How do you know when your dog's balls drop?

please, this is a serious question.


this is not meant to be perverted or funny in anyway, so please don't give back perverted or funny answers.





my 4 month old dog is planning to get neutered next month, but based on what my vet said, only one of his balls have dropped, and if both do not drop by the day of the surgery he cannot get neutered and will need to get a different type of surgery so he won't get prostate cancer.





i want to know how i can check if both have dropped.





i tried copying what my vet did but i absolutely cannot feel a difference.





i don't want to have to take my dog back to the vet and pay a 50 dollar examination fee just to check if his balls have dropped, so i would like to know if there is a way i can find out myself.





again, no perverted and/or 'funny' answers please. i am being serious in every way.

How do you know when your dog's balls drop?
It shouldn't make a difference.. You take your dog in for neutering, and if they are both there, the vet neuters like usual. If you show up and only 1 testicle is there, he just needs to locate the other and remove it too. Put your dog up on the table, lift his front end slightly so his two front feet are just up off the table., Take two fingers and slide them down his belly towards where his testicles would be.. Feel his sack and see if you can fee 2 testicles.. They are tiny little things at 16 weeks of age, so sometimes it can be harder to tell..
Reply:Some dogs won't drop both testicles so he may not. I would imagine if he has a retained testicle that the vet would then operate to remove it when he does the neutering.
Reply:Basically, you feel them, there's really no other way. If there's only one, it's pretty obvious. However, depending upon the size of the dog, they could be pretty small. You would think that your dog's testicles would have dropped by now, but sometimes a dog will take longer.





If the dog is crytorochid, the technical term for having retained testicles, the regular castration procedure can't be used. Instead, the vet has to make an incision in the abdomen, locate the retained testicle and remove it. Otherwise, it's pretty simple to make an incision in the scrotum and remove the testicles through that.





If the other one hasn't descended by the time you are scheduled for the surgery, the vet at the shelter should be able to advise you of that. In that case, you could wait until the dog is 6 months old or so. If it hasn't dropped by then, the chances get pretty slim, and the more complex surgery will be more likely.
Reply:It takes some dogs longer to drop than others. If you can just wait a couple months. He is still very young. It may take a little longer but it is just the way dogs are. Do not worry if they do not even at 6 mos. The surgery is not that much more complicated.
Reply:They usually say they should both drop by 6 months. If they retain one or both testicles, they are said to be cryptorchid. They can still neutered, but they usually have to make an incision and sort of dig out the retained one. It makes the surgery a little more complicated, but not a big deal. It's very common. And it is wise to get a retained testicle removed because they can become cancerous.





Are you able to feel the one testicle that the vet felt? If the other side feels the same, like a small marble, then they have both dropped. If you feel 2 small "lumps", it may have happened since your last vet visit. If possible, I'd wait until he's 6 months, and by then there should be no confusion.





If it's any consolation, my dog retained one until exactly 1 week before his 6 month neuter was scheduled, so I faced the same dilemma.





Good luck.
Reply:If you can feel both, then they are both down.





A surgery like this is more invasive and therefore, I feel should be done by a vet who has experience in this. Ask the shelter if their vet is familiar with castration of a cryptorchid or monorchid dog.
Reply:You can see them.