Another castration question and marking!

[leolion]

I'd be grateful for people's views on the following. I have a 2.5 years old male welsh springer. We decided against castration as we had been told that it can make dogs more skittish and nervy. However, we have developed a problem with him marking. He is great in our house, but anywhere else that is indoors, he immediately cocks his leg.

The last straw was yesterday when we decided to take him to my mum's for the first time in months (we'd stppoed because he marked there before). She has a female cocker spaniel. I kept him on his lead and he was under supervision for the whole time.....until I went to the loo and he ran upstairs and cocked his leg on my mum's dry clean only bed spread. We now cannot take him to anybody's house, and our previous dog sitter has refused to have him in her house, which i can understand. Would getting him castrated stop this behaviour, and in your opinion, does castrating have any other effects on behaviours- positive or negative?

Thanks in advance.

I've skimmed the thread so apologies if this has already been mentioned , but take care if you request chemical castration to make sure the vet offers you the implant rather than Tardak injection. Tardak isn't appropriate for behavioural "testing" purposes as it can have a slightly sedating effect.

I agree that for males neutering has questionable benefits in many individuals. I no longer recommend it unless the owner asks about it, and have a discussion about it with them before going ahead. The risks to the dog are rarely outweighed by the benefits unless the individual is showing distinct sex-related problems and the behaviour is not yet learned.

To whoever said that neutering benefits male dogs by reducing sexual aggression, dogs don't tend to be aggressive due to testosterone. That's a complete fallacy. There is a suggestion, based only on anecdotal evidence but quite widely accepted, that neutering an anxious or fearful male may exacerbate the problem.

Neutering is not a panacea.

I was recommended suprelorin if I wanted to try chemical castration.

That's the implant Lil. Tardak is a progestogen so it has a mild sedative effect in some cases, making it inappropriate as a measure of how a dog will behave once castrated.

I got my first collie aged 3 and castrated within a couple of weeks. He stopped cocking his leg completely.

Current collie came from rescue at 18months old immediately after castration. He has never cocked at all since he came here, he just squats to empty his bladder when it's full. He doesn't sniff the pee-mail in the street either.