Hi
Please help me again on this subject!!.
I'm having a bad week - not only has my little corgi injured his back leg [though seems to be getting better] but the subject of his castration has been raised again.

He has a dog walker on Mon and Tues who is really excellent. She rang to confirm that yes, he is a delight, well socialised etc with the 4 or so dogs they go out with, some of which are girls. He follows one [not sure if spayed?] girl in particular for most of the walk but in the past few weeks has exhibited aggression toward any strange males that bound up to the group and try to sniff the girls. The dog walker tells him off etc. He is otherwise fine with the Flatcoat entire male in the group who apparently tries to mount everything but is not aggressive.
She is worried that at some point a riot will kick off and he and other dogs she is responsible for will be hurt.
I have posted on the aggression he is experiencing from a local Dalmation and my one's defensive reaction. I am also finding that other male dogs are growling at him on our walks and his reaction is to defend himself with posturing wolf teeth and growling. This has all happened in the past few weeks.

I'm still loathe to neuter [please note he is NOT aggressive to any human and please see my previous posts on taking social responsibility for my dog] - but is it time for Tardak?? I am seeing a vet about his leg tonight and will ask. However as the vet is pro-neutering and maintains that neutering does not change the dog, l am keen to suggest other options so I make an informed vchoice. Does anyone have experience of nasty side effects of Tardak such as those that may result from neutering?? e.g. weight gain, immunity problems etc??
He has just turned 12 months.

thanks so much
cissy

Tardak is a sedative, dogs appear calmer on it as they are 'sedated'. It does not as is commonly believed mimic castration by hormonal change :-)

thanks - another question I have: is it something they are on long term or temporarily?

My search results show it lasts 6 weeks - so I guess one decides what to do after a few courses?

Can you tel me the source of this information, as everyone that I know that has used this was told it mimics castration by supressing the male hormones.

I just did a search on TARDAK and all indications are that it supresses the male hormones and so , in the short term , mimics castration

Melody :)

I have used Taradak on my males a few times. It is not a sedative but a male hormone supressant. In other words it does not stop the dog from doing the buisness but stops his hormones from going into overdrive like when a bitch is in season. I find when I use it it's a case of out of sight is out of mind when it comes down to the males and find getting them through a bitch in season is a lot easier, but if they are not bad I don't get them a jab. But if they are having a bit of a tough time I always take a wee trip to the vets for a quick jab and it stops any problems from enlarged prostrate trouble. The jab only lasts about 3-4 weeks so it could work out a bit expensive and I don't think vets are keen to use it long term. You may want to try female hormone tablets instead. I know it sounds weird but they do mimic castration a lot better then Taradak and you could then see if castration is the answer. Hope this helps if only a little.

Margaret

Tardak is NOT a sedative, it surpresses the testosterone, in neutered dogs many owners comment they are more calmer and sleepy, are they sedated too???

A Tardak injection will at least tell you if castration will help. My 2 Borders had it when my bitch came in season, they were NOT sleepy, calmer or anything else, but they did not show interest in the bitch either, which was the whole point of the exercise.
Dawn.

thanks for the stories - though I'd love to avoid pharma solutions I might try it on Lascaux when he is fully fit. He is pretty calm in the house except for territorial growls at passing jangling dogs which vary with his state of alertness [I know that alertness and house guarding is a corgi/dog trait so no drug is going to fix that anyway - we just make sure he gets out a lot].

Has anyone tried the DAP diffuser - does that only work in the house or does the "effect" stay with them when outside??

thanks

I have tried both tardak and the dap diffuser. Tardak definitely made him calmer and more tolerant of other dogs. It also stopped scent marking; he would just pee "properly". He got a bit perplexed when he got near the end of his walk and cocked his leg to no avail! The downside though was that his appetite was huge and his scavenging tendencies were exacerbated.

My vet said the effects would wear off after 2 weeks; some effects did (eg the reduced barking at people passing the front door) but others lasted for nearer 8 weeks.

The DAP diffuser - introduced more recently - has definitely calmed him down and, I would say, made him more lively and outgoing. He was no couch potato before, but it seems to have taken years off him!! Whether or not the effects remain outside, I don't know. For a short period perhaps??

I have the DAP and using it for almost 2 months. My girl was outside and heard fireworks and returned inside the house to plant herself in the chair nearest the diffuser (possibly because it was where the pheremones were strongest?).

She is also terrified of buzzing flies and was at a friends and instead of being terrified that day she was trying to catch it. I don't know that the 'effect' lasts, but I think her response to the stimulus (flies, fireworks etc) has lessened over time. Not sure it would have the same effect if you were using it due to testosterone reasons.

Wendy

Hi,

If i where u, id give the tardak a go, HOWEVER, i strikes me that your dog is underconfident, rather than over confident, so it might actually make things worse.
Definately do not cave to ur vets suggestions of castrating him, i found out the hard way that it DOES change a dogs behaviour!!!!!

Difficult though it may be, i suspect the problems would not be there if the dog was walked either alone, or with just dogs rather than bitches, and also probably in a different location! I found my dog Rocky behaved very differently without his 'pack' or off territory!

Em

thanks - we have about 6 different regular walking territories used during the week and in addition to that we explore new one-off territories [trips to the beach, forests, shopping in town etc]
Mon and Tues are just the days when he walks with his mates - sometimes the group varies so never always the same. They also go to different parks. He also plays at a friend's house with other assorted girls and boys on Wed and Friday - he is very friendly and does not get aggressive in that house.

I walk him alone every morning also - the problems only start when another entire male such as the Dalmation appears and it is impossible to avoid meeting dogs on that walk.

We bent over backwards to socialise him with all creatures and so you can imagine the frustration here - he is the type that must say hello to every dog/cat/baby on the planet and it ceases to be cute when you go to a big dog event [All About Dogs at Brentwood was a nightmare - it was like the Crocodile Dundee scene where Crocodile Dundee goes to New York and insists on saying hello to every one on the street].

Surely that can't be a sign of underconfidence??? I know I am not the best trainer and am assuming it is a sexual aggression problem that is rearing its head but I do feel that all my good work in socialising him has failed :(.

Hi Cissy,

I've often read this board but your post prompted me to register so that I could tell you my experiences of Tardak. I have a male bullmastiff who is almost 2 years old. Like you, I socialised him extensively and he was really friendly to all dogs and people. When he got to about a year old, entire males would sometimes attack him and he would leap to defend himself. To be honest, he seemed to enjoy the fights and never hurt the other dogs. To him it was all very rough play. I tried my best to keep him out of fights but didn't worry about it too much. Eventually, though, there was one incident that prompted me to think about getting him castrated.

I decided to try Tardak first as I wanted to be as sure as possible of the effects. I know that most people don't see a difference in their dogs when on it but I did. My dog, Cal, was like a different dog. He has always been extremely playful and I've always had to remind him not to be too rough with my neighbour's dogs and to play gently with them. We also have a bullmastiff puppy of 6 months and the pair of them played almost constantly. When he was on Tardak that stopped. He wouldn't even sniff his dog friends and certainly didn't play with them.

The puppy could only get him to pay her attention by biting on his legs until he would finally get up to chase her away. All he really wanted to do was lie down and sleep all the time.

I put all that down to the Tardak having a sedative effect on him and wasn't too worried. What worried me was the greatly increased aggression round about the times that the injection was taking effect and wearing off. Sadly I wasn't ready for it when the injection was taking effect and he attacked my friend's dog and bit it very badly. It was only one bite and I stopped the fight as soon as it started but because my friend's dog is a little terrier, he had to go to the vets to be stitched up.

I eventually had my dog castrated and he is now getting back to normal. I've noticed that most males are less confrontational with him although I am not letting him play with entire males just yet in case he still smells a bit girly. He'd take a dim view of being mounted by any.

He's started to play again. It felt so nice to have to tell him off for being too boisterous again. He will now initiate games with the puppy and our living room is once again like a scene from 'Jaws' - all flashing teeth. The only thing that stops things being completely normal is me. I'm still getting over what happened and keep on having visions of my friend's little dog lying on the ground covered in blood. I'm sure my nervousness transmits to Cal although I'm careful to keep the lead slack if he's on lead and he isn't as comfortable with new dogs as he was before all this started. I'm sure that once I feel better about it we'll be fine again.

I bought a muzzle for my dog after the biting incident and he wore it for weeks. I'm still monitoring him and now, when I let him off his lead, I leave his gentle leader on his head as it prevents him from opening his mouth wide enough to do any real damage.

Please don't feel like a failure because your dog is showing his teeth a bit. He's a male dog - it's completely natural that he'd want to compete with other males. You'd have loads more problems with him if you hadn't socialised him so well.

Tracey.