Shadowing Practice: Spay Anatomy in a Cadaver Dog - Learn English Speaking with Video

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The purpose of this video is to show the abdominal anatomy of a dog as it relates to an ovario hysterectomy surgery.

Okay, this is an adult female dog that has been euthanized

and we can look at the anatomy inside of her to

help us look at what we're going to be doing when we're spaying a dog.

When you are inside of the dog's abdomen,

the things that are important are the location of the uterine body.

And the uterine body in this dog is here,

and it lies between the bladder and the colon.

and it's attached at the back of the dog

and each horn goes up and attaches to the body wall by the respective kidney.

This would be the left kidney and this will be the right kidney.

One thing to notice is that the right kidney is more fixed

and the right ovary is deeper in the body and harder to exteriorize because this right kidney is less mobile.

And again, let's look at the left one and you can see that this is much more mobile

and this ovary is much more easily exteriorized.

The thing that's important when you're trying to use a spay hook is that the horn of the uterus

is attached at the back of the body and up to the kidney.

The other thing is the broad ligament and the round ligament.

These two things are all part of what's detached here.

So to retrieve the uterus, put that back in there, pretend like we're spaying her,

you lift up, come around this side,

lift up the body wall and send the spay hook directly along the body wall

and you're trying to get to the bottom turn and lift to lift this up

you can feel tension when you lift this and if you have tension you know you have what you're looking for

if you do not have tension and you hook some intestines or something it'll just keep coming.

One thing that happens frequently when you're trying to get the uterine body is that you will end up hooking the ligament,

the round ligament.

And this ligament will also give you that feeling of tension.

And if you get it,

it is best to follow the ligament forward to where it attaches to the uterine body by the ovary in this direction,

rather than going caudally, because it goes away from the uterus.

At the level of the uterine body and the ovary, which is right here, there is a ligament called the proper ligament.

And that proper ligament goes between the ovary and the uterine body.

This is a structure that is strong and you can put a clamp on it and use it to apply caudal traction.

It's a tough structure.

The next structure to see is the suspensory ligament

which comes off of the ovary and attaches to the body wall by the kidney

and the ovarian vessels which are right here.

Right there.

Inside the dog these things form a triangle.

The ovarian vessels come from the bottom, from their origin, up to the ovary.

The suspensory ligament comes off of the ovary and goes forward to the body wall.

So when you're trying to break that suspensory ligament,

It is best to put caudal traction on it and use your finger to push and break it.

You can strum it like a guitar string or you can actually just grab it and pull and break it.

Stop that.

Now we'll look at the left uterine body, ovary, and suspensory ligament.

To obtain the uterine body using a spay hook or your finger, first using the spay hook,

you elevate the body wall

and send the spay hook along the body wall to the bottom

or dorsal most aspect of the abdominal cavity and then lift up

and you will either get the uterine body or the broad ligament.

If you get the uterine body, you take it up.

If you get the broad ligament, you can follow the broad ligament in a cranial direction until

you get to where it joins the uterine body and elevate it that way.

To use your finger to obtain the uterus,

you would put your finger in between the bladder and the colon and sweep along to ensnare the uterus.

And it lies between the colon and the bladder, so if you use your finger in a sweeping fashion,

you can pick up the eter and body that way.

On this left side, the suspensory ligament is longer and looser than on the right side,

and if you put up and caudal traction on this,

you can tense the suspensory ligament notice that it is quite a distance away from the ovarian vessels.

So if you're up here, you're not going to damage those.

You're putting caudal tension and you can pull and tear this ligament.

Like that to allow you to elevate the ovarian vessels.

And then you can put a

hole in the broad ligament and put a clamp below the ovary to begin to set yourself up to ligate them.

Okay.

Now we'll look at the right uterine body, ovary, and suspensory ligament.

Okay, now we're going to go over using the spay hook or your finger to retrieve the uterine body.

You can lift up the abdominal wall and send your spay hook inside along the abdominal wall to the bottom.

Turn it perpendicular to the incision and lift up to find the uterus or the ligament.

I have the ligament here and that will lead me to the uterus which is in the front.

If you are having trouble, you can use your finger to find the place in between the colon and the bladder.

Use your finger here and hook the uterus with your finger to lift it up.

So you're going to go into the abdomen

and find the place between the bladder and the colon and sweep and obtain the uterus in that way.

When you get it, you're going to pull

caudal traction on this uterus to put tension on the suspensory ligament

which goes to the body wall off of the ovary and it is here.

With caudal and upper tension you put pressure on the suspensory ligament to break it.

You're breaking it or stretching it in that fashion so that you can elevate the ovary outside of the body wall.

You don't have to completely disrupt the ligament, but you do put pressure on it to stretch it

and get these vessels up where you can put a hole in the body

and put a clamp on here and deal with them below the ovary.

Now we'll go over a few things that should help you avoid some problems or deal with some problems should they occur.

When you're making your incision into the abdomen of a dog, one thing that's important to realize is that the structures

that lie just below the abdominal wall are generally the spleen and the bladder.

They both can be easily cut with a scalpel blade and

so it's important when you're making your incision to lift up the body wall

when you're going in so you avoid hitting these structures.

When you get them open you can move them out of the way,

but when you're going in they frequently lie just below the body wall.

They're the first thing that you're going to encounter

when you go in so you've got to be careful not to cut them.

Many people prefer to use the spay hook on the right side of the dog

because the spleen is not on this side.

The spleen lies on the left side of the dog

and many times you can have trouble lacerating the spleen if you're using the spay hook on this side.

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So to use the spay hook on the right side,

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you go along the body wall to the bottom of the body and lift up,

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trapping the uterus or the broad ligament.

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If you have bleeding problems inside of the dog's abdomen during surgery,

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it's important to understand how to use the biological retractors.

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On the right side of the abdomen,

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the descending duodenum, which you can see next to the pancreas, is the biological retractor.

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You pick it up and and entrap the rest of the intestines in it.

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You can retract it to the side and more easily visualize the structures by the kidney and the ovarian vessels.

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Generally, you're looking for the ovarian vessel to re-ligate it or to be sure that it is not a source of bleeding.

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So by retracting the duodenum on the right side, that will enable you to visualize this area.

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On the left side of the dog, the descending colon is the biological retractor.

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You take the colon up and reflect it to the opposite side.

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And it will allow you to visualize this area around the

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base of the kidneys where you might have a bleeding ovarian vessel if a ligature has slipped.

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So again, this is the biological retractor on this side.

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And to look for a bleeder in the ovarian body,

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you reflect the bladder caudally and obtain the uterine body here.

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And you can inspect the body and the blood vessels on either side of it.

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Okay.

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If you've transected the ovary and reflected it backwards and have bleeding at your ovarian pedicle,

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what you need to do is to, on the left side, use the colon as the biological retractor,

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open up the abdomen, and find these blood vessels as they come off just coddled to the kidney.

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and this dog is not bleeding because she's euthanized

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but the blood vessels come off at the caudal aspect of the kidney

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and you want to try to obtain them with your finger and elevate them before you put a clamp on them.

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If you go in with a clamp and just clamp blindly

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There's a possibility of grabbing other vital structures such as the ureter

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that comes off of the kidney and that could be incorporated into your ligature when you tie that again.

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So again it is better technique to grab this pedicle with your fingers

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and elevate it before you put the clamp on it.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Spay Anatomy in a Cadaver Dog”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: ligament, ovary, wall, uterine, kidney. This video has 130 sentences and 1728 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:57. The speaker talks at a steady 116 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
ligament noun	/ˈlɪɡəmənt/	A band of strong tissue that connects bones to other bones.
ovary noun	/ˈoʊvəɹi/	A female reproductive organ, often paired, that produces ova in most animals, and in mammals, secretes the hormones estrogen and progesterone.
uterine adjective	/ˈjutəɹaɪn/	Of or pertaining to the uterus.
spay verb	/speɪ/	To destroy or remove the ovaries or uterus (of a female animal) to prevent pregnancy.
kidney noun	/ˈkɪdni/	An organ in the body that filters the blood, producing urine.
uterus noun	/ˈjuː.tə.ɹəs/	A reproductive organ of therian mammals in which the young are conceived and develop until birth.
ovarian adjective	/oʊˈvɛɹi.ən/	Relating to the ovaries.
suspensory noun		The suspensory ligament.
colon noun	/ˈkoʊ.lən/	The punctuation mark ⟨:⟩.
caudal adjective	/ˈkɔːdəl/	Pertaining to the tail or posterior or hind part of a body.
clamp noun	/ˈklæmp/	A brace, band, or clasp for strengthening or holding things that are apart together.
bladder noun	/ˈblædɚ/	A flexible sac that can expand and contract and that holds liquids or gases.
elevate verb	/ˈɛləveɪt/	To raise (something) to a higher position.
abdomen noun	/ˈæb.də.mən/	The belly, or that part of the body between the thorax and the pelvis, not including the back; or in some lower vertebrates, the portion between the cardiac…
retractor noun	/ɹɪˈtɹæktɚ/	One who, or that which, retracts.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
lift up verb		To elevate to a higher position.
go over verb		To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
come around verb	/kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/	To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first.
come off verb		To become detached.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
go along verb		To participate, cooperate, or conform.
go in with verb		To commit to something with; to partner with.
go up verb		To move upwards.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	has been euthanized · is attached · can be easily cut
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has been euthanized · has slipped · you've transected
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	ovary, which is · vessels which are · uterus which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 30 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we're, we'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: traction /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/, incision /ɪnˈsɪʒən/, visualize /ˈvɪʒuəˌlaɪz/
Long words — get the stress right: ovarian /oʊˈvɛɹi.ən/, exteriorize /ɪkˈstɪɹi.əˌɹaɪz/, anatomy /əˈnætəmi/, hysterectomy /hɪstəˈɹɛktəmi/, perpendicular /ˌpɜː.pənˈdɪk.jə.lə(ɹ)/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like ligament, ovary, uterine.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Spay Anatomy in a Cadaver Dog - Learn English Speaking with Video

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