The differences between two spayings: Mother and daughter

Blaze has been spayed for a couple of months now and is doing fantastic.  She is being Blaze, with all her quirks and silly attitudes and I have been breathing a great sigh of relief after she finally healed up because she is still my girl.

One of my many fears with getting Blaze spayed was what I experienced with Silver who was spayed at five years old, one year after having her puppies.  Silver had a hormonal imbalance that caused false pregnancy, depression, and anxieties.  She passed this on to her daughter Blaze.

When Blaze was returned to us (she is one of the pups from our litter) I couldn't have two intact females along with Brut and the rest of the dogs.  The whole situation with Blaze coming back was chaotic enough and we had to make a decision of spaying Silver or Blaze.  Since Silver already had a litter of pups, we decided to keep Blaze intact if we ever wanted another litter to keep for ourselves.

It took Silver nearly a year and half to come back to herself after being spayed.  She was mopey and depressed for a long time and just didn't seem herself anymore.  There were many contributing factors at time that I think made the difference between Blaze having such a speedy recovery while Silver took so long.  

One of the biggest difference between Silver and Blaze was that Silver had just had her first pregnancy and litter about 9 months before and was at the beginning of her first cycle since being pregnant when we had her spayed.  This meant her hormones were soaring and she was probably emotionally looking forward to being pregnant again.  Blaze we had fixed after her entire heat cycle, including the false pregnancy was over.

Our vet was booked up for surgeries at the time and we ended up having to take Silver to a different vet in order to have the procedure done.  Blaze was done at our primary vet and we were comfortable with her there.  

Silver was sick from the anesthesia and I stayed up with her while she vomited all night long.  She really took the whole thing pretty hard.  Blaze was fine and slept through her first night home.

Life at our house had just changed with Blaze coming back and dividing the house.  Everything was out of control, especially Brut which made Silver's healing all that more difficult.  When I look back at that time period, I can barely remember it, except for that first night Silver was home.  That's how crazy things were.  About the time frame that Silver came back around to being herself again, was about the same time that things began to calm and settle in the house of the 24 Paws.  Silver kind of got the raw end of the deal with our urgency to fix her in order to create less problems whereas with Blaze I was able to take care of her better and not make the same mistakes I did with Silver.

I don't know if this info may help anyone else out, but there are definitely things I would do different with Silver if I had it to do over again.  I would wait until she went through her heat rather than do it right before including going through the false pregnancy.  Although as hard as the spaying was on her, it might have been a blessing that she didn't go through a false pregnancy, after finally having a real one.  That may have been a bonus I didn't think of.  And I know her progress was slower or didn't show as clearly because of the upheaval in our home with Blaze coming back and then Chance.  That knocked all of us off our feet and I'm sure Silver as well.

All in all I'm just glad they both made it through the surgery and are both sound and happy dogs.  It is still amazing to me what time will do for all of us.