[romanows]

50% survivability increase, but is that going from 2/10000 to 1/10000 deaths? My impression is that spaying is relatively safe, so how much are we willing to spend to get more 9's?

Edit: deleted distracting details that the comment below rightfully calls out.

[snapetom]

> for healthy animals

this is the key part of your statement. Many animals for many diseases appear healthy but don't until a work up in done.

[romanows]

My fault, I shouldn't have mentioned that because it's not my key point. Given animals that come in to be spayed, say in a large US city, how risky is spaying? Is it worth everyone paying $300 more to reduce it by a very small absolute percentage? Should vets actually be more up front about this than the ones I'm familiar with are?

[snapetom]

I get you're saying it's not the key point, but in practice, it really should be.

The spay and cost numbers were just examples. In general, yes, spays are safe, but it is anesthesia. There's a risk of death and it gets much more complicated with a huge variety of factors - age of the animal, species, whether she is in heat, and of course like we mentioned - pre-existing conditions that do not obviously present itself without a clinical workup. The last one is huge. There are plenty of values that are indicative of organ failure that would not be obvious to an owner. A dog can't tell you it's been having a nagging pain on its side for the past week.