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Neutering


Flamincomet

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Link will be 18 months old the end of this month (can't believe how fast time has flown!) and I am starting to consider when to have him neutered. He comes from great working stock (his sire is Riggs, the 2010 national finals open champion), but I don't have the means right now to prove him on stock where I would feel comfortable deciding if he were breed worthy (not to mention my lack of experience). I originally planned to have him fixed at around 18 months, but he ended up going through a really funky fearful/submissive stage that he just seems to now be starting to recover from.

 

I know a lot of people neuter their males at what I would consider to be rather young (6-7 months), but I tend to air on the side of caution, waiting them out to make sure they are as physically and mentally mature as possible. Link is my at home psychiatric service dog (in training for public access), so making sure he is healthy and stable is extremely important as I depend on him so much. I also plan to do performance with him, mainly agility and possibly freestyle, starting serious training this year.

 

Link is also not having any dominance issues (in fact he rarely even lifts his leg) besides the occasional attempted humping of random dogs which is pretty easy to stop, so that is not an issue. He does tend to be more fearful right now as I explained before, but I am wary of having him neutered in the middle of going through such a crucial mental development stage. Kind of like stopping hormonal production in a young man just getting out of puberty.

 

Right now my plan is to reevaluate when he turns two, and see if he is still making improvement. If he is then I think my ideal time to neuter would be about 2 1/2 to 3 years. If not I think I will have him fixed to see if that will help at all.

 

I was curious though what age other people had their dogs neutered (or not), and why. And if anyone has experience with neutering a male that is going through or getting out of a fearful stage.

 

Here are some pics of Link for those that are not familiar with him:

 

6-7 months

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10 months

Link10months9.jpg

 

16 months

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Autumn

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Beautiful dog.

 

My dog did not go through a fearful stage so I can not speak to that issue, but I based my decision on when to neuter dependent on growth plate closure. I did not have X-rays to definitively determine if the growth plates had closed, but rather talked to many owners and several vets on the average age of closure for BCs - so I had him neutered at 15 months.

 

He is a very competitive agility dog. If you have done agility before, you can appreciate how stressful that environment can be. It certainly helps to have a dog without personality issues (fear, aggression or whatever) since they become amplified in such an environment.

 

Jovi

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Beautiful dog.

 

My dog did not go through a fearful stage so I can not speak to that issue, but I based my decision on when to neuter dependent on growth plate closure. I did not have X-rays to definitively determine if the growth plates had closed, but rather talked to many owners and several vets on the average age of closure for BCs - so I had him neutered at 15 months.

 

He is a very competitive agility dog. If you have done agility before, you can appreciate how stressful that environment can be. It certainly helps to have a dog without personality issues (fear, aggression or whatever) since they become amplified in such an environment.

 

Jovi

 

Than you for your input, I neutered a previously owned border collie at about 15 months, due to behavioral issues, and from the picture updates I get he seems to have matured physically very nicely.

 

Link has had some groundwork for agility, and we have taken some puppy agility classes, but stopped after he went into the fear period because I didn't want to exacerbate the issues he was having. As a young puppy he was extremely confident, almost no fear at all, so I think once he's matured he will be fine, but I will have to wait and see. Now that he is responding much better to training I am planning to start serious performance training with him this summer and see how it goes.

 

Autumn

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I neutered my young trial dog at 3 years. My primary reason was that he was very distracted by his hormones and it was interfering with work and annoying to me away from work (wandering, sniffing, darting off to greet the girls). He was a fairly submissive male amongst more dominant intact males, not aggressive or macho to other males at all...but worried about his place in the pack.

 

An unexpected benefit post neutering was that he seemed MORE confident. I think that being intact and low on the totem pole was a very insecure place for him. Before neutering him, I worried that he might become even less confident...I was completely wrong about this. I think an insecure dog may become even less secure dealing with the influence/drive of hormones.

 

He's a lot happier now and less worried about pack order and much more confident socially......and now fully focused when working.

 

JMO....others results may vary :rolleyes: Good luck!

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I think that being intact and low on the totem pole was a very insecure place for him.

 

That is a very interesting point to consider, thank you! Link tends to be very submissive (with both dogs and people) and I've noticed that some other dogs will consistently bully him for it, I have to really watch the other dog's body language in introductions to make sure I know if I need to intervene. He's a very sweet boy and just wants to be everybody's best friend right now, but some dogs don't like that apparently.

 

If you knew what you knew earlier about how neutering would effect him, would you have still waited until he was 3, or had it done a bit earlier?

 

Autumn

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My general plan for my males is to have them neutered around 2, or shortly thereafter. However, I've not exactly managed to stick to my own general plan :lol: . I had my Linc neutered closer to three, and Nick closer to four. Some of that was due to trying to pick a time when I wouldn't need them as much - ie not many trials going on, and not much practical stuff for us to help out with. The other consideration for me was money - so I waited until it made better financial sense. But really neither of them were overly male-ish to have around, at least not enough to make me crazy, so there wasn't any driving rush.

 

I will say that one of my males actually became both more confident and more relaxed in general. My other male became less inclined to be an idiot. I found that it impacted both of them to the positive both when working and just when hanging out. I think BOTH of them became more focused when working, and Nick actually became a bit tougher (though some of that could just be him maturing in general).

 

I don't know if I would have changed anything had they been in a fear period. I almost wonder if it wouldn't help the fear situation.

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He is extremely handsome! My vote would be any time around two years of age. I had Celt neutered at six months and have regretted doing it so young ever since. We left Bute until 18 months, and Dan until about 20 months (with Dan, we were also trying to forestall some personality conflicts with Celt, and we both think the neutering at that time was helpful and not too young, as well).

 

Good luck with making the right decision!

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If you knew what you knew earlier about how neutering would effect him, would you have still waited until he was 3, or had it done a bit earlier?

 

Autumn

 

 

Autumn,

My dog was very friendly and non-aggressive with other dogs....really too friendly (read: horny) and the interaction often deteriorated with the other dog reacting negatively.

 

I feel that waiting until my male was 3 yrs was appropriate as I wanted to complete his training. He was running in Open and very very nice but not fully focused due to his hormones. As talented as he is, he's not much use to me if he has to stop work to mark or flirt with the let out dog or constantly wandering to search for bitches. All that has stopped since his neuter.

 

I don't spay/neuter all my dogs but don't hesitate to do it if it is clearly the right thing. Unless it's abundantly clear that sterilization is in order, I like to finish the training on my working dogs before making a decision about spay/neuter. If spay/neuter is abundantly clear (ie health or behavior issue or a working "dud"), then I wouldn't hesitate to do it asap....preferably waiting until around 2 yrs, but I'll do it sooner if hormones are a big issue.

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If you go to http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf they have an article that is basically a summary of many studies regarding effects of spay/neuter correlating with age. I actually did the research about a 1 1/2 yr ago because I was getting my first male and wanted him to develop to his fullest. From reading several studies and articles I found that neutering after 18-24 months was best. Of course, for male dogs the only increased health risk in an intact male is testicular cancer which rarely metastizes and is easily treated with neutering. Otherwise, leaving an male intact actually decreases the risk of many other types of cancer. Its fascinating stuff, I highly recommend reading a lot of articles and studies that are written by credible sources before making your decision. Best of luck! :)

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An unexpected benefit post neutering was that he seemed MORE confident. I think that being intact and low on the totem pole was a very insecure place for him. Before neutering him, I worried that he might become even less confident...I was completely wrong about this. I think an insecure dog may become even less secure dealing with the influence/drive of hormones.

 

 

With respect to agility (since that is in your future), insecurity issues can be very problematic.

 

Case in point: my friend no longer competes in agility with her 6 yr old intact dog (a Welsh Springer Spaniel) because he is so fearful of other dogs at agility trials that he shuts down. He will trot or walk around the course or go off and sniff. It is too bad because he was a wonderful agility dog when younger, but I think that the environment at trials is too overstimulating to him, and he is worried about the other dogs he sees outside the ring. [This 'diagnosis' of fearfulness is the best guess after she sought advice from trainers & a behaviorist and had him checked out for any physical issues that might be causing him to be slow and dislike agility trials. He does much better at her home course.) She is resistant to getting him neutered even though she is not going to breed him and neutering may (not 100% certain) help resolve his issues.

 

I do not know what your dog is fearful about, but if he does show insecurity around other dogs, you may want to watch him carefully in class/trial situations to see if and how it is affecting his performance/demeanor. Even if he is fearful, the BC focus can sometimes overcome his fears if he wants to perform agility bad enough. (e.g. another person I know has a fearful BC but he loves agility so much that he performs well on the course if he is kept in a secluded place at trials and she just brings him out to run the course and takes him right back to his crate. If he is exposed to other dogs too much, he will shut down.)

 

Sorry about the rambling answer to your neutering question, but just wanted to address the fear issue with respect to neutering. As already indicated, the timing of neutering is an individual decision (with a responsible owner).

 

BTW, the article cited above is excellent.

 

Jovi

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