To Spay or not to Spay

I have tried to share the progress of Olive with all my very best friends and family, and one of my very good friends, Antonia, who has a gorgeous springer spaniel, posed the question 'are you going to have her spayed?'

Antonia is a wonderful mother to her little pooch, Pandora, and literally does everything she can for the little girl in the hope that she will be a healthy, strong little doggy. So I trust her judgement and wisdom a lot.

It had never occured to me not to get Olive spayed but when Antonia actually asked if I was going to, my ears pricked up. What, why wouldn't I?

One of the things that was putting us off getting a bitch, in a very selfish way, was the worry about the dog being on heat. I know it sounds hugely selfish of us, but with having no preference either way for either sex, that just tipped the balance for us.
Anyway, then we read about how a male can be a bit territorial and mark his scent a lot more and we thought, well, Alvin's not going to be too happy about that, seeing as he's the man of the house and all - sorry, husband!
Also, we read that a bitch can be quite maternal to other animals which sounds good for Alvin - although I'm not sure he would like to be thought of as being mothered.

So we decided on a girl, knowing that we don't want her breeding and that we can get her spayed.

But Antonia points out that actually it can be damaging to the pup and can even stunt her bone growth due to lack of hormones.

At the same time, I don't want the little madam to feel she is missing out on a family if she is allowed to develop all of those little hormones, or am I being ridiculous?

We had Alvin neutered after he had spent a few weeks weeing everywhere and trying to hump my leg constantly. His op put an immediate stop to that and we haven't looked back since. He is happy as larry and doesn't miss a thing.

But I guess spaying is a more complicated procedure.

Oh dear. What shall I do?