Has chemical castration helped your dog settle around other dogs?

[LibbyL92]

My lovely JRT has been expelled from doggy daycare (he was on a trail as he isn’t castrated) and he spent the day sniffing around all of the other dogs, not letting them rest, not playing ect and even growling.

when we have him off of the lead he bolts away straight away to any other dog in sight and sniffs constantly. Zero recall when another dog is in sight.

his reactivity isn’t great, when on the lead he’ll drag and bark sometimes at people going by. And cocks his leg up every single wall/tree ect, even if his tank is empty!

He is the most hilarious, loveable little guy. But we just want him to be able to play with other dogs and not spend his whole time annoying them, and hoping he gets another shot at day care!

we’ve booked in for chemical castration. Any advice, or feedback if you have done the same with your dog, and if there were any positive changes? or any tips?

he will be two in November.

I would look at behavioural neutrality and reactivity training. Day cares are not good for dogs.

"Zero recall when another dog is in sight.'

Then he shouldn't be off the lead. Every time he gets to ignore you off the lead, you slip further away from any type of reliable recall. Recall isnt "oh I go back when there is absolutely nothing else to do and there might be a treat".

"he will be two in November"

You're trying to move way too fast. IMO, a dog cannot be off lead until they are at least 2.5 to 3 because their puppy obedience is an illusion. When you get through their teens and they are still obedient, that is when you know what dog you have.

"we’ve booked in for chemical castration."

You haven't even tried to train this dog, yet.

"his reactivity isn’t great, when on the lead he’ll drag and bark sometimes at people going by."

And what do you do? This is unacceptable behaviour! Imagine if I let my rottweiler do that?!

"And cocks his leg up every single wall/tree ect, even if his tank is empty!"

We stick to the rule that we don't pee walking to and from the park. We walk to heel. When we "break" in the park, pee your little heart out. The pee thing is dominance. I dont want my rottie thinking he runs this street. He has access to the garden so can go out to pee any time. He isnt doing it because he needs to urinate, he's trying to show he is King of the village.

Thank you for the reply. Appreciate the feedback.

it’s my first dog, and I’ll admit I need to do more training. Overall he is very good, and it isn’t every time we’re out.

of course the training is an on going thing. But I just wondered if the castration would help in anyway alongside. We don’t plan on breeding him. And a couple of dogs in our local area don’t seem to like him very much (maybe because he’s intact?)

The thing is, at 2, you'll need balanced training IMO. I will say my opinion comes from having big guardian breeds, but terriers are pretty full on themselves. You need balanced training because you are needing to modify behaviour at this point. Fix bad habits and establish new ground rules.

I'd recommend Will Atherton.

Thank you, I’m glad I posted as it’s definitely got me thinking about the training side of things.

I will take a look!

Castration won’t solve learned behaviour. He won’t suddenly become an angel. All it’ll do is mean he’s less distracted and therefore might be easier to train.

If you do want him castrated, for the love of god don’t do chemical castration. It’s fucking awful and I’ve seen many perfectly good dogs ruined by it. All that buggering about with their hormones. Just get him done properly.

Out of interest what negatives? I’ve only ever had good results so far (used chemical twice)

I know of several people whose dogs had hideous character changes after chemical castration, including a friend of mine who ended up with a hospitalised husband and a euthanised Labrador thanks to Superlorin.

Not everyone has a bad experience but if you do you’ve got a dog with a complete personality change often with severe aggression involved and sadly coming off the chemicals doesn’t always solve it. I just wouldn’t take the risk.

I’ve yet to meet a single owner who regrets having their boy surgically castrated.

Dumb question. Why not just have your dog desexed, and commit to proper training?

Why chemical castration?

Hello! We had our Labrador chemically castrated in February. He was 14 months old. He only goes to daycare for half a day every other week and it was actually them who suggested it, as they felt his boisterous behaviour was largely hormonal. It's been great for him and he will be having the full procedure in the summer. Positives: went from constant humping to zero, considerably less marking, and calms down more easily now (so therefore easier to train). He is a bit on-lead reactive (frustration and excitement, not aggression) and that hasn't changed at all with the castration. We do a lot of training on it. Recall is the same as before (very good but wouldn't trust him not to run up to other dogs). He's only ever off lead in a secure field or at daycare (when he's already with a pack of dogs). However daycare so seem to find him much easier so I believe it has calmed him down a bit more around other dogs. They will still only have him for half a day though, so I think whilst the castration has helped massively in general, his behaviour with other dogs will improve mostly with training and age. I'd really recommend the chemical castration in the first instance as you can just let it wear off it is makes any behaviour worse.

Why choose chemical castration over normal castration? What are the benefits of this?

I have to admit we never had our late male dog castrated but he didn’t display the behaviours above. He definitely went through teenage years and jumped everything that wasn’t nailed down but that didn’t last very long.

My dog is currently 10 months old (female) and she would probably run over to other dogs. I don’t let her off the lead of another dog is in sight. I choose routes with good sight so I can recall her before she sees any dog that comes along and she doesn’t interact with other dogs off lead. I arrange times for her to play with other dogs I know so she can learn to respect boundaries but she is also learning she can’t approach any dog she likes. When I let her off the lead she sits and waits until I release her. We go to dog training once a week and although she is learning the commands and working hard, she’s mainly learning to ignore other dogs and people. She will walk around the hall, wait and recall without running to any of the dogs in the hall. I know I wouldn’t get the same out in the “wild” just yet.

Had our JRT chemically castrated and it made him significantly loose fur on his tummy, to the point he looked bald underneath.
Behaviour wise I think he just matured, dog trainer helped as he learnt from other dogs. Although the humping stopped.

He's been fully done now, turns 3 in September. If I had the time again, wouldn't have gone down the chemical route at all.

The chemical castration on my 5yr old has just worn off, unfortunately I’ve had it done again as my young bitch will have to have another season as I couldn’t get her spayed at the right time in her cycle.
My male dog has always been good with other dogs even big boisterous out of control bouncing in his face (which he really doesn’t like) types, he just tended to ignore them but since the chemical castration he started growling at large bouncy in his face type dogs when they were about 2m away. It did stop him peeing on every stone and he seemed to be less playful and quieter. The impact on his behaviour came on over slowly I’ve never castrated my male dogs before and I put the fact that he was less playful and quieter down to his age but since it’s worn off he’s back to his normal ridiculous self!
He’s got good recall and has been at doggy day care once a week for 4 years and chemically castrated or not he tends to avoid other dogs he likes to do his own thing, he’s a cardigan corgi and they are know to be stand offish with people and dogs they don’t know.
Assuming I can get the bitch spayed in the autumn I definitely won’t be doing it again.
Should add a friends dog has appalling recall he’s been surgically castrated!

My lab is like this, he is 12 months old and extremely excitable and boisterous around other dogs.
Well, I say he is like this but I’ve noticed a marked improvement in his behaviour over the last few months with regular training. I’d never be able to walk him to heel past other dogs before because he would pull and lunge and he is around 30kgs! For months I would pull him to the side, give him a wait command and then reward. Gradually he got better and better at this and now I can get him to walk to heel past other dogs, even if they are lunging and barking at him. Or he will sit and wait quietly to one side if the path is too narrow.

Recall around other dogs is still shaky but much better. He’s trained to recall to a whistle. I let him off lead in places where I can see for a fair distance and put him back on lead if I see other dogs. If I catch him before he bolts to another dog I can give a firm ‘no’ or a ‘this way’ (whilst changing direction) and he will listen to be fair to him. I’ve done most of this training on an extendable lead on a regular part of our walk and it seems to be doing the trick. He still has the odd slip up but he is still so young and obviously still in tact. Yesterday I let him play with an off lead staffy, they were both having a great time - matched each other’s energy and he did come back to the whistle each time I used it but I would let him go back and play again so he didn’t think the whistle meant fun time was over.

I can easily get him to ignore people now - when he was younger he’d pull towards and try and jump up at strangers but he stopped doing that a good while ago.

Mine is a working line lab and he is much worse in new places than our usual route so when we go somewhere new, I tend to do some heel work with him first, some retrieves to burn off the initial energy and excitement and then he’s usually ‘switched on’ for the rest of the walk. I’m happy with his progress so far. He’s my first dog though.

@LibbyL92 I agree with the above comments that castration (chemical or otherwise) will not solve your problem. It could even make it worse.

Training is the way to go. You need reliable 'sit', 'down', 'heel', and recall as a very minimum.

You need to use simple words for each, and the dog's name in front. Most owners I deal with are really inconsistent with cue words which makes it really hard for the dog. Example - for recall 'Rex Come'. No other variation, don't just call his name and expect him to know you want him to come back to you.

You also need a release word so the dog knows when to stop doing whatever he has been asked to do.

Will Atherton is good, but doesn't show a great deal of the important stuff on his videos as he wants you to buy his courses (this is not uncommon or a bad thing, they're using YouTube to drive their business).

I always get my dogs neutered. My choice. It is not a substitute for training. IME it helps with some things, not necessarily with others. Training is always important for the dogs, for you, and for everyone who interacts with your dog.

I had my dog chemically castrated as I wanted to see if it made a difference to his humping which was getting out of hand (but also wanted to see if it affected his character before I decided on surgical.)It did, he stopped it completely. He has a dog walker every day who has noticed the difference. He certainly minds his own business more but he still pees up every corner marking his territory. However his behaviour is down to training which we started when we got him and he went out with other dogs early on too. CC didn’t make it easier to train him but he has become a bit more clingy, though he is a Springer so likes to be with us.

We had our dog (a spaniel/poodle cross) surgically castrated just before two earlier this year. I personally didn't try chemical castration first as wasn't convinced two would be directly comparable and I didn't have any reason to be overly concerned about him becoming fearful etc.
He definitely doesn't hump now but he still marks (although not as much and will do more big wees). His recall to other dogs is good but as soon as he gets over excited (usually after seeing a squirrel) he goes tearing off into the woods for a good few minutes so he wasn't allowed off lead due to poor recall. This hasn't improved at all with neutering so he is still not allowed off lead. The main benefit of neutering for us has actually been that his pee no longer stinks! As a doodle it would often drip on his fur and he was pretty stinky. Now that intact male urine smell is completely gone 😀