We got this dog see, Harold is his name and he’s just over 1 year old.

Harold recently

He’s generally an awesome dog, very friendly and never aggressive.
He was originally rejected as a puppy for being a bit much for the owners, and we took him on at about 5 months or so. My partner has done absolute wonders with him. She’s amazing with dogs and has had dogs for over 15 years. He’s calmed down massively and is generally a really great dog. I take him bike rides a lot and he’s great apart from getting over excited and trying to bite my tyre off all the time.

Recently though as he gets older approaching his teenage years, he’s been going in a bit heavy with the ladies and when he does, it’s pretty much impossible to get him to return when you call him and to leave the poor girls alone. He’s also getting very single-minded sometimes when chasing and rummaging about for food in the parks and seems to be that recall is getting a bit worse of late.

He’s still got his knackers all present and correct and the question has come up about whether or not to continue with this. I think going back it used to be the done thing to get rid pretty much as a matter of course but seemingly things are changing these days and folks, including vets are not automatically reccommending that to counter certain behavioural traits.

I’ve always been a lover of dogs but never actually owned my own (barring family pets) until now, much less paid an operative to snip his crown jewels off.

I’m slightly thinking a post like this might get me flamed by a few as any animal welfare subjects bring up strong opinions, but thought I’d ask more for my partner who had her last dog of 15 years neutered as a young dog with a positive effect on his behaviour but is unsure now with conflicting advice. I think it was more just something you did as part of ownership back then.

Just interested in what the consensus is these days amongst the STW dogists?

Anyone found it had a negative effect on their dog?
Anyone found it had a positive effect on their dog?
Anyone found it had no effect on their dog?

Every time you try and tell him off he will look at you with big soulful eyes as if to say “remember that time you paid someone to cut my balls off?” and all your authority will be gone…..

🤣
I know!
It was out of my hands I’ll tell him. It was your mums decision. I stand in solidarity brother!

Why do we chop their balls of and not give them a vasectomy?

Good job on the title… 😁

Alfie the Border Terrier had his nuts off at around nine months in an attempt to calm him down. He’s six in November and still bat-shit-crazy.

Great title.

I’d let him hang on to his balls for a while. In 6 months time he’ll be an adult and will have got over the hormone hump of adolescence and possibly be a lovely calm fella, and you will still have an option for ‘behavioural adjustment’ if he hasn’t.
If you go straight in now and get the plum removal you might have played your card too early.

If you go straight in now and get the plum removal you might have played your card too early.

Hmmm, so you think we shouldn’t go balls to the wall just yet? 🐶

Lovely dog.
No idea about the balls thing but Harold looks like he is on to you.;-)

🤣 Certainly is!
He’s always looking to me when it comes up for discussion.

It’s a difficult one. Modern thinking is that it is better for the individual dog to be left intact but as you suggest they can be a terrible nuisance to female dogs. Mine’s a girl and reacts badly to some unneutered males. Much less with neutered males and she generally likes other bitches.

I think if you do keep him intact, you’ll have be be prepared to put in a whole load more training than you would a neutered male. While neutering does have negative effects, it does seem generally to make them more biddable. Not always though and it can cause other behavioural problems.

Just don’t become one of those people who say, “that’s right, you tell him,” when they let their unneutered sex pest male dog bother my female dog and she has to tell him to do one. No, that’s your job you tw*t. Not suggesting you would but you’d be surprised how many people do say that.

Where did you get him btw? Rescue centres usually insist any dog is neutered at the appropriate age. He looks a lovely boy so hope you manage to make the right decision for him.

We had our Cockerpoo done around 1 yr old and it didn’t seem to affect him in any negative way at all. He’s a fantastic dog, couldn’t be any better behaved, still loves to play.

I have/had two dogs and both were neutered at my ex-wife’s request. As both were male, they had slight issues with who was top dog and her thought was that it would stop that.

I regret doing both. Ted (older, Springer Spaniel) should have been left intact as he was the dominant male and I wanted to breed from him. I think that would probably have stopped the dominance as well and made him a lot less paranoid of other dogs. He knew what his balls were as he was neutered late and was super-upset when, after losing them, other male dogs tried to hump him.

Ralph was a lot younger and probably the right age to have it done (18 months/2 years), but he also have the problem of hating it when other male dogs try to dominate him.

In terms of behaviour, it did calm them down a bit, but Ted was about four and was reasoanbly calm anyway. Ralph was about two and getting to the age when he was getting calmer, so I guess I’ll never know. They did not put on a lot of weight, which was my other worry.

We are waiting with our 15 month old female, for a few reasons.

Apparently, you hormonally stick them at the age they are when neutered, so you can can do it too early.

She’s also been in and out of the vets with an autoimmune problem (she’s likely to spend most of her life on steriods) and with the exception of her behaviour changing for a month we’ve not actually seen her be in season yet (and she really should have by now). So we can’t even be sure she’s been through her first season yet, whether impacted by her drug taking isn’t clear.

She’s actually great around almost all other dogs (there are one or 2 she has a fear response too, but we are working on that), it’s people she reacts to more, she won’t let 2 friends of mine into the house, she just goes ferral when they are outside (we are seeing a behaviour trainer next week about this), most people know her as lovely and well behaved though.

So I have no really usful information, but since getting a dog and lockdown I have very little else to talk about 😉

Where did you get him btw? Rescue centres usually insist any dog is neutered at the appropriate age.

There was a litter of seven from a farmer lady who owns the parents(Standard Poodle and Border Collie).
All the puppies went, one of which went to some friends of ours. Meanwhile Harold was returned to the lady as they couldn’t cope. Our friends found out he’d been returned and so we went for it.

It’s brilliant having one of his brothers to hang with. They go full mentalist together.

Oh, I see.
What are your friends doing with their dog? Might help you decide.
I’m lucky, I’ve had three dogs – two now sadly departed – and all three have come to me spayed.
A right tricky decision to be sure.

What are your friends doing with their dog?

Balls out.

Why do we chop their balls of and not give them a vasectomy?

Can’t tell if you’re being funny or you really don’t know why they are not equivalent.

No help to you or the dog but reminded me to rewatch this

We had our Retriever neutered at 14 months, and apart from the first couple of days when he was feeling very sorry for himself we can’t notice any real change in his personality other than he is much less likely to pester other dogs, male or female. This may of course be due to him ageing (now 4 1/2). Some people say it causes their coat to deteriorate and perhaps put on weight but again he has had no issues and people say how fit and well he looks.

Just take one off as a warning.

😂

As for changing behaviour I felt it’s not quite so much comparing before and after as it is comparing after doing it and after not doing it, which is of course not a very helpful suggestion!

We had ours done at 3. Quite honestly I have no idea whether the castration achieved much. He was a great dog but he did need keeping on top of, both before and after. He wasn’t a problem per se in later life but I think we’d also adjusted over time what we allowed him to do, how we trained him and all the rest of it, so I can’t isolate the effects of castration. He had a fairly dominant personality with other dogs. Then we got another one. Bitch, spayed, 3 years younger, ruled the roost with the old boy 100%. He’s sadly gone now.

I wonder whether the real choice we should have taken was between a castration earlier, at say 2, or leaving him be for life. No balls too young changes hormones and how they grow, which I see as a negative, but the flip side is to use it for behavioural change I reckon you’ve got to do it early enough.

I have/had two dogs and both were neutered at my ex-wife’s request. As both were male, they had slight issues with who was top dog and her thought was that it would stop that.

Normal practice is to just neuter one, and then the dogs fall naturally into order. Two would leave them both competing again.

You’ll want some of these to help him get his self-esteem back (allegedly)
https://neuticles.com/

Just take one off as a warning.

Genius!

We’ve not had our two boys done, our vet said we should, and it seemed to be actively pushed at you. We’ve read-up (well my wife has) and we see no need to. I know there is a higher risk of certain illnesses etc, but I’m not sure ours need it for behavioural reasons, they’re working cockers so are very active and a bit crackers, not sure they’d calm any without their knackers. If we did we’d probably try the implant to start with and see how they went on.