Prostate Problems, Prevention and Solutions

Dr. Marty Greer gives us the low down on male dog prostate and reproductive issues. Additional discussion on emergency semen collection, dogs whose semen doesn’t extend well and more.

“This is an area that is often misunderstood by the general practitioner vet,” Greer said.

Symptoms

Symptoms of a prostatic complication include blood in the urine or ejaculate, straining to pass stool, blood dripping from the penis, Greer added.

Diagnosis

Prostate cancer, benign prostatic hypertrophy, prostatitis are the most common complications. Dogs over five years old are the most commonly affected.

Greer advises that neutering is not absolutely necessary for dogs with non-cancerous prostate disease.

Dogs with a prostate infection are very sick, typically run a fever and clearly don’t feel well, Greer said.

Prostatic cancer manifests in two different forms. Which type the dog has needs to be confirmed with a biopsy.

“Both kinds of prostate cancer are quite serious,” Greer said. “Counterintuitively, it is almost always a neutered dog that has these cancers.”

Treatment

Benign prostatic hypertrophy (enlarged prostate) is a hormonal disease, Greer noted. Dogs don’t need antibiotics, neutering isn’t required. The condition can be successfully treated with hormone therapy.

“Neutering will cure BPH and prostatitis. However, it is very difficult to breed neutered male dogs, unless they have had semen frozen. The best time to freeze semen is when a dog is between 2 and 5 years of age. The dog should be healthy and producing great quality semen. It will cost you a lot less money to freeze a canine’s semen when he is young. If he later turns out to have a disorder that you don’t want in your breeding program, you can either wait until a DNA test is conducted to determine how you can use him in your breeding program or discard the semen.” — Dr. Marty Greer