Advised NOT to castrate dog

[Userl0]

Hello, I was just wondering if anybody could maybe give some advice on this.

We have a 12 month old poodle and at recent vet visit we have been advised not to castrate at all but consider chemical castration instead 'just incase because we can't stick them back on'.

I understand that it can alter their temperament sometimes and as he is quite reactive to other dogs (never shown aggression, but he's quite skittish when they come behind him which due to numerous of off lead encounters which is a whole separate issue! and it's created reactivity which we've made massive progress on already for the most part). That is the reason I mention. Will castration make this reactivate behaviour worse and why it's not advised or is there another reason.

The answer I got when I asked why not to castrate at all, was the 'just incase you change your mind we can't stick them back on'. I have absolutely no intention of breeding from him so I don't understand the logic.

If anybody can help that would be fab. He's our first young dog for years! And when our older dogs were at the age a castration it was done 6 months.

Thanks!

We did chemical castration with our nervous resource-guarding cocker spaniel when he was 2 years old to ensure we didn't make his issues worse. It didn't, & it reduced the incidents of aggression and humping from other dogs (our poor lad was targeted quite a few times & although I intervened as quickly as possible it wasn't fun for either of us), so we did go for full castration when he was 3 years old.
The chemical castration was a good trial run & I'd do it again for any future dogs before committing to castration; I'd always spay a bitch though as my understanding is that the health benefits (cancer and pyometra risks) outweigh behavioural impacts.

We were actually thinking of castrating our 6 year old because of medical issues earlier this year (enlarged prostate and cysts on prostate). The vets ran some blood tests first and discovered he had elevated liver scores, totally unexpected. So then chemical castration was off the cards.

He lives with our 9 year old, who is a tricky one tbh. I was anxious that if our younger one was done, the older one would pick on him, and we can't have two huge dogs fighting.

So we just left it. Btw we discovered he has copper storage disease, which is causing the elevated liver scores - we would never have known.

I'm pretty sure it's only Norway where it is illegal without a valid medical reason. Denmark and Sweden have different rules

Why would you want to castrate him? Our vet told us it wasn't advised for dogs any more. None of my friends with male dogs have had it done and the people I've chatted to about it in the park who went ahead with it have all regretted it because of personality changes

I have a reactive dachshund and chemical castration made him much worse. I’m glad we did that rather than go straight for castration. He is improving slowly with age and a lot of hard work.

If you dont want to castrate until 2 for development reasons you shouldn’t chemically castrate either. The logic behind leaving them intact is to keep the testosterone until the growth plates have closed, so you are losing all the benefit by chemically castrating.