This is a completely unscientific observation, but one that I want to share with anyone looking for the two keywords “Wobbler” and “castration” (or neutering or spaying).
The gist of it is: if your male dog has both Wobbler syndrome, and a tumor in one testicle, please think twice before letting the vet remove both testicles merely out of habit or standard procedure.
Wobbler syndrome
Our dog Hugo (now 12 years old) started showing symptoms of Wobbler’s at age eight. The problems were small at first, then intensified quickly when Hugo started responding to pain by arching his back and neck (causing even more nerve damage and more pain).
Giving him good, slow-release painkillers has completely solved that problem. He has been a happy dog ever since, with only a very slow progression of the Wobbler symptoms.
Of tumors and testicles
Last December, Hugo was diagnosed with a large tumor in his left testicle as well as an enlarged prostate. The vet proposed castration and we agreed, but we assumed this meant removing the one bad testicle.
It turned out that vets have a strong tendency to remove both testicles at once. When I asked our vet to explain why, she said “it’s standard procedure.” Later on, she added the argument that the remaining testicle would compensate for the other one in its hormone production. This would keep the prostate in its enlarged state.
Photo: last known image of Hugo with testicles
Being males ourselves, we disliked the idea of removing more testicles than absolutely necessary. But we were swayed by the prostate argument, and we let her proceed with removing both testicles.
Testicles and Wobbler’s
After the operation, Hugo recovered nicely from the incision, and his behavior mellowed somewhat, as we had expected. However, we also noticed that his muscle strength went on a faster decline than we had seen previously.
After a few months, Hugo got to the point where he would sometimes fall over, and where lifting up his rear end was getting hard due to weak hind limbs. My gut feeling says this was partly a result of reduced testosterone levels.
I now believe that we should not have let the vet remove the healthy testicle. The enlarged prostate was not a problem in itself, and Hugo wasn’t suffering from any of the problems that an enlarged prostate might cause (such as bladder control issues).
Steroids
We returned to the vet to see if there was anything we or she could do to help him out. She proposed giving Hugo steroids. In older dogs near the end of their lives, it’s unlikely that these would cause any damage elsewhere in the body. And they were very likely to strengthen the muscles.
This has indeed happened, and we’ll be going back for steroid injections every month or so. Still, I believe the best steroids would have been the natural ones produced by Hugo’s other testicle.
So my completely non-medical advice would be to think twice before removing healthy testicles from a male dog with Wobbler’s syndrome.
