Castration

[insanityscratching]

Can I have people's thoughts for and against please?

Eric is getting on for eight months old and a delight so wouldn't be looking to castrate him to calm him down and he doesn't really hump but he is a bit pre occupied by his bits and spends a lot of time grooming down there. Obviously we won't be breeding from him but he is walked on and off lead as his recall is perfect for me whereas dh tends to stick with a longline because Eric is choosy about whether he is listening to dh or not.

So what are the advantages and disadvantages and if it needs doing when would be the best time?

Thank you

If Eric is a dog, then fair enough.

If Eric s your husband/ son, probably best not!

He's less likely to get certain diseases, such as testicular cancer and most prostate diseases.
He will be calmer with less testosterone in his system, and thus you'll be calmer too.
He'll mark less, inside and out, since he has less incentive to announce his presence.
The lower level of testosterone can improve if not eliminate roaming, aggression, humping, and other dominance-related behaviors. (He still might want to hump, but mounting after neutering has more to do with dominance than sex. He can still show interest in females in heat or hump your knee.)
In the case of senior dogs, neutering reduces the size of an enlarged prostate.
The health and behavioral benefits occur whether your boy is a wee puppy or distinguished senior citizen.

Personally if I were going to have a dog castrated I would wait until he was around 1 year old. However many of the reasons cited in the aboce post aren't necessarily thought of as reasons to castrate male dogs nowadays. Old school vets may reel all of those off, but some recent studies have shown that the incidence of testicular cancers, anal adenomas, enlarged prostates etc aren't actually all that prevalent anyway. So you are castrating to avoid a very small chance he may develop any of those. The treatment of which is to castrate in most cases!

Dominance/pack theories are also disproved, as you probably know, being a regular poster in here :) I've said it on here before, that my dog is female. She humps out of excitement! Even my daughter

I think if I owned a male dog, I wouldn't castrate unless I had a reason to. He humped everything, he was seeking out females, disappearing on walks to find women, marking, he had regular access to an entire female etc.

Don't assume he will stop humping! DDog doesn't any more (very elderly) but certainly did on occasion in his youth despite being castrated at an early age. Personally we had him neutered because we really didn't want to be in any way responsible for bringing more unwanted puppies into the world - but then at the time we were in Spain where there are a lot more un-neutered bitches around & often roaming free, I guess the UK is different. But I think personally I'd still be uncomfortable having an entire dog off lead just in case.

Sorry, too many personallys in that post!