Neutering Male Dog Discussion
Discussion
Just looking for a bit of a discussion regarding neutering a male dog.
We have a Labrador puppy (11.5 months old). We have left him intact, primarily due to wanting to eventually have him as a stud. Having said that, he is primarily a pet so that is the way we look at our decision making. We regularly take him to the local dog park (and have done since he was a brand new puppy).
He has never ever shown a single thought of anything resembling aggression towards another dog young or old, person child or adult, cat, other pets of neighbors etc…in fact anything ever. He is a submissive, well natured, happy-go-lucky puppy…and has been since we got him.
Having said that, a number of dogs have shown aggression towards him (although they tend to show aggression towards other dogs too). The biggest problem I see is that unless another dog tries to rip his throat out (and obviously we intervene before it gets that far…we know the friendly dogs and the not so friendly dogs!) he just thinks they’re playing and he wants to play too. He bounces around, does the ‘play-bow’ etc.
But he is a puppy! A bouncy, playful, happy-go-lucky puppy. Albeit a 100lb puppy!
He does occasionally try to hump another dog (male or female)…but then we see plenty of other dogs try to do the same thing that have had the snip.
There are other older labs at the park and the owners have said that they were boisterous until 2.5/3 years old and then became almost comatose.
My take on his behavior, having watched him interact for nearly 10 months now is the he is just a puppy, full of energy and loves socializing with other people and dogs - all he wants to do is play and he doesn’t understand that when a dog growls at him he needs to back off (despite me regularly removing him from the situation). I also think the fact that he is around 100lb probably makes people concerned - most of the other large dogs at the park are fat, not muscle like he is!
I recently had a much more canine-experienced friend come to stay and he took our dog to the park on a number of occasions and observed his behavior. His views are similar to mine.
When there are certain dogs in the park, I regularly have to keep an eye on him as I know the owners don’t like their dogs playing with them. For example, one lady today didn’t want him playing with her dog (old and arthritic)…yet her dog was seeking out mine to play with! Or the other lady who has 2 dogs, 1 small, 1 larger doesn’t like my dog playing with her little one as she thinks it’s too rough, but has no problem with her dog playing with other small dogs in the same way telling the owners “he’s only playing” etc). Don’t start on the hypocrisy!!!
Someone mentioned to me this morning that perhaps we should consider having him neutered. Interesting thought and I asked why that was said. The other guy (a buddy of mine) said because it will change his behavior.
Now, I’m certainly not God’s gift to dogs, the dog whisperer or anything like that, however when researching the way neutering tends too change behavior characteristics, it sounds like the main driving factor is aggression.
In the dog park, amongst a lot of the owners, there is a culture of “if your dog isn’t neutered then any issues that happen are your fault”. My current opinion doesn’t align with this thought process. This was demonstrated by a Doberman who recently got the chop and has had numerous run-ins with other dogs (I also accept it may take a few months for this to calm down).
Personally, I also am not entirely comfortable with neutering being a default response to any behavioral issue that a dog may exhibit.
As I said at the beginning of this post, we were hoping to have puppies from him - he comes from good lines and his health scores are good (hips and elbows to be determined in a year or so) and with the right mating partner would produce equally good lined pups. If it makes any difference, we would likely be looking for AI rather than natural conception due to the distances involved. The purposes of this thread is to try to gather some opinion and thoughts on neutering a dog.
We are open to the idea, but I just don’t see a behavioral issue that will be cured and given we would like to be part of a breeding improvement program, it would be a shame to do so just because he’s being a rambunctious puppy.
TL;DR:
Discussion about neutering our dog!
We have a Labrador puppy (11.5 months old). We have left him intact, primarily due to wanting to eventually have him as a stud. Having said that, he is primarily a pet so that is the way we look at our decision making. We regularly take him to the local dog park (and have done since he was a brand new puppy).
He has never ever shown a single thought of anything resembling aggression towards another dog young or old, person child or adult, cat, other pets of neighbors etc…in fact anything ever. He is a submissive, well natured, happy-go-lucky puppy…and has been since we got him.
Having said that, a number of dogs have shown aggression towards him (although they tend to show aggression towards other dogs too). The biggest problem I see is that unless another dog tries to rip his throat out (and obviously we intervene before it gets that far…we know the friendly dogs and the not so friendly dogs!) he just thinks they’re playing and he wants to play too. He bounces around, does the ‘play-bow’ etc.
But he is a puppy! A bouncy, playful, happy-go-lucky puppy. Albeit a 100lb puppy!
He does occasionally try to hump another dog (male or female)…but then we see plenty of other dogs try to do the same thing that have had the snip.
There are other older labs at the park and the owners have said that they were boisterous until 2.5/3 years old and then became almost comatose.
My take on his behavior, having watched him interact for nearly 10 months now is the he is just a puppy, full of energy and loves socializing with other people and dogs - all he wants to do is play and he doesn’t understand that when a dog growls at him he needs to back off (despite me regularly removing him from the situation). I also think the fact that he is around 100lb probably makes people concerned - most of the other large dogs at the park are fat, not muscle like he is!
I recently had a much more canine-experienced friend come to stay and he took our dog to the park on a number of occasions and observed his behavior. His views are similar to mine.
When there are certain dogs in the park, I regularly have to keep an eye on him as I know the owners don’t like their dogs playing with them. For example, one lady today didn’t want him playing with her dog (old and arthritic)…yet her dog was seeking out mine to play with! Or the other lady who has 2 dogs, 1 small, 1 larger doesn’t like my dog playing with her little one as she thinks it’s too rough, but has no problem with her dog playing with other small dogs in the same way telling the owners “he’s only playing” etc). Don’t start on the hypocrisy!!!
Someone mentioned to me this morning that perhaps we should consider having him neutered. Interesting thought and I asked why that was said. The other guy (a buddy of mine) said because it will change his behavior.
Now, I’m certainly not God’s gift to dogs, the dog whisperer or anything like that, however when researching the way neutering tends too change behavior characteristics, it sounds like the main driving factor is aggression.
In the dog park, amongst a lot of the owners, there is a culture of “if your dog isn’t neutered then any issues that happen are your fault”. My current opinion doesn’t align with this thought process. This was demonstrated by a Doberman who recently got the chop and has had numerous run-ins with other dogs (I also accept it may take a few months for this to calm down).
Personally, I also am not entirely comfortable with neutering being a default response to any behavioral issue that a dog may exhibit.
As I said at the beginning of this post, we were hoping to have puppies from him - he comes from good lines and his health scores are good (hips and elbows to be determined in a year or so) and with the right mating partner would produce equally good lined pups. If it makes any difference, we would likely be looking for AI rather than natural conception due to the distances involved. The purposes of this thread is to try to gather some opinion and thoughts on neutering a dog.
We are open to the idea, but I just don’t see a behavioral issue that will be cured and given we would like to be part of a breeding improvement program, it would be a shame to do so just because he’s being a rambunctious puppy.
TL;DR:
Discussion about neutering our dog!
KrazyIvan said:
If you are genuinely thinking of breeding I would be seeing a specialist K9 vet to get a full check up on his health, to make sure any puppies he father's would not get any genetic defects he might have. Don't just breed from him because you think hed have nice pups (to many people do this with all types of dogs) or worse thinking it's easy money.
Also 100lb lab is WELL over weight so I assume that's tongue in cheeck
His genetics have already been done. The hips and elbows can’t be done (reliably) until 24 months. People talk about preliminary tests and breed of dogs younger than that. I am not comfortable with that approach and instead want to wait until we are sure what the score is.Also 100lb lab is WELL over weight so I assume that's tongue in cheeck
With regards to his weight, if he’s not 100lbs, he’s mid nineties (haven’t had him on the scales for about 6 weeks...our home scales are no longer strong enough for me and him combined so he has to go to the vets). Last time was 84.5lbs and he’s definitely put muscle on since then.
I am aware of the ‘breed standard’ and he is comfortably larger than that, but he’s not fat...just big! (And he’s only 11.5 months...a little more bulking up to go I suspect!)
Zetec-S said:
s2sol said:
We've now got an 8 month old male labradoodle (allegedly). I'd like to get him neutered, but don't really know why, or when. I'd quite like him to enjoy his balls while he has them, and I've got my doubts as to whether it will make a difference.
But if you’re not going to breed from him then he’s not really going to “enjoy” his balls, is he?Rosscow said:
Zetec-S said:
But if you’re not going to breed from him then he’s not really going to “enjoy” his balls, is he?
Does that mean that all men that don’t want to have children should be castrated? Gassing Station | All Creatures Great & Small | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff