Neuter/spay - Why? Why not?

oranges81

 

Spaying makes some dogs less active. Pets that have been spayed tend to be less active. If a more sedentary dog is not for you, spaying may not be the best option.

I don't agree with this statement at all. I took this from the link to Pros and Cons of Spaying an Neutering. I have a very active 2 year old who was spayed at 8 months. Her energy level actually increased as she got older.  I feel sorry for the person that spayed their dog believing this statement.

lololololololol----Whomever wrote this never met Sally.  She was spayed at about a year and we are still waiting for the legendary Calming Down of the Spayed Dog.........

For myself,I will never keep an intact dog unless there is a compelling medical reason.This is farm country.Homes are far apart.I don't have a fence.My two spayed females have supervised run of my property and were boundary trained.Their lives are enriched by the freedom of being spayed.If they were intact,they would have to be more strictly confined.Others can choose what suits them provided they maintain control of thier dogs and do not produce unwanted litters it is thier buisness.One half mile away is a family with a male unaltered Golden Retriever.So far he has stayed home but I worry when spring comes he will take off in search of a female.

Tena

4HAND

This is farm country.Homes are far apart.I don't have a fence.My two spayed females have supervised run of my property and were boundary trained.Their lives are enriched by the freedom of being spayed.If they were intact,they would have to be more strictly confined.

And that's a key point. Lifestyle of the dog. Some people live in a situation of where the pets are managed and contained almost completely. And don't mind the extra effort and noise of segregating dogs in season. And some of those people are breeders who must keep their breeding pair or breeding dog intact for the exact purpose of breeding. Certainly valid reasons. I even understand a person that keeps his/her pet intact in their understanding general health and they have the ability and set-up to keep the dogs separated during heat. Not everyone has that ability or finances. I shall now make some generalizations, so please forgive if I paint with a broad brush, for I use info gained from here. It costs money to breed, birth, and care for a litter,And time, especially the first 4 to 6 weeks, post-natal. If you add to that the time and effort in some kind of an hourly wage to research the parents and lineage, it is no wonder that most legit breeders do not break even and are lucky if they do, even if they are charging $1,000 a pup. There are so many ancilliary costs. Driving to get stuff. The cost of stuff. Uncompensated time in research, time that could have been spent working a paying job. Vet bills, shots, time not getting paid while socializing, etc. I haven't even included fees to show or compete, fees for breed club or activity membership. Fees to do hips and eyes on the litter. Fees to register the litter. Food for 4 to 6 growing pups. I'm sure I've left out 9 other things. In order to do this and keep the electricity bill paid, a person has to have some money, some discretionary income. Something a lot of us don't have. I'm not saying the people are rich but they do have what it takes to handle intact animals.

Many don't. Many people have enough money to feed and care for a pet, with an occasional vet visit for vaccs, and that's about it. They don't have the time or money to manage intact pets. And such pets would have to die in the shelter. Which is better? To stay intact and live a week? Or, get "fixed" and adopted and live for 15 years with a chance of some health issues or behaviors that can be handled with training, neutered or not? That is, a large majority of homes that can keep a pet cannot keep an intact pet and being neutered/spayed makes it possible to go to such an average home. The people here who keep intact pets are exceptional, rich or not. Pardon me for saying so, but you guys are not average. You are exceptional, educated, conscientious, and downright smart.

ron2

And, like others, I wonder how many dogs are aggressive after neuter not because the neuter made them so but because the humans got lazy and thought, why should I train, the snip took care of that.

I can categorically state that this was not the case with my dog.

After discussing the neuter with my vet, I was convinced that it was the best thing I could do for my dog.  He was "dog aggressive", and the vet described him as "full of testosterone" and ASSURED me he would benefit from being neutered, that it would make him more relaxed, would make him live longer, would make him FRIENDLIER to other dogs and EASIER to train.  I had been struggling for MONTHS to address his DA issues and going nowhere.  The vet also warned me that as he was an adult and fully mature, there would be no obvious change immmediately.  The hormones would need to work their way out of his system, and with some dogs this could take months.  He also explained that, by now, there was a learned component to the unwanted behaviours, so training would need to continue!  But that training would be easier - possible even - post-op.  So I determined to plug away at training as before, expecting it to become easier eventually as the hormones drained away and made him a more compliant working partner.

Rather than getting easier, it got harder.  He turned into a little demon.  His aggression got A LOT WORSE.  He went from being reactive and snarky and getting into mild fights with some dogs to full on attacking almost any dog he saw and drawing blood if not seperated quickly enough.  Previously he had been better OFF LEAD than on - this was still the case, but because he was now SO bad off lead, I HAD to put the lead on just to restrain him.  Being on lead definitely made him worse, but at least I could prevent bloodshed. 

It took probably 12, maybe eighteen months to get him back to the point he had been at BEFORE the op.  At that point I thought we were doing well and would have been OK if he had never got any better!  But he did, gradually, over a long time.  Understandbly, I am unconvinced that *behaviourally* neutering was the best thing to do for him.

If, as a trainer suggested, his issues stemmed from fear and not too much testosterone, then that would explain my dog's behaviour.  If aggression is linked to low testosterone levels (another theory) that would also explain his behaviour - and that would also be an argument against neutering.

4HAND

For myself,I will never keep an intact dog unless there is a compelling medical reason.This is farm country.Homes are far apart.I don't have a fence.My two spayed females have supervised run of my property and were boundary trained.Their lives are enriched by the freedom of being spayed.If they were intact,they would have to be more strictly confined.Others can choose what suits them provided they maintain control of thier dogs and do not produce unwanted litters it is thier buisness.One half mile away is a family with a male unaltered Golden Retriever.So far he has stayed home but I worry when spring comes he will take off in search of a female.

Tena

 I can't really imagine not having at least a small fenced yard for the dogs. But even at that, my intact dogs are allowed to run in safe places off leash. My GSD's breeder had a similar situation as you and she just took her girls out on lead if the few weeks they were in season.

 We live pretty far from the next house, too. I have a small portion (I think it's 60 x 100?) of the yard fenced in, to let the dogs go potty in. I *still* go out, with them, because everybody around me thinks it's ok to let their dogs roam free. Loose dogs are a nuisance, no matter where you are. Yours might be boundary trained, but everybody else's aren't. Even spayed dogs aren't safe from aggressive, loose dogs. I have a friend who uses an e fence, and has "forever". Her GSD was recently killed by a roaming dog. His trachea was crushed. It was devastating.

I think everyone should consider some sort of physical barrier to keep their dogs (regardless of size or sex status) safe.

Floyd was found intact at four years of age, wandering, underweight in about the worst part of town. At that time, he was able to jump a six foot fence so it's highly possible he went after a female in heat and subsequently was lost or taken in by other people etc. He is definately not show or working dog material. He was neutered before adoption, but I wouldn't have taken him if not. I'm not allowed to have a fence over six feet (mine is five), and there were no benefits to him being intact.

Wolfgang was originally neutered by the county shelter before being released to his first humans at eight weeks old.

I had Tasha spayed at five months. If I had it to do over, I'd wait another month or two but no more. She was fiendishly clever at escaping both the yard or twice during walks,  but fortunately only went to the neighbor's to play with their dog. If she'd been allowed to go into heat, it could have been bad news. The world does not need more Chow Mixes.

Floyd and Tasha have both had cruciate repairs. Wolfgang has not.

Sixty-Seven percent of the dogs and cats that entered our county shelter last year were euthanized.

I always know that when I mention my dogs have run of my property someone is going to question the safety of it.I did say they are supervised and I will add that on the few times it is too cold for me to go out with them I watch from the windows.This is fourty acres we are talking about and Jewel will sound a ferocious warning if any dog or human comes even close to the property line.Her recall is excellent.I hear her warning,I call her,and sure enough I'll see the offending spec on the horizon.Before we moved here we put up chain link fence and our westie climbed it and escaped.She was returned due to having proper tags but I learned a valuable lesson.....fences do not keep dogs safe,supervision and training do.

Tena 

jennie_c_d

 We live pretty far from the next house, too. I have a small portion (I think it's 60 x 100?) of the yard fenced in, to let the dogs go potty in. I *still* go out, with them, because everybody around me thinks it's ok to let their dogs roam free. Loose dogs are a nuisance, no matter where you are. Yours might be boundary trained, but everybody else's aren't. Even spayed dogs aren't safe from aggressive, loose dogs. I have a friend who uses an e fence, and has "forever". Her GSD was recently killed by a roaming dog. His trachea was crushed. It was devastating.

 

I think everyone should consider some sort of physical barrier to keep their dogs (regardless of size or sex status) safe.

 So true, which is why I said I couldn't imagine not having a fenced area for the dogs.  Friends of mine recently moved to a very rural area with their group of dogs. They put a fenced up within the first week of moving into their house and if roaming dogs become an issue, they will put an electric fence around the outside of their fence to keep unwanted dogs out.

 Agile, paintball guns are pretty awesome. You should tell your friends Yesterday morning, a big ol white Bully thing was in my front yard, looking for my Chinese Crested (who is in season). Big, green SPLAT. He'll probably not be back (because those things sting!), and his owners now know that he's been somewhere he shouldn't be. I don't know if they care, but they know.

My dogs can get out of the fence, in a flash, too. Emma jumps it, Ena climbs it, and Teenie would go under it (she could squeeze through anything!). It does keep large, dangerous dogs out, though.

jennie_c_d

 Agile, paintball guns are pretty awesome. You should tell your friends Yesterday morning, a big ol white Bully thing was in my front yard, looking for my Chinese Crested (who is in season). Big, green SPLAT. He'll probably not be back (because those things sting!), and his owners now know that he's been somewhere he shouldn't be. I don't know if they care, but they know

 Ha! I love it! Will have to pass that on to them :)

I had a vision in my head of you in a camouflage suit, camo-painted paintball gun, looking through the scope.Slight adjustment, breathe, exhale, squeeze the trigger, the stranger dog says "Oowww ...", scamper, scamper, flat out boogie off.

I see what you're saying, Chuffy. You've been through the reasoning that you now find so suspect, in retrospect. And, evidently, in your case, neuter did not solve the aggression problem, nor were you the lazy type that quit training and assumed that the neutering took care of the problem. I also think your dog is an individual.

Allow me to bring some more heat on myself. Dogs are a species separate from other canids. And I don't expect that they may have the same reproductive controls or social skills of a wolf pack or a coyote pack. Dogs live with man. Dogs take cues from man. The latter separates them from all other species. Nor dogs left alone follow the societal imposed limits on procreation that one finds in a wolf pack. Witness the feral dogs of Mexico. Down there, it is macho to leave the dogs intact. And the dogs proliferate. They often have a looser social structure, which is one reason dogs can form friends with stranger dogs quickly. At the same time, it is not as easy for a stranger dog to inhibit your dog from breeding.

But I think it's interesting the notion of keeping testosterone in the dog's body might give him more confidence and, hence, less of a reason to fight, if there is such a link. And darn it, I'm running out of time.

ron2

But I think it's interesting the notion of keeping testosterone in the dog's body might give him more confidence and, hence, less of a reason to fight, if there is such a link. And darn it, I'm running out of time.

Unfortunately, it is that very confidence that is spurring him TO fight.  But take it away and working with him becomes much harder.

I suspect it is different from dog to dog, but with MY dog, in retrospect, his hormones were far easier to work with than his increased fear.

ron2

Nor dogs left alone follow the societal imposed limits on procreation that one finds in a wolf pack.

This is not, perhaps, true of all dogs.  There's some evidence that primitive species such as many of the LGD breeds who are essentially the same today as they were a few thousand years ago DO regulate themselves in this manner and that's why they can be so difficult to breed.