To prevent unnecessary abdominal exploratorysurgery in the future, all animals undergoing earlyageovariohysterectomy should be tattooed to identifytheir neutered status. The recommended tattoo site is theprepubic area in females. The female gender symbolalong with an encircled ‘‘X’’ is used to denote theneutered status. Tattooing may be performed after thesurgical site has been clipped but prior to the surgicalprep of the area.