Gumbo loses his jewels

Gone but not forgotten

Well, the day finally came for Gumbo to lose his, well, jewels. Now that he's almost 6 months old, we thought it would be a good idea to put him under the knife (or literally the laser.)

We both talked quite a bit about this for several months and couldn't come to a consensus right away. We toyed with the option of breeding him but the true nature of the process was more than we were willing to put time into. We admit that we were intrigued by the possible renumerative gains of siring puppies too. I know, it's shallow and an amateur thought but hey, these guys go for $950 or more a pop. Maybe we could make some money to pay for his cost. 

Alas, the more we read about it we soon learned that there's more to it than just dropping the little stud off for a quickie somewhere and then picking up some fast cash. He'd most likely have too hang out for a long weekend performing on demand many times. I don't think we'd feel good about leaving our Gumbo with strangers. Plus, there's no guarantee that anyone would want a stud dog without competition awards either. At the end of the day, we decided to go ahead with his gonadectomy. We felt bad for him and hoped he would not suffer much pain for what he was going to endure.

One positive possible side-effect was that he might be less aggressive and chewy. So we took him in last Friday and left him with the vet who had done the same on our three previous pets. He was at the vet's from 8:00 until about 4:00. They called us at about 11:30 to say that he was doing well and under anesthesia. They noticed that some of his baby teeth were not coming out soon enough and were blocking the adult teeth from growing in correctly. So we agreed to have a little dental work as well.

We noticed that the house was very quiet and it lacked the intensity when Gumbo was present. All baby gates were down and we were free to move about the house. We thought we'd be relieved and happy to have him gone for awhile however we were really pining to get him back. We were convinced he'd have a cone of shame and be drugged and sleepy. Oh the worries we create in our heads!

We went to pick him up at 4:00 and sat down with the vet who did the surgery. He explained that everything went well and that he was a bit dopey still from the anaesthesia but that should wear off in 24 hours. They brought Gumbo in and he was as wild and crazy as ever. Jump, jump, jump. Anaesthesia? Didn't look like it. They do laser surgery on them now and there are no sutures that we could see. The feared cone of shame was not needed. Wow! He looked and acted like nothing happened at all. They gave us antibiotics along with pain meds and sent us home. The people in the lobby looked on in amazement when the techs announced he had just had surgery. Our little iron man, Gumbo. 

Well, it's been a few days since his operation and he's doing well. There's not been any huge change in his behaviour. He's still spirited and loves to run and chase his ball. Was it necessary to get him neutered? Maybe not. But maybe it will make a difference some day. Today, he's still a puppy but we can see slow, subtle changes in his behavior day to day. He's slipping, slowly into adulthood and I suppose we should enjoy these days of wild abandon as they may someday disappear forever.