The day’s cutest puppy was a brown, long-haired dachshund, recently purchased by a young family from a breeder advertising in the local paper. This was his first visit to see us and during my exam, I could only feel one testicle. Now this is a little dog so the palpation target is about half the size of a jelly belly. But there was only one. When I mentioned this to the owner, she nodded, telling me the breeder told her his sire also only had one testicle–it was a family trait. She was disappointed to hear my response, as she was planning to use this puppy to breed to her female. If a male dog truly only has one descended testicle, it should not be used in a breeding program.
Having one descended testicle, called cryptorchidism, is considered a genetic defect and is, indeed, a family trait. Finding only one testicle during an exam does not mean the dog has only one testicle. In most circumstances, there are two–one you can feel in the scrotum and one tucked up into the abdomen where it developed when the puppy was still an embryo.
In developmentally normal male dogs, the testes descend fully into the scrotum before they are 2 months old. Sometimes, both don’t make it out of the abdomen and into the scrotum. One may make it part of the way, or it may not budge at all. If a testes makes it only part of the way, it can usually found hiding out along the “bikini line” . For the ones that don’t budge, we need to surgically remove them at the time at the neuter to reduce the increased chances of the retained testicle becoming cancerous. This type of surgery is more invasive (involves entering the abdomen) and expensive than a normal neuter. So the recommendation for a reputable breeding program is to include intact (two descended testes) males only.
–Dr. Olson
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Dr. Olson practices small animal medicine in Denver, CO and is a regular contributor to Wag Reflex.
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