Just a few days after I rescued my dog, I was giving her a belly rub and noticed something strange: a plain, green line on her abdomen. At first, I thought that my five-year-old had taken a magic marker to our new pet, but the line didn't come off. Then I assumed it was a strong marker that had been used by a veterinarian to indicate where the incision would be when she was spayed a few days before we got her… but, a few weeks and two baths later, the little green mark remained. I realized that there was only one explanation for such a persistent mark: my dog obviously had a tattoo on her belly.
I couldn't imagine why anyone would have tattooed my pup before I got her. I wondered if the rescue group used tattoos to identify dogs… But, surely, the rescue group had better (and less harmful) ways to identify dogs. ID tags, microchips, and maybe even ear tags seemed like a reasonable way to tell similar-looking dogs apart. A tattoo would have been unnecessarily expensive-- not to mention much more painful than a microchip or an ID tag.
To satisfy my curiosity, I gave my dog's vet a call and asked if the vet knew why she had a tattoo on her belly. My veterinarian laughed a little and said that she "gets that question all the time," because it's becoming much more common for dogs to have tattoos on their bellies. In fact, my vet estimated that more than half of spayed female dogs adopted in the last two years have these tattooed marks on their tummies.
It turns out that spay-surgeries are much, much less invasive than at any point in veterinary history. Most vets can spay a dog with a tiny incision, and it won't leave a visible scar. In the past, it was easy to tell if a female dog had been spayed because, as soon as her belly was shaved, a relatively noticeable scar would stand as testament to the fact that she had already been altered. At that point, the vet would know that it was unnecessary to proceed with a second surgery.
Today, though, many spayed dogs don't have any noticeable scarring. (My own dog has no scar at all, even though she was spayed fairly recently.) If a dog goes missing, changes hands, or ends up in the custody of Animal Control, an animal shelter, or a new owner who doesn't know her medical history, the dog may be sent off to the vet to be spayed. Without seeing a scar, the vet tends to assume that the dog is unaltered and will either proceed with an ultrasound (which can be very expensive) or, worse, will sedate the dog and not realize she's already spayed until surgery has already started. If the dog has no clear sign that she's been spayed, it can cause all kinds of complications for the dog and for whoever is responsible for her medical bills.
For this reason, many of today's dogs are given a small tattoo near their incision site when they go into surgery to get spayed. The dog is already asleep when it happens, so she doesn't feel any discomfort when she is tattooed. The most popular tattoo for a spayed female dog is a single green line, but it can be any color. If the tattoo isn't a line, it may be an X mark, a circle, an "S" for "spayed," or the letters "A.B.S." for "already been spayed." These tattoos save vets, shelters, and pet owners a lot of stress if there's ever any question in the future about whether or not a dog has been altered.
There is one other possible reason for a tattoo on a dog. Some show-dogs and racing greyhounds have tattoos somewhere on their bodies as identifying marks to deter thieves and identify them within show rings. This is becoming less common and less necessary because of the advent of microchips, but a tattoo with a number on your dog might indicate that she was registered with a show, race, or kennel club at some point. In this case, be sure to have her examined by the vet to see if she also has a microchip, since it's possible that she was lost or stolen and has another owner looking for her.
A tattoo on your dog's belly may seem like a strange finding, but chances are that there's a good reason for it-- one that might save her the trouble of having to undergo surgery should she ever wind up at a shelter for any reason. Your dog's tattoo is most likely a sign that she has been spayed, but if you have any questions about what it might mean, touch base with your veterinarian for answers.
No comments:
Post a Comment