Behaviour questions re - The Intact male

[KrisK]

I have never had an intact male beyond 6 months old. However, having read the posts regarding neutering, I am going to do my best to not neuter Flint too early. He is 5 months old and already weighing in at 16.3 kg. (around 37 lbs) and he's tall and lanky! I think neutering him at this age will only make him moreso.

However....we live in the country and I know at least one farmer has an unspayed female loose all the time (around 3 1/2 km from here)

We have a fully fenced yard (5 ft) fencing and the dogs are generally out there. If we're not home, the dogs are always inside. However, I work all day and DH is home....and not always attentive to what the dogs might be doing.

What are the chances that Flint may try to escape if there's a female in heat in the area? How much do I need to worry about this? Not only do I not want to be responsible for bringing pups into the world...a lot can happen to a dog running loose around here.

Are there any precautions I can take...

I'll apologize now for my total lack of knowledge....I can only go on my vague recollections of our dogs when I was a kid and I know that they did wander.

[Liz P]

I've owned intact males for almost 20 years. The only time I had a dog run off was when my then 9 month old male chased a deer across several towns. That had nothing to do with being intact. I made a mistake and left the gate open. Being an adolescent, my dog was practicing selective hearing.

[mbc1963]

My family had an unfixed male when I was a kid. Mind you, it was in the days when we let dogs run loose... But that dog used to take off a couple times a year and be gone for days, wilding. He broke through a cellar window to get at the female across the street. He was a very, very bad (well-loved) dog. Can't say how much was his being unfixed, and how much was his temperament. I wouldn't want the responsibility in my life.

 

Mary

[mum24dog]

We have a fully fenced yard (5 ft) fencing

 

My Jack Russell can scale a 5ft fence with ease - it won't stop your dog if he wants to go.

 

But even intact dogs vary very much in their interest in bitches so noone can really answer your question. You've had two replies so far - one telling of dogs that were no trouble, one of a dog that would break out. That's pretty much how it is.

 

Don't panic about your dog getting taller if he is neutered early. Any studies of which the results suggest there may be a connection have only found a very minimal possible increase. We aren't talking much if indeed it happens at all.

 

Pam

[Gil]

Started out with the plan of keeping Gil intact till the age of two unless he had behavioral problems that neutering would help. Wanted to wait till he was mature mentally and physically before doing it. He is now 4.5,still intact and behaves fantastic. Don't have a fenced yard so he is only outside under supervision. Suburban setting so all dogs are supposed to be fenced or leashed. Will I neuter him? Depends, right now I have a one dog household and have no reason to do it. We compete in flyball and train agility, obedience, rally and some herding. Hope to get back to competeing in agility and obedience soon. Think it comes down to the dogs personality and the situation at home.

Jenny

[Jo&Tex]

Spot is 11 months and still intact (not my choice, but not my dog).

 

He does not wander off the property on his own. We have gone thru 2 heats with an intact female since Spot has arrived and neither dog seemed very concerned or stressed.The female isolates herself in her crate and wants nothing to do with anybody during this time.

 

So, I'd agree with depends on the dog.

[Rudolph]

I, too, am in the same situation as Jenny. So far, it has worked out for us.

(My only observation is that once he reached maturity, he seemed to be occasionally "targeted" by the fixed males at the dog park. Needless to say, we don't go to dog parks anymore!)

Cheers,

Tina

 

Started out with the plan of keeping Gil intact till the age of two unless he had behavioral problems that neutering would help. Wanted to wait till he was mature mentally and physically before doing it. He is now 4.5,still intact and behaves fantastic. Don't have a fenced yard so he is only outside under supervision. Suburban setting so all dogs are supposed to be fenced or leashed. Will I neuter him? Depends, right now I have a one dog household and have no reason to do it. We compete in flyball and train agility, obedience, rally and some herding. Hope to get back to competeing in agility and obedience soon. Think it comes down to the dogs personality and the situation at home.

Jenny

[Cindy Evans]

I agree, it depends on the dog. I'm one that waits for sexual maturity before spaying/neutering. If you're just waiting for sexual maturity so the head can broaden and the ribs spring well I doubt you'll really have all that much problem. You just have to be careful.

[Anda]

Ouzo will be 7 at the end of October, and he's intact. He's never ever tried to mount another dog. He's actually more interested in insistingly sniffing male dogs than females

 

I've never had any issues with him but he's walked on leash every day except the time we go to dog parks and other parks when he's off leash and doesn't show any interest in any other dogs.

[Anda]

Oops - hit reply instead of edit

[MrSnappy]

I like Dexter a lot better now that he's neutered. He's much less interested in other dogs and the various smells they leave behind, and he doesn't bother the female fosters I take in anymore. Overall, his attention span improved, and he stopped lifting his leg on my curtains whenever TWooie pissed him off.

 

He's the tallest of the bunch too. Tweed, who was neutered at 4 months, is the itty bitty boy. If neutering them early really made them tall, Tweed woulda been a midget!

 

I hoped Dex would get that fabulous mane that some intact males get. Alas, I got the puppy from the litter with weird, wrong direction growing rat coat, so that never happened ;-)

 

RDM

[Gloria Atwater]

I'd also say that it depends on the dog. If this local intact bitch isn't flaunting herself right outside your gate, I'd think he should be okay.

 

I'd just want to be sure DH doesn't let your boy out to roam as well, because in my book, that's not only an invitation for him to stray into disaster, (mating with other loose dogs, chasing cats and chickens, harassing livestock) but it's a good way to get him hit by a car.

 

So, as long as he stays in your dog yard, and the farmer's bitch doesn't bring her stinky butt right to your door, I would expect that nice 5 foot fence to keep him in. So long as he doesn't learn to dig out ...

 

~ Gloria

[Alchemist]

My very first Border collie was an intact male (neutering wasn't as common way back then). He was my "heart dog", the best friend a gawky teenaged girl ever had. I did a lot of obedience training with him, and we had a special rapport. We had a fenced back yard at the time with a six-foot fence. Unfortunately, one day the gate was left unlatched. A female dog was in heat several blocks away and Jack took advantage of that brief moment of opportunity and went wandering. My younger brother went out in search of him only to witness him getting run over and killed. I was away at school at the time and still remember, as if it were only yesterday rather than ~ 40 years ago, the crushing misery of the letter from home telling me of Jack's death.

[alligande]

Like you I decided to keep my boy intact until he was at least 18 months old because we do sports, he is 3 now and still intact and will proberly be for life. We joke he does not know what a bitch is and has never humped anything, my current female foster marks more on walks than he does. Like others have said see how he develops.

[Gideon's girl]

My neutered early 20 month old just started lifting his leg and marking. My spayed female humps everything in sight. You just don't know until you know.