Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:01 pm Post subject: Whether to send Max to the furry plum fairy
Hi,
We are thinking of getting Max neutered but we are in two minds and would appreciate your thoughts.
He is 13 months old and we had been planning on waiting until he was 18-24 months, to make sure his joints were fully developed and he had matured a little, having read on here that earlier neutering can have a detrimental effect on both.
He is generally confident, outgoing, great with other dogs, and we have the normal training isssues with recall and being boisterous around people that I realise will probably not be helped by neutering. He marks like mad and has been for the last 3-4 months, even when he is all pee'd out and has nothing to mark with he still lifts his leg! And he lifts his leg to do a one legged poop when he is in marking mode!!
Although we have some good moments with recall, he is Mr Social Butterfly and the last couple of months he will come away from boys, but stays glued to girls and won't come away, even when owners assure us they are not in or around their season.
I guess neutering may help with this aspect of recall from the ladies, and ultimately help prevent him getting lost as I fear we are not far off a long distance disappearing act
What would you do? I don't want to risk behaviour problems from reduced confidence if neutering affects him this way, but is that more likely to affect dogs if they show that tendancy anyway, ie, Mr Confident should be fine?
Welcome any thoughts,
Mandy
Last edited by Mandie on Fri Feb 10, 2012 9:36 pm; edited 2 times in total
I too didn't want to get Dylan neutered until older but had two episodes where he took off after bitches and I actually lost him for half hour which was just awful.
Decided then to get him neutered.
Was worried about his personality changing but it didn't
He is still very interested in other dogs but not in the obsessive way it was becoming before being neutered.
Thanks, that's what I'm hoping for I guess, that the whole thing becomes a bit less intense without turning him into a scaredy pants.
I've put a call into our vets to the nurse who deals with behaviour/training to have a chat - the vet has just said go for it from 8-9 months, no discussion.
Sometimes with the best will in the world things don't go to plan and if you feel the need to bring your 18mth mark plan to neuter early now I really don't think it's a big deal......it's not like he's a six month pup being neutered is it?
In terms of physical maturity I do think from last time we saw him Max is 'there' height and head wise.
We planned to neuter Basil at 18months, as itv turned out he needed GA to remove a lump on his thigh at 10months and the sensible thing seemed to be to combine both ops, so we did, no regrets really
We also lived in an area where in season bitches were walked, Basil had no interest but it felt like a ticking time bomb to be honest in terms of behaviour going off the rails.....better a day too early than too late IMO.
I had planned to neuter Olly later too but he had to have a GA at 10 months to remove a lump, so the plums went then too. He had no negative behaviours beforehand and his personality is just the same - I don't think he's even noticed they're gone! Never licked his stitches, healed very quickly. All positive.
I'm not quite sure where someone said joint problems could be associated with castration on here, but kind of wish I'd seen it at the time to probe deeper where the writer got that idea from. Its certainly a very unusual thing to state.
Only adding to the above view that the age of castration matters little from the sort of age your boy is now. Theres always a feeling that castration will help in certain training problems, and as you have sussed, it will, in time, but only directly sexually linked ones, so for 95% of people, that means it will change the dog and their 'problems' almost zero.
However IF it is to help change anything it needs doing before the negative behaviour pattern is a habit. A real habit. Otherwise its not going to change anything unfortunately, only training through the situation will do that. Boringly
So for me, all pet dogs would be better off neutered for several reasons, some of which as the owner of the BOY you have absolutely no control over like folks walking bitches in season..... but for me, if you are going to do it, do it when the dog has basically physcially matured, but hasn't fallen into TOO many negative sexual behaviours....so between about 10 and 14 months of age. Otherwise I do think its a bit of a waste of time for anything other than the obvious health bonus's....
Di
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The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
Sarah - if Max turns out like Basil I'd be chuffed to bits he's such a sweetie. I agree, Max does seem to have settled in terms of height. He seemed to get big quite quickly, we're certainly hoping he's stopped
Di - I can't remember where I saw it, I think it may have been a link someone posted, but I think there was mention of early neutering and the resultant loss of testosterone causing delayed closure of growth plates in bones. I don't know if that was scientific evidence or not. I just found this link from a quick google search that says the same thing in section 2 pros and cons under "cons of desexing":
He's pretty good at home, doesn't mark in the house and actually stopped humping toys/blankets at 7 months when we just told him a firm "no" or walked out of the room - bless! The training issues we have with being boisterous will not be helped, but I think the nose sticking like glue to the ladies' bottoms issue might benefit from doing it sooner rather than later.
Of course its personal choice, and done at this age it *might* have some affect on the 'nose up ladies bums' thing Probably if you want a bit of help on that leaving it much longer will negate anything it might help.
Thank you for the link. Scaremongering is a sport in the States I think. goodness fancy trying to put people off doing the responsible thing. Its such a shame
Good luck and if you do, hope all goes well, having had a few done I promise its generally very straightforward (although a MAN might tell you different - grin!)
Di
____________
The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
Tucks was done last June at about 12months old and while I only have a brief idea of how it may have changed him (he has only attempted to hump 'his sister' once when they first met a couple of weeks after op!), we haven't had any 'bitch' related behaviours since he came home
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