Has the world gone completly mad?  I was visiting someone yesterday that had bought a Austrailian Labradoodle the was £1800-00 and already neautered before she got it at 8-9 wks. so breeder has the monopoly on breeding i expect.  cant imagine any right minded person paying this and aslo poor pup being put thru a G/A at that age. but i expect the vet makes lots of money too from this breeder.

Isn't it considered unethical to neuter at such a young age?

Now that is cruelty to animals, if it is true then the vet needs to be prosecuted, a dog needs all its hormones in order to grow correctly this sort of butchery must be illegal as well as unethical.

Castrating farm animals so young so they produce body weight quickly for meat is one thing but a pet dog is meant to give joy and pleasure for many years this is not going to help that at all.

It makes me weep to think that anyone could do such a thing!

Unfortunately it's not that uncommon.  In my puppy class there was a bitch there spayed at 8 weeks.  Unfortunately I believe the RSPCA sometimes spays/castrates this young - so maybe people think that makes it OK???

> In my puppy class there was a bitch there spayed at 8 weeks.

OMG, but yes I have also heard that the RSPCA neuter very young pups which I find shocking.

I am going to have to ignore this thread as it makes me so cross, you do not have to know much about the growth requirements of mammals to understand that this is cruelty - why does it not surprise me to hear the RSPCA are happy to do so but are up in arms about someone docking a puppy mind you, dock a lamb, and that is OK.

I still remember taking my very first puppy into the vets for the first part of his puppy vaccinations, when he was 9 weeks old and was hounded by the veterinary nurse to get him neutered. Though we had done a lot of breed specific research before getting him, we hadn't ever anticipated that we may get the 3rd degree from our first visit. My sister and I came away feeling very guilty, that we were bad owners for wanting to keep him entire as I was considering to show him! This happened in 2008 and four years on... my boy is still very much intact! I just hate to think of the amount of people they managed to persuade to have their animals neutered before reaching maturity.

Tbh this has gone on for years I think, I am sure if it is fairly common practice in the States....

Thankfully, it is rare over here.
It isn't so much the GA that concerns me here - more the potential long term health issues that may arise from a pup being deprived of hormones at such a young age. Bone growth would be just one concern of mine.

This happened to me and I saw the head vet and told him that I would spay my bitch when I thought she needed too,  but while I was showing her, she needed to be entire it is now on her records in red, mind you it wasn't the receptionist it was a foreign one that I could hardly understand so now always see the head vet. He also complimented me on my research. So big thanks to you guys for all the pros and cons that I have read on this forum.
Keep it up guys

Nessa

I remember about 20/25 yrs ago reading in Dog world that pups were being neutered this young in the USA and thought to myself, whats happening in america will come here eventually. It has. I know that another animal charity in fife that neuters pups before they go out. this pup came from a breeder in the same area, another breeder in the west of Scotland also sells for their pups for 'silly' money and also neuters the pups v young. shocking.

Thankfully, it is rare over here.

Sadly not so. if i know without researching about two breeders and a rescue centre that do it there will i am sure be lots more out there.

I know in America Labradoodle breeders and the like do seem to do this.  As has been said it seems as though they want the whole control over the breed and no-one else to be breeding, a bit of a monopoly.  I remember a few years back we had a similiar discussion on here!  Can't believe that someone is paying that amount for a mongrel, you could get two of my breed for that and I bet they are expecting it to look like my breed in the end and doubt that it will !

Our RSPCA puppy was already neutered when we go him at 10 weeks, it's routine here with rescue kennels

ETA no idea what country flag I'm showing but we're in NSW, Australia

tadog I just mean it is not something that is done by reputable breeders.... wasn't really thinking about the rescue shelters when I posted my comment.

Can I ask the question that still hasn't been answered?  What the h3ll is an Austrailian Labradoodle?  A Labradoodle from Austrailia? Or an even more elaborate cross?

Any bitch I know that has been spayed before her first season ends up with Juvinile Vagititis(sp, sorry)!! I think it's disgusting practice and my vet won't even discuss it with me now.  In fact, when we last went to puppy classes, I was asked to stay behind and got into bother from the vet nurse because I had an arguement for everything she was promoting!  Flea treatment - monthly, nonsense unless you spot fleas.  Early neutering stops mammory cancer - OK, but poses much worse problems for an entire lifetime.  Dry, complete diets - Pah!need I say more.  And then she told me not to give my dog raw bones!  Needless to say, I wasn't particularly welcome back:)

>What the h3ll is an Austrailian Labradoodle?  A Labradoodle from Austrailia? Or an even more elaborate cross?

Australian labradoodle website

I got asked not to go to the vet puppy classes for doing the same thing cracar ;-) They really don't like people who know a thing or two and are willing to argue :-D

Linda!.......which vet ask you not to go? thats awful

Still can't make out what they are supposed to be and which breeds are in the mix.  Many look just like a Spanish Water Dog.  Can't see anything regarding health tests etc.

PDAE, there is a Austrailian labradoodle in scotland that has a large website on the breed. if you google it you may find it.

I also wondered what they were & Googled earlier, there's pages of them!

So what makes them Australian? Some of them are fluffier than the labradoodles I see around, but several of them look exactly like dogs I know which are 'just' labradoodles.

Wikipedia (that fount of all knowledge! ;-)) says about the Labradoodle: "Some breeders prefer to restrict breeding to early generation dogs (i.e. bred from a Poodle and Labrador rather than from two Labradoodles) to maximize genetic diversity, and avoid the inherited health problems that have plagued some dog breeds. Others are breeding Labradoodle to Labradoodle over successive generations, and trying to establish a new dog breed. These dogs are usually referred to as Multigenerational (Multigen) or Australian Labradoodles. Australian Labradoodles also differ from early generation and Multigenerational Labradoodles in that they may also have other breeds in their ancestry. English and American Cocker Spaniel/Poodle crosses (i.e. Cockapoos), Two Irish Water Spaniels and Soft-Coated Wheaten Terriers were used in some Australian Labradoodle lines. The Curly Coated Retriever were used too, but these lines did not work out and these breeds were no longer used."

So it seems that first- or second-generation crosses are simple Labradoodles, whilst further generations without backcrossing to the 'parent' breeds become Australian Labradoodles.

> So what makes them Australian?

If it's got the prefix  'Australian', it has to mean it's bigger & better than anything else. Down under everything is larger, seagulls, rabbits, crows, magpies & now labradodles.

There's a whole page about health tests. They recommend as a minimum hip & elbow scores, BVA eye testing, PRA testing and microchipping. Using a rating system for breeders on their site, with the highest rating breeders testing for

hip & elbow scores, BVA eye testing, PRA testing VWD Type I Clear, DNA Profile (to include colour codes)
(Taken from that website)

It is a step in the right direction at least..

Has the world gone completly mad?  I was visiting someone yesterday that had bought a Austrailian Labradoodle the was £1800-00 and already neautered before she got it at 8-9 wks. so breeder has the monopoly on breeding i expect.  cant imagine any right minded person paying this and aslo poor pup being put thru a G/A at that age. but i expect the vet makes lots of money too from this breeder

We have a problem in our breed with some American breeders offering WHITE Golden Retrievers for big bucks. If you read their contracts the owners only get the KC papers when they neuter and it must be before they are 1 year old. It is so obvious that they want the monoploy on breeding the WHITE ones and they keep going on about the BRITISH lines. To me they are basically as bad as all the Doodle breeders. In at least one case that I have seen there is the Mother and Father breeding and then the two daughters have their own affixes too so a big money making scheme in place. Disgraceful

>If it's got the prefix  'Australian', it has to mean it's bigger & better than anything else. Down under everything is larger, seagulls, rabbits, crows, magpies & now labradodles.>

That's rather a sweeping statement.  I hope it was tongue in cheek? :)

Well said Nova;
I think the RSPCA should stick to rescueing badly treated animals, not mutilating our young domestic pets. Who do they think they are!
Oh by the way you forgot the process a piglet goes through and bull calves at a very young age too.

Who in their right mind would pay£1,800 for a crossbreed/mongrel ! Crosbreeds used to be given away or charged just a token gesture, these poodle crosses are everywhere.

> Who do they think they are!

The ones putting down hundreds of thousands of unwanted animals every year?

I don't care for idea much myself but I suppose you have to put it in the balance of whatever else they are up against.

Pity they don't put down the poor foxes and deer they show "rescued and treated" on the TV and then tortured by being kept terrified in cages to heal and then released back into the area they come from no doubt to be set upon by their fellows and killed or driven away because they smell of man.

IMO the prevention of cruelty to animals would be to dispatch them immediately preferably from a distance, that would stop suffering and cruelty.  Collecting them putting them in a cage, in a car, into a vet full of dogs, investigate, operate, keep in a cage again in an area smelling of the terrified sick animals worst enemies for a few weeks - is that preventing cruelty, no, spending money yes, making good television, well they obviously think so.

I agree with you entirely regarding wild animals, Jackie, but unfortunately a lot of the population don't and the RSPCA has the difficult, no impossible :), task of serving all the nation in all their wildly differing views. 
I have never thought it fair to single out one of two policies from such a large and wide ranging charity as this to say you will not support it when that will then reduce their ability to do all the other things that are so needed.

http://farmsofshame.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/rutland-manor-and-tegan-park-who-are-you-conning-now/

Not sure if the link works, but worth a look if it does. It relates to the original (I think) breeders of the A L.

Have to be honest and I can't think of one thing they do that I approve of.

> Have to be honest and I can't think of one thing they do that I approve of.

How about the nearly three thousand convictions for cruelty achieved on average a year?  Over eighty thousand welfare improvement notices.
Their campaigns against puppy farming.  Investigations into organised crimes such as dog fighting and badger baiting.  You don't approve of any of that?

Please can we not turn this thread into a debate about the RSPCA - start a new thread on the General board if you want to do that, thanks.

>They really don't like people who know a thing or two and are willing to argue :-D

I'm laughing because there seems to be a lot of us about!  :-)

I took a 4 year old bitch in for the vet to check over last week.  She has had one litter, and, as she is now almost 5, it's a breed that would have more difficulty at this age.  So, appointment booked, and she is having the op next week.  But 2 veterinary nurses were talking about their own dogs, and I heard one say that she was having her lad castrated.  He was 11 months!  Oh boy, we got into a bit of a debate over it!  But I would not be swayed!