Coat changes after spay

[Rua]

Has anyone found that their dogs coat changed after being spayed? I got Juno spayed nearly 8 weeks ago. She'd had two heats, and was 15 months old at the time. It was a laparoscopic spay and very non invasive (ovaries only removal).

Juno bounced back very quickly and has been her usual self - except her coat seems to have changed quite dramatically in recent weeks. I'm not sure if this is down to the spay or if it could be another reason. She's been shedding a lot, which at first I thought was just her blowing her coat (although I wouldn't have expected her to blow her coat until nearer Spring. It's still Winter!)

She seems to have gone from having a rather thick coat, with longer hairs around the scruff and tail, to suddenly being really short-haired! Her coat is still very shiny and nice, but it seems thinner somehow and not as dense as it was before.

Is this down to her being spayed? Or am I missing something here? Anyone else experience something similar?

Cheers!

[wolfy dog]

Yes, finally someone who notices this too. Especially longer coats are affected, like Golden Retrievers. Same after neutering the males. The coats become dull, sometimes curlier and the tails grow these long hairs. I can tell from a distance whether a dog is neutered/spayed or not. I think the short coats, like Dobermans, Malinois not so much (my experience).

[msvette2u]

I have heard of it but not seen it. If my Collie's coat is bad after her spay at 6mos., I'd hate to see it with her unspayed!

[Rua]

Yeah it's really weird....it's not that Juno's coat looks bad or anything. But it doesn't really look as "full" as it used to. I kinda miss her "mane"! It's gone quite sleek, and she doesn't seem to have any undercoat anymore.

She's a skinny dog that's impossible to keep weight on...so this coat change has kind of really exaggerated that even more.
I suppose I'll see overtime whether it will change again, but I'm a bit baffled by this.

[msvette2u]

Well they do blow out coat in the spring and it's not based on temperature as much as daylight.
Wolfy, I looked that up one day and it wasn't that the coat was dull as much as it had changed in texture, and was actually silkier (in the Goldens) than it used to be.

[Rua]

Originally Posted by msvette2u

Well they do blow out coat in the spring and it's not based on temperature as much as daylight.
Wolfy, I looked that up one day and it wasn't that the coat was dull as much as it had changed in texture, and was actually silkier (in the Goldens) than it used to be.

This is what's got me so confused and why I think Juno's coat change could be related to her spay.

Our winters are very dark - in December we only have about 7 hours of daylight. This month it's going more towards 9 hours. But on rainy days (which is nearly everyday) it tends to feel much darker throughout the day. So I wasn't expecting her to start blowing her coat until about March - when the days start becoming more noticeably bright again. She started heavily shedding about two weeks after her spay in December.

[avonbankcollies]

thats interesting I spayed Jackpot at 15mths and she had gone thru 2 cycles and is blowing her coat even tho its the middle of winter here too. someone told me the anesthetic can cause changes in her coat but I thought this was a bit extreme and wonder if after she fully blows her coat if next year she will be back to normal

[Rua]

Really? It'll be interesting to see if our girls coats go back to normal or not by next winter. I hadn't heard that before about the anesthetic. How hard did the anesthetic hit your girl? Over here, dogs can go home within a few hours after having a lapro spay. I still got to take Juno home on the same day, but because the drugs hit her so hard, she took forever to wake up. So we had to wait until the evening to bring her home. Even then she was like a train wreck, the poor thing.

[wolfy dog]

WD is blowing his coat now and he is in the wet NW and is an intact male.
If I ever get a female dog I will consider a part spay; remove the uterus and keep the ovaries to maintain her hormone levels and the luster of the coat.

[KZoppa]

Shasta's coat didnt change at all after her spay. We had everything removed; uterus and ovaries. Zena's coat changed when she was spayed though. It got more course and hasnt really gone back to normal and she was spayed in 2006. The changes are likely due to the shift in horomones. Think of it like this. Some pregnant women have this soft silky hair before and during their pregnancy and then the baby is born and suddenly they have dry dull hair that gradually returns to normal or stays dry and dull. It's because of the horomone shift in the body. It's a sudden change to the body and your body basically runs to catch up with the change. For some that shift is more obvious than others. Happens in animals as well as people.

You also have to take into consideration how much energy goes into healing, no matter how small the wound. The body puts energy into healing while "rerouting" that energy from other sources. Its why we're told to keep an eye out for infection. The immune system is weakened.