The time has come to de-bollock the dog.

[Silbury]

he is 3 (ish). And is only now doing those irritating boy-dog things.
Is it too late?
Will he never forgive me?
Will he stop trying to seduce the other dog?
How much does de-bollocking cost?

cost depends on size of dog; = amount of anaesthetic used and any complications.
It isnt too late, but dont just do this to correct a behaviour. That rarely works and in some cases can make things worse.

There isnt anything to forgive, your dog wont care if he gets castrated or not.

I subscribe to castration is best policy.

lol, phone your vet, methinks.

He's very small.

And very in love with the bigdog.

I remember asking our vet how much it was. I replied, " oh, blimey, expensive...can we have one taken off this year and the other next year?"

If you are doing this because he is humping then you're wasting your money and his balls. Humping is not a sexual (only sexual in the presence of an in season bitch) but dominance behaviour and once you remove his testostorone and he begins to loose some confidence (testostorone is what gives him confidence) he may hump more to assert his dominance! It's also a learned behaviour and habit, it needs to be trained out of him not cut out! If he has a well established humping habit it's all in his head not his balls I'm afraid.

my dog has humped all his life and had his knackers off as a pup. He just loves to hump.

Am I right to think that if having nuts off to affects behaviour, it needs to be done before puberty? I am thinking that mammal brains are strongly affected (changed) by sex hormones; removing gonads reduces the dose of sex hormones. But what's done is done; if a dog has had nearly 3 yrs of sexually mature hormones then removing gonads now unlikely to make a difference, the brain changes are already done.

Our previous dog was neutered at 3/4. He was a persistent humper (legs mostly). When we had dd we realised this could be a serious problem. Also, it was a good idea medicallyas he was monoorchid - we really should have had him done before but DH was empathetically squeamish.

It did vastly reduce his humping. For a while he'd occasionally start, then look puzzled like 'I know I used to enjoy this but now - meh'. It also stopped him from being a fussy eater. It didn't noticably change his character in any other way. Evidently he hadn't read the books that some previous posters have

So, it may help. It will also remove the possibility of cancers in later life - vets often recommend for this reason alone.

(to be clear, that's 3-4 years not 9 months!)

We got our lab when he was 5 and I asked vet about it as it seems to be what rescues recommend. Vet said there was no benefit to dog and it's only benefit would be to stop him reproducing.

He doesn't get out alone and isn't a humper anyway so we have not had it done yet.

Its not so much humping but rolling around suggestively. Sniffing and constant flirting with the bigdog.

Does BigDog mind? If not, is this going to scandalize the neighbourhood or corrupt the innocence of small DCs?