know, I will answer whatever I can!

Inflatable cone link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D49VVTWK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

Surgical suit links:

I liked this one the most for Mabel: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B098SH58KS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

This one was a little too short for her, if you have a long dog not recommended: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C57757NS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

For a printable version of this blog click here.

Until next week stay comfy, don’t stress and you got this!

Michelle Miller-Matlock

AAHA Certified Diabetes Educator

Founder/Administrator of DDO: Diabetic Dog Owners University

Administrator of Diabetic Dog Owners on Facebook

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