How long does it take for neutering to affect behaviour if it's going to?

[Notenjoyingtheheat]

Just had our dog neutered on the advice of our Vets. He is aggressive towards another male dog in the house.
How long is it likely to take before we notice a change in his behaviour?
He is currently worse than before although I appreciate this is probably because of pain from the operation and it was only a week ago.

I read somewhere that it takes several weeks for the testosterone to reduce.

Neutering alone will not resolve the problem; there's a debate over whether or not neutering can make issues around fear and anxiety (which can manifest as aggression) worse.

I would strongly advise getting a behaviourist in - they need to be APBC or CCAB accredited as there are a lot of cowboys in the industry
www.asab.org/ccab-register
apbc.org.uk/help/regions

It will not stop his aggressive behaviour - sorry you have been given incorrect information from your vet -it is more likely to make his aggression worse.

You need to contact a qualified behaviourist to help with the aggression -if you need help sourcing one just pm me and I can help.

Scientific studies has confirmed that the only behaviour neutering changes is scent marking.....I will try and find the link

Bad advice.
How old are the dogs and have they always lived together?

Oh great 😕 Thanks all.
They have always lived together and will cuddle up for 90% of the time but the other 10% is spent with the younger one (3yra) growing and trying to provoke the older (6yrs)
There have been numerous fights where serious blood is drawn.
We have young children (2 & a baby on the way) so can't afford to risk them being caught in the crossfire. I also don't like the fact our toddler is completely unphased by the growling and fighting, which wouldn't bode well for a dog doing it towards her.

The dog doesn't have to do it to her. The issue could be if she gets in the middle. Can you keep the dogs separate?
Do they get enough exercise and mental stimulation?

We were told that neutering was not advised if there was any fear aggresssion of others dogs and people and I was asked about any behavioural issues before they would neuter.
Presumably your vet was aware of the type of issues that your dog was having. I guess it depends on whether that aggression is down to testosterone or other influences on whether it makes an impact or not. I assume as your vet advised it they thought it was down to the hormones.

Yes, sorry he's friendly to humans although has growled at me and shown teeth a number of times. Normally at the tail end of a fight though.
I don't think he'd ever go for a human though but it would be if either dog turned around and bit her whilst in one of their phases.
I really hope having this done is not going to make him worse. Unfortunately separating the dogs isn't really possible. They are separate from DD though unless we are in the garden or on a walk.

I am not a vet but looked at this a lot before having my dog done. Any aggression due to fear can be made worse as they don't have the testosterone to 'help them' be confident and therefore might lash out more. Aggression due to testosterone will hopefully help as they no longer have as much (I understand they still have some as I think a very small amount is produced by something other than their testicles but can't remember exactly).

I can see this going one (or a combination) of a few different ways

• there is a serious fight and one dog is killed or seriously injured
• there is a serious fight and you, your child or someone else in the vicinity receives a significant injury because they try to break it up or are just caught in the crossfire
• one dog (probably the younger one) is rehomed to be an only dog
• matters escalate and a dog is euthanased for aggression
• you get a qualified (APBC / CCAB accredited) behaviourist in to hopefully resolve the problems

This isn't going to get better by itself, and neutering is not going to solve your issues. Right now your dogs are miserable and feeling dreadfully unsafe in their own home.

If you don't get well qualified professional help, I really can't see this going well.

Our dog was getting cross with some other unneutered males, just lots of barking and growling, nothing more. Post neutering, he has mostly stopped. The exception is 2 dogs who he just doesn’t like. A noisy fear aggressive dog who had snapped at him in the past and they still bark and growl at each other a lot. The other is a huge bouncy dog who jumped up at me and I sort of yelped in surprise. My dog loathes this one with a passion and certainly hasn’t got any less cross with him.

To try and understand whether neutering will affect behaviour you need to understand the impac testosterone has on confidence and aggression.

Testosterone lowers the threshold for aggression - it means the dog will use aggression at lower levels of provocation than he would if he had less testosterone. So, from that point of view, neutering lowers testosterone and therefore should lower aggression.

BUT

Testosterone also increases confidence. A confident dog may cope wit situations better than an under confident one and so be less 'provoked' in the same situation. This would mean that neutering a dog is more likely to leave him feeling provoked and therefore increase the chances of him feeling like aggression is his only way to avoid the situation.

If your dog is already confident and aggressive then neutering may help.

If he is under confident and aggressive it may make him worse.

Obviously, there are multiple complex variations whenever you are looking at behaviour so life is never as clear cut as above, but it gives you the guidelines.

In my opinion, if the dogs are drawing blood they are really meaning to fight. Just neutering is not going to be a magic wand. You need a good behaviourist in to help you.

Honestly if you can't separate them (even temporarily)I can't see how this won't end in an awful fight. And if your child is caught in the middle?
You need to take action. Separate the dogs. Somehow.
Find a really good behaviourist. Be careful. It's an unregulated industry.
Or rehome one ASAP.