Is it safe to have a 5 month old female in heat spayed

My Basset pup is 21 weeks old and has just come into heat. Is there any complications in having her spayed?

Not quite sure why this was posted in the reptiles section.

Spaying a dog in heat can be done, but it's not a good idea to do that if you have the option of waiting. It would be safest for your dog at this point to allow her to finish her heat cycle and allow her uterus, ovaries, and hormones to return to normal before surgery on her reproductive tract. It would, of course, have been BEST to have done it before she came into heat..to drastically reduce her odds of getting breast cancer later in life..but you've already lost that opportunity. Getting her spayed now and waiting until she's out of heat..either way, her odds now will be the same.

But if spayed *during* a heat cycle, she's at higher risk of several complications. Doing so would make no more sense than doing an elective hysterectomy on a woman while she's in the middle of her period. It will also cost you more..probably a good bit more than $10, I might add. When in heat, there are a whole lot more blood vessels that have to be tied off individually..which requires more time and more suture material. An extra pack of suture material costs more than $10 itself. The extra time and messiness (due to increased bleeding) adds even more to the cost. Depending on where you live, it might be an additional $40 or more.

The heat cycle of a dog lasts a good 3 weeks (even though she'll only bleed for the first 9-12 days.) It's best to wait another week or two after that, to allow things to 'settle down' before surgery. Don't put it off longer than that, because whenever people do that is when it just keeps getting pushed further and further back (due to our lives getting in the way, etc.).and next thing you know, she'll be in heat again, and you'll be facing the exact same dilemma again. Each time she's allowed to come into heat during her 1st 2 years significantly increases her chances of getting breast cancer later in life more and more. If not spayed by then, you can pretty much bet that she WILL get breast cancer (usually malignant/aggressive/terminal) when she's older..if she doesn't die by then of pyometra or the other common problems we see in unspayed females. Spaying past the age of 2 or 3 does not reduce her odds of breast cancer later, but DOES eliminate the possibility many of the other problems related to hormones and the reproductive tract. So..the sooner the better, if you want to be a *responsible* owner and protect your dog's health from known (and WELL-documented by respected medical experts, not just the opinions of poorly-educated lay people who want to believe otherwise) dangers. :-)