The Castration Debate

[stillchasingdereksheppard]

Hi All,

Just wondering what others opinions are on the current castration debate there seems to be with vets? Our vet is adamant that they will only castrate our dog if there is a medical reason and not simply as standard anymore. I am uncomfortable with this and had always planned to have him castrated as he is not a working dog and will not be breeding him and so it seems like the responsible thing to do.

Background

I have a 1 year old male dog that we rescued 6 months ago who was castrated before we adopted him. At the time of adoption we said we would consider a second dog if the right fit came along at the right time as felt that our dog would like the company.
We were contacted by the rescue a couple of months ago to say they had taken in a mother and pups rescued from a fire but mum was attacking pups so they needed to be separated. Estimated to be 8-10 weeks old. We were not sure about it all but agreed to foster as they needed homes quickly. Obviously we fell in love and adopted him.
Puppy is now 4.5 months old. Finished all his vaccinations etc and is fit & healthy. When we last took him into vets for his weight and flea/worming treatments I discussed with them about when they recommend castration. He is a small Jack Russel ISH cross - vet reckons he will be around 8kg fully grown.

Vet is adamant that the new recommendation is that they are not castrated unless there is a medical need and thus chemical castration should be trialed first. I spoke to them regarding the fact the other male dog in the house is castrated and therefore might cause issues if this one remains in tact but they were very 'lets cross that bridge if we come to it'

I did push back that I really wanted him to be castrated. Do not want to have to worry about him being off lead and finding an in season female or any accidental breeding. That our dog walker has a policy that all males on group walks to be castrated by 1 year and we rely on that service etc. Also said we had a contract with the rescue saying we would castrate by 1 year. Vet just sort of shrugged it all off saying well they can't actually make you do it, obviously I said maybe not but I feel its best! Also pointed out that both our pups are rescues of which there are 1000s stuck in kennels so surely castration is part of that solution.

Anyway the vet eventually said we can discuss again in a few months but have a think about it we don't recommend it.

Looked on BVA and actually it says it's unclear and is waiting for more studies.

What is everyone else thinking about this shift? What are other people with puppies doing? It seems from talking to other local owners that all the vets in this area are saying similar things.

I feel like ultimately if I push the vet they will do it however I thought I would see what other options are so I had some consideration first.

Well my “intact” dog used to regularly meet a bitch on heat and really couldn’t care less he finds food a lot more interesting😀. He definitely wouldn’t escape the garden to find one. He’s never humped anything or shown aggression to another dog castrated or uncastrated unless it’s a large (Labrador or bigger ) out of control bouncing lunatic threatening to flatten him then he’ll growl especially if he’s on a leash and can’t escape but I doubt castrating him would stop that.
Lots of fur round his “bollocks” so you can’t really see them.
As my vet so sensibly advised look at the individual dog/circumstances.

Well said @Corgiowner , I couldn't agree more. Don't be a sheep and play by the rules, know your own dog and make the judgements based on that.

We've had four of each sex, with no issues. Never had our intact dogs going crazy for a bitch, never had our in-season bitches harassed by males or followed home from a walk.

I live very rurally admittedly we do have a lot of livestock here, but I never see dogs just out for walk on their own. The only occasions I see an unsupervised dog is when I go through farm yards and sometimes collies are running around or if they’ve lost their owners. Even in rural areas traffic is the big risk to letting dogs out alone we don’t have a lot mainly connected to the farms but it’s still a risk no responsible dog owner just lets a dog out for a walk unsupervised.

The irresponsible will not know or care about the pros and cons of castration!

I waited until our ddog was 3yo before neutering, I think it’s better to allow them to mature a bit before having them done. I think there’s evidence it can make nervous dogs more nervy as well so you need to bear that in mind.

I can’t say I noticed any difference in my dog once he’d been neutered other than him not getting in such a lather if he smells a bitch in heat!

My own experience is that entire males are treated more warily or aggressively by other dogs. Mine are more of a target for sure as entire males when out in popular dog walking areas. Other dogs will growl or bridle and the owner often said “is that an entire male” and do a “what do you expect” face. And honestly, they don’t get that six months after neutering.

Lots and lots of dogs, male and female, don’t like entire dogs. I am much more casual about off lead walking in the middle of nowhere now. I know my dogs are less shirty with entire males and I know neutered dogs aren’t wary of my dogs.

So take that into account - heath is one factor and chances of a dog fight is another. I think MY dogs are pretty well trained and socialised but I don’t have control over other people’s dogs and I feel my male dogs are safer when neutered. But I do an annual chemical castration.

I've genuinely never experienced this in 35 years of owning male dogs. Not once had anyone ask if my dog is entire. Does it depend on the size of dog? My four boys were all close to 65 kg. But other dogs have never really bothered them and we've had no hassle at all from dog owners.

They were all calm dogs, not grumbly but had presence iykwim

Still baffled by a lot of comments here because it's not been our experience, and we live in an area with a lot of dogs.

My boy is entire and is an absolute nobhead with other entire males. I'm lucky enough that my daycare is fine with having him entire, but I've considered neutering several times. What's stopped me so far is firstly the growing and incontrovertible evidence that early neutering is awful for long-term health (the latest study I read suggested that dogs neutered early are much more likely to be frail when older), and secondly the behaviourists I'm working with say it may not have the effect I want - as I don't know what emotion is driving his nobheadery I don't know whether removing testosterone will make things better or worse. Finally, I always wanted to wait until he was at least two years old, so I knew what the adult dog looks like, and we've still got a fair few months to go. I can't help thinking that at least some of the benefits claimed for neutering may just be a result of the dog no longer being an adolescent twat.

^This excepted my intact male dogs only weigh 12-5kg.
Current incumbent walks with females both spayed and unspayed and castrated and uncastrated dogs he keeps himself to himself (a breed trait and he doesn’t like conflict) so gets on with everyone. In fact my neighbour says he’s the only dog her very reactive dog doesn’t bark and growl at.
The two most aggressive (to all dogs) I meet are both castrated.

Thanks for the reassurance @Corgiowner Maybe it is breed dependent then, rather than being about size. Interesting that we both have a pastoral breed. Mine, both males and females, would also make friends with any dog, neutered or unneutered.

I don't know if it depends on the size of the dog or not.

But my most recent Lab did start to get rough treatment from other males as he approached his first birthday. And he has good manners around other dogs ... they just started to sniff him and then "have a go" on several occasions.

I didn't notice it with our previous Lab to the same extent. Maybe we just got unlucky with the dogs we met, I don't know. But the problem did seem to settle down after he got castrated.

That's just my personal experience. I don't know if it's related to size of dog, body language, breed of dog, luck/bad luck or something else.

I don’t know. We’ve had a couple of owners say their dogs don’t like intact males, but they’ve been different breeds, and other dogs of the same breeds haven’t been bothered.

I don’t know if there’s any rhyme or reason to it.

It must be a little bit breed dependent cardigan corgis are known to be a little aloof with people and dogs they don’t know. Mine have always been keen to avoid confrontation.
Maybe also how they are raised makes a difference. I got him at 10/12 from his breeder he’s a failed show dog (he’s not a good enough example to be a stud dog) so he’d lived with other dogs and been in the show ring where I believe high standards of behaviour are expected concentrating on the handler and not interacting with other dogs. Although none of my male dogs have been a problem and all the others arrived as puppies.
He’s not really interested in bitches is season whereas a friends lurcher is obsessed and like someone up thread couldn’t settle when a neighbours bitch was in season. Is that genetic? Someone more knowledgeable than me might know.

A bit of a different take, but my boy was castrated 3 weeks ago. We had no choice in the end as he had a retained testicle, but pushed the op until he was 21 months old and fully mature. He’s a 13kg cocker spaniel.
The vet very much changed his view point from being anti neutering at our first puppy appointment, to being very supportive when it became a necessity. He said the most important thing was for the dog to fully mature physically and mentally, and once past that point there were more pros than cons. Whether or not he was trying to make me feel better I don’t know.
Anyway, he was back to his nutty self in a couple of days and is now fully healed. The only difference so far are no little doggy drips and he smells far less ‘doggy’, both unexpected bonuses!

We didn’t castrate our boy. The only trouble we get is some neutered males who take offence at him. Intact males and bitches - totally fine.

I chose not too because there were no behaviour issues, he was confident with other dogs and people and I didn’t want the loss of testosterone to change that. He’s five now.

We got all ours as puppies, but like yours, it's a breed that is very aloof and standoffish. It's a Livestock Guarding Dog breed. They'd show an interest in friendly dogs, but if it barked they'd completely ignore it. None of them have been highly sexed, they weren't humpers which is also partly why we never saw the need to neuter any of them.

Your vet is KPI’d on getting the temporary castrations first to rinse you for more money. Many have become businesses over welfare unfortunately

I’ve never had this question in London - but rurally I have. I think most dogs in London are extremely well socialised from the beginning and also probably more likely to be neutered.

But I have also had people I’ve chatted to on walks being surprised - so as I neuter at 2 years, I have occasionally had dogs that will get snarly with an entire dog initially on greeting and said to the owners and they don’t know that’s a thing. Labrador owners quite often! Poor Labradors. Or people with big gentle dogs. They think it’s “small dog syndrome”.

I'm not in London or near a city, I'm in the rural north, in a large village which is quite touristy.
We get asked about our dogs a lot, but neutered/not neutered has never once come up in conversation. Last night I asked my partner if he's ever had the question when walking our boys and he said no.
People with small grumbly dogs will say to us that their dog is scared of big dogs and that happens just as much with our bitches.
It never enters my head to wonder whether other dogs are neutered or not because I'm not convinced that it makes much difference.

I agree many vets are happy to run you up an enormous bill for incurable conditions as a ex horse owner I know all about this. And your vet might have this ethos but my current one (small rural practice in a predominately farming area) seems to go out of their way to stop you spending money. When I compare the prices the charge with friends in other places in particular London I’m frequently paying 50% less and for dentistry I paid 75% less than most others paid. As owners we need to question whether the treatment being offered is of long term benefit to the animal, surgical castration in a dog at one time might have been done routinely but it now appears that in some cases there are downsides and in others it’s unnecessary so chemical castration is a way of finding out. I paid £50 for a 6 month chemical castration no idea if this is the norm.
I used to know a surgeon (humans) he said surgery of any description is always a last resort because every operation however small has risks. I accept that it’s very tiny but it comes back to my original point “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.

I've had 2 women shout at me, "is he neutered? It's because he's not neutered" in an attempt to shift blame from their dog showing aggression to mine.

In both cases I could shut them up by explaining that he wasn't even a year old and he did get neutered at exactly one year old as per guide dog guidelines (as you know he was a guide dog puppy in training while I had him).

So some people do use it as an excuse when really their own dogs should be on a lead if they can't interact peacefully with intact males they meet while off lead.

Neutered dogs seem to attack un neutered. My dog is 3 and un neutered, I’m not opposed to neutering him but he causes no problems, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.

This is a very timely thread!

I got my chihuahua as an intact 4yo male. I didn't see the need to do it because I don't let him run around outside, I have read that it won't change his learned behaviour such as needing to mark every bush and bollard he encounters, and I worried about him getting fat - something I already need to watch out for. Only time it was an issue was when there was a bitch in season in the neighbourhood and he was very distracted by it.

Then I very recently was given an unspayed female and this was literally during the week I was moving house. She's been passed around to various people and until I can get her microchip number transfered to me (ie, after 30 days have passed with no response to original owner) I can't really do anything medically with her.

Anyway, she went into season last week! I thought that castrating my male would be an immediate fix to the problem. But the vet said he'd still be fertile for a month or two and his behaviour wouldn't change at all until his testosterone fully declined. Then she told me that she feels it's bad to castrate dogs if not medically necessary, citing a possible increase in anxiety as well as general weight/metabolism issues.

So, now I'm spending all my time keeping them seperated in a small bungalow! Fun times.

Anyway, she will be spayed in the new year. I guess my male will remain intact.

I’d find a different vet immediately.

@Twiglets1
I'm now assuming it's because our lot have mostly been walked on leads that it's never cropped up for us. We have had random off-lead dogs come running up to them, sometimes friendly, occasionally not, but nothing has ever been said by the owners other than telling us their dog doesn't like big dogs. We rarely even get asked the gender; current girl is very large and is presumed to be male by 99% of dog owners. It's a long coated breed so the sex is not obvious.

I have 2 chemically castrated dogs. My eldest is nearly 5 and a very anxious dog and can be reactive to offlead dogs approaching him when he is on lead. I’ve just had an incident with him where he attacked another on lead dog, completely unprovoked. I had moved out of the way of this dog because I don’t allow on lead greetings. He almost pulled me over. I’m left feeling very shocked by this. He didn’t hurt the dog but I think he would have if I hadn’t managed to pull him off. I know all of the risks of making a nervous dog worse, this is the second chemical castration he has had, the first was just before 2 years old and it wasn’t a problem. I have an issue with castrating my boys but felt that chemical castration for both of them might be a good thing. There is no way I’m getting my eldest done after this