I have been lurking on another site this morning - an equine one - where someone has posted a question regarding castrating her dog. She is having no problems with him, he's ten months old, does agility, is good with other dogs and shows no aggression. She has had 15 or so replies - 14 of which are all telling her to castrate him.

I had no idea that it was that popular? I would never have Willis done as a matter of routine, so I cannot understand why people want to take away something that the dog was born with for a reason. They are quoting such statistics as 1 in 4 dogs get testicular cancer?! Is that correct?

Am I out of touch? Is this the current thinking? I am extremely cynical regarding vets and their recommendations to castrate - after all, it must be the bread and butter of their business - but these people seem to take their vets words as god?

None of the entire males I've known (and I only know 2 castrated dogs!) have had testicular cancer to my knowledge. If that statistic were true, showdogs would be dropping like flies!

I'm with you Chloe I have had 11 dogs since 1971 & never had one with cancer of the testes. Cancer of the Liver & spleen yes but testicular nope none of my friends who also mainly have dogs  have had any either & only one case of prostate cancer in the 40 some dogs we have had of different breeds between us

On the other hand we have had 5 bitches with pyrometras one a non breeding bitch & the others had all had litters ! I have one bitch now & yes she is spayed for four  reasons the Pyro, the fact that we have entire dogs &  do not want any disruption to the pask order during seasons, she is a rescue & finally the one season she did have she was very very ill during & after-with in weeks of being spayed she was her bright usually self. We do have the room to have kept her away from the dogs during the season, but as she is the pack Alpha(after me that is) & to remove her could cause problems

Hmmm.. That's interesting, as I have to admit I just assumed that if you weren't going to breed then there was no reason NOT to castrate. Perhaps I've fallen into the vet's trap and castrated because they told me it was the best thing to do (it was in Dylan's case...calmed him down no end, but I can't help thinking whether there would have been a need to castrate him if I'd had him as a puppy and brought him up properly). Is there a difference of opinion between 'pet' owners and 'show' owners?

[quote] nitody Is there a difference of opinion between 'pet' owners and 'show' owners? [/quote]

I know its a little late in the thread but..

I faced this decision when i got my boys. Ive now got two males, one 10yrs and one 2yrs and both are entire. I am a pet owner not shower and i know many owners who have had their dogs castrated and i just couldnt understand why. Non of them are/were aggressive and tbh im sure if they had of been left entire they would have been much nicer healthier dogs. Both of mine are pedigree, the youngest is especially true to his breed, I have no intention to breed from either boy but i dont see the point in putting them under anasthetic or risking a change in character when they are such beautiful dogs as they are.

Obviously when bitches are in season you have to make sure they never come into contact (dont want any more unplanned puppies in the world!) but other than that its not hard taking care of entire dogs.

My vet mentioned castration but i had already made up my mind so we didnt discuss it. Im sure if health issues were a significant risk he would have been more persistant about it.

It's an interesting point, Chloe :) Funnily enough I was just about to post about something written in the Battersea DH magazine 'Paws'. Hopefully I'm not breaking any TOS by quoting from it. It's partly relating to castration and (unfortunately) partly about the fashion for Staffies:

"Last year, for the first time in our history, one specific breed coming into the Home outnumbered what I call 'the typical Battersea mutt'. I wonder if you can guess which breed ?
Top marks for all of you who guessed Staffordshire Bull Terrier. Yes, in 2003 Staffies and Staffie cross-breeds outnumbered mongrels by 1,355 to 1,331. That may not sound very staggering but when you consider that five years previously we only took in 653 Staffies as against 6,039 mongrels, you can suddenly see that it is a very significant statistic.
The good news is that the decline in the number of mongrels shows that all the advice given out by us and other rescue centres about having your dog neutered appears to be working. The bad news is that many people are still getting the wrong dog for their circumstances, which results in unwanted pets turning up on our doorstep through no fault of their own.
The answer is: education, education, education! If only people would do the necessary research before acquiring a dog, they could save a great deal of heartache all round .......

Duncan Green - Director General - Battersea Dogs Home "

I won't make any comment - but it is interesting reading :(

Daisy

What I dislike is the implication that because I don't castrate I am a bad owner. Surely someone who manages an entire dog properly is just as responsible as someone who castrates? And surely the people who allow their dogs to breed indescriminately are those that aren't going to listen to the castration argument anyway!

I also find the cancer prevention justification hard to understand. No-one answered when I asked if they would have their ovaries taken out to prevent cancer.

I suppose it takes more responsibility and care to manage an entire animal, though it isn't difficult! Probably Battersea and such places have to assume that very many people have dogs when they're not really responsible enough to be in charge of a dead cockroach. :( They must have to think everybody is terminally stupid. (But if some of the owners on Animal Hospital are a true representation of the population, they're not far wrong. :( )

I don't think that it is that - surely the statistics prove their point ? If five years ago they had 6000+ mongrels coming in and now they have only 1300+ - then the numbers of accidental litters must be falling - or have I misread it ? I must be terminally stupid as Battersea recommended that I had Bramble castrated and that is what I did :( :( Nothing to do with prevention of cancer - only to prevent his terminally stupid owner from letting him loose on an in-season bitch :(

I don't think anybody wins in this argument - only those who take the moral high ground and think that they better than others - having prevented unwanted pregnancies and that everyone else must either be as capable as they (having the knowledge or experience). Certainly the unwanted dogs don't gain by it :( :(

Daisy (in frustration :( )

Or more rescues have opened and therefore abandoned dogs are spread more thinly?

Are people who abandon their dogs likely to be the ones who get them castrated?

What they seem to be saying is that they are getting in more pedigree dogs. In other words people are buying pedigrees and can't cope with them :( Not so many mongrels - which used to be the result of most unplanned litters. More people breeding pedigrees for the money and selling them to people without a thought for the consequences :(

Daisy

Yes, I would agree that probably is happening... but if folk are breeding and selling for the money the castration aspect doesn't come into it. Thats down to buyer education...and whilst people can buy a pup on a credit card adn get it delivered on impulse thats exactly what they will do

I don't think it is that at all.  I think it is the sort of people whop would previously have bred litters of mongrtels idiscriminately so flossie can have a litter has reduced, as there is no market for them.  Many people who should not be in charge of a cockroach let alone breeding have worked out that the Staffie is the in dog for the lads on the estate.  There are plenty about so they breed from them.  Also Staffie crossses seem to be the main kind of whole litters I see in Bristol Dogs homw, when these would be breeders realise3 they can't cope with a growing litter.

Daisy since you have had your dog ahs he eve been allowed to wander or escaped, giving him the opportunity had he been entire, to have sired pups?  I would bet your answer would be no, therefore if he was still entire there would still be no unwanted litters from fyour dog. 

Now think if you owned an entire bitch, would you let her out in season?  I am sure you wouldn't, so even if someone had let their little dog roam (and the ones who deo are unlikely to castrate) then again no unwanted litters.

I think the increase in the pups in Battersea are the ones delibetrately bred by irresponsible people.  That would account for the swing from monmgrel to pseudo pedigree (I have very rarely seen a well bred pedigree dog in our dogs home, they are often poor examples of popular breeds).  The well bred ones usually get taken care of by their breeders, and those who fail to get back to them get taken on by breed rescue, leaving the odd case in general resuce (usually because they don't want to work with the breed rescue).

I can understand why the Rescue centres choose to neuter, as there are unscrupulous people who think it a cheapo way oif getting breeding stock, but if it is because they doubt the new owners ability or commitment to contriol; their dogs, then I question their homing policies, as surely such people shouldn't have a dog.

When we got our older dog from Battersea, we hadn't had a dog for many years (only family dogs). I was very naive as regards owning dogs (I don't mind admitting it - but as I'm quite an intellgent person, I would bet that there are a lot of others like me around :) ). He was a typical rescue dog - somewhere over a year old, could run like a whippet and although he never ran very far (he didn't run away from us - only to other dogs) we had a job getting him back (a very familiar story). If there had been a bitch in season around he would have 'got' her :( It didn't cross my mind to keep him on the lead - he didn't bother anyone (apart from playing with other dogs), he didn't go near roads and if no other dogs were around he would come back to me without a problem. This continued for some months (I did try to enrol him in some local classes, but they were awful). It was only through a fellow dog walker that I was introduced to some really good classes (that I still go to) that he (and I) became trained :) I didn't use the internet at this stage and apart from a basic dog book, I hadn't read anything else. Yes - we had done all the basics - fenced the garden, found a vet, made sure that the dog could be walked regularly etc etc etc. I would class myself as a very normal person getting a dog for the first time but I had NO idea how difficult training/controlling a dog would be. Reading a lot of the posts on this forum, I know that I am not at all unusual. Owning dogs 40/50 years ago was a much more casual affair - nowadays, to do it properly, it seems that people need to have magically acquired years of experience before even getting the first dog :)

Daisy

I didn't explain myself properly (too many things to do so near Christmas!) - most rescue centres haven't the time (if their own publicity is to be believed) to discover how capable prospective new adopters are, so to be on the safe side they aim for the lowest common denominator. That way people don't slip through the net.

I'm quite sure you're intelligent enough to realise that dogs need to be kept under control, Daisy. :)  But the fact that there are so many unwanted litters in the first place proves that many people aren't. Like the people who buy a dog and bitch puppy from the same litter and think that they won't mate with each other ...

But as they are at the 'sharp' end - I have no problems with them having a castration policy. What is more important - stopping the rescue dog procreating and producing more unwanted puppies - or the small (IMHO) side effects of castration ? If people want an uncastrated dog, then don't go to a rescue centre for one (or at least find one that you can convince that you are an experienced owner and can cope). Rescue centres do a great job - for many dogs it is be castrated and rehomed - or PTS :( The choice is easy for me.

Daisy

But you are misunderstanding my original point Daisy...

This is a dog who is perfectly happy, trained and looked after... everyone thinks he should be castrated as routine. Why?

Why have a male dog and castrate him to avoid male behaviours which aren't even extreme?

I have no problem whatsoever with experienced owners keeping an entire dog - so I agree with your compliant about 'every dog should be neutered'. I am only refering to rescue centres really - BUT I do think that there are a lot of inexperienced people who have no idea what it means to keep an entire dog (whether male or female). Both of mine have been neutered which was, at the time, the right decision. Your dogs don't leave your land so you don't encounter some of the problems that other people do :D :D

Daisy

Thats true...now...but I have had dogs before living in places I have had to walk them with other dogs :D

I only have a small garden - my dogs leave my land every day! My bitches are only spayed because we have the two dogs - who are both entire; and one of them has far too many faults to be used for breeding! But there's still no reason to castrate him, IMO!

(These are the first males we've kept, so we're very much beginners with them. But they don't fight, don't go wandering, don't do all the things that certain magazines assure you are guaranteed ...)
:)

Yes - but you are an experienced dog owner who understands the issues with entire dogs, JG :)

Daisy

True - but I wasn't experienced when I started, Daisy! But good books, rather than the scaremongering magazines with their own personal agendas, are very helpful! :)

I agree with that, Daisy, but that doesn't explain why vets (and the people in Chloe's original post) press people to castrate their dogs. Some of them try to book the pup in when it goes for its injections! I don't believe surgery (with all its risks) should take the place of education and correct care.

One of my work mates had his dog the other day. We were discussing it and I was trying to understand his reasons. It ended up with him telling me "with all due respect, he's not your dog" to which I replied "with all due respect, they are not your testicles" :D He saw the humour in it, but still had his dog done - he had no reason why - other than "its the done thing for males and he won't miss what he'll never use"

Chloe - I know that this is not a very good comparison :D :D - but - when your daughter is a bit older, will you encourage her to have safe sex or will you trust her to resist all temptation ? :D :D :D (No answer required :D :D )

Daisy

If she can't do the latter then she better do the first :D :D

The latter being even safer than the first! ;) :D

It's a pity that they can't fit chastity belts to dogs :D :D :D

Daisy

I agree, JG - my vet assumed that Tara would be spayed at 6 months. It's difficult getting the happy medium. However, most experienced owners will resist the vet's advances :D If the owner doesn't know any better than to question the vet's desire to neuter, then probably they aren't experienced enough to cope with an entire dog anyway ??

Daisy

Education takes time - it's not as simple as saying 'keep your bitch in/on lead during seasons" - "take your dog to training classes so that you have control of him". It took me a few years before I felt that I might be able to cope with an entire dog. In that time what might have happened ? :(

A local GSD breeder who his vet knew had show dogs & bred for the show ring(well he hoped there would be a show puppy or two in each litter) tool a puppy, that the vet knew he would be keeping, for the puppy jabs after the first one the bet gave him an appointment card for the second jab & saw to his utter amazement a date for the puppy to be brought back to the vets for Castration !! The vets reasoning was he had read that you could show neutered dogs at KC shows so was of the opinion all show dogs should be neutered asap !!!!! Needless to say the breeder changed vets If ALL show dogs were neutered where would the next generation of dogs come from Unxrayed/health checked pet dogs presumably !!!

Hiya

Can I just add something to this, that annoyed the blazes out of me. When I took our 8 week old Gordon Bitch in for her first injections I was told that I'd better get her spayed as soon as she reached 6 months. I asked the vet for her reasons and she said to avoid unwanted puppies. I have to admit I took a slight umbridge to this and told her in no uncertain terms would she be coming in at 6 months to be spayed. I was then told I wasn't being a responsible owner. I changed vets after that and my new vet asked if I was planning on showing her, I said yes and spaying was never mentioned. So some vets have their own opinions.

Alli

But then Chloe, *I* don't like the implication that I am a bad owner for having had a dog castrated (not from you :) ) so it cuts both ways ;) :D

I don't see why anyone should have to *justify* having their animals neutered or not. As long as the dog/bitch is well looked after and happy and there is no pressure from either vets or other people and having taken everything into consideration it should be up to the individual ;)

Edited to add that we didn't get Hudson castrated until he was 2 and a half :)

Thats my point more than anything else I think.

This thread has been balanced - the other thread on the other board turned and attacked the one person who said not to castrate.

I just sometimes think that some folk don't get a balanced view before they decide. If they do that and choose one way or the other then its the right choice. If pushed either way by a majority then I am not sure it is....

But Melody, did you do it because you had given him a chance to mature and develop? Had you considered all the pros and cons, and weighed up the implications and alternatives? Or did you do it because people told you to, and you were railroaded?

That's the difference. A rational decision is to be applauded. One done in ignorance isn't.
:)

Um....isn't that what I said? :D

I STILL don't like people who imply that someone who has castrated their animal is, somehow, a bad person. The deed is, invariably, done by then and to make someone feel bad to make a point is not good

If Vets are encouraging people to have their animals neutered early then it is the vets that need to be educated surely ;)

>I STILL don't like people who imply that someone who has castrated their animal is, somehow, a bad person.

No that would be wrong, and luckily I don't know of anyone who does imply that. It's as wrong as telling people that they are irresponsible for keeping their animals entire ... ;)
:)

Agreed entirely :)

It's a matter of personal choice(unless there is a health issue)I had a GSD boy who was castrated due to a testicular hernia(a loop of the bowel had gone into his scrotum & round the testes ti be precise done as a puppy !)he had never mated a bitch before the op & afterwards he was interested in the bitches when they were in season like an entire dog & went off his food etc, but at least he couldn't get them pregnant if he had got to them

ChloeH, if I was postmenopausal and was having a laparotomy for any other reason then, yes, I would have my ovaries removed.

In response to chloeh
I totally agree unless there is a medical reason why the castration should be done Vets should be told to mind their own business they are far to money grabbing hungry and very happy to lead you along the path that makes them richer and the animal unhappy really if the dog has no temperament problems why chop them off!!!

Heres another point raised that i find interesting:

Some horse people love to keep stallions. There is a certain maleness about them...a flashy edge... can any of those who keep entire dogs relate to that?

Certainly some dogs castrated early look like oversized bitches, which isn't very attractive. (Compare the build of a gelding and a stallion of the same breed.) I admit I like a dog to be male and a bitch feminine.
:)

And geldings who have been cut later definitely have more of an entire edge... and are physically much more male.

It appears to be the same with dogs too.

You can tell a gelding
ask a mare
but you have to discuss it with a stallion!! :D

Which is why I always say to new owners to wait until the dog or bitch are fully adult.  Wjho knows they may end up getting very involved in the breed and their dog or bitch may be turn out to be the next important stud or brood.

Many people decide to get more deeply involved in their breed some tiume down the line.

A dog I sold to a Pet only home (their choice as he was actually pick male) decided to come to a club show, then enter a show ir two, and since are doing more shows than me and now have a uyear old Champion male.  They haven't used him at stud and may choose not to, but the choice has not been taken away, which if they had listened to their vet it would have been. 

So from that perspective breeders may be more inclined to advise their puppy buyers to wait.  I am very releived my Cahmpion bitch did not return to me already spayed, even though it looks likely she may not rproduce a second litter.

I am sure when good breeders breed any litter they do so with the hope that there may be something in the litter that could do the breed good in being fit to continue the lines, even if as in my case they cannot keep one from every litter, you hope that you can nurture some of the new owners into new exhibitors, some of whom will become the breeders and breed custodians of the future.

I do sometimes wonder if there is a hidden agenda by the Veterinary proffesionin phasing dogs, especially pedigree ones out altogether, or am I being tryly paranoid :D :D :D

I think it depends on the temperament (for want of a better word) of the dog.  I didn't have mine castrated until he was three, I thought I could manage him.  I live in the suburbs and have to walk him in area's with other dogs, it got to the point where walks were far from a pleasure, he mounted everything and was aggressive to other entire males.

I wanted a puppy, knew he would not tolerate another male in the house so with having a bitch he lost his bits.

All I can say is I wish I had done it earlier, I have absolutely no problems walking him now, he is much more content in himself and a pleasure to own.  This is not to say another male would be castrated immediately, I would wait to see if there was a problem, but I think depends very much on the dog itself to whether or not it is necessary. 

You are right with the flashy edge, you see it all the time in the showring.

Sandra

It does seem to be the norm now, most Vets reccommend, pumping dogs full of wormer, vaccine and microchips and the chopping their nuts off!!  Why is this?  I'm sure I don't know.  Bitches are being spayed really young too, in line with the States, some have been done at 12 weeks!
Dawn.

I think being a horse fourm may of course have coloured their views, as most males are routinely gelded.  As I understand it owning a Stallion is something for the very expoereinced, and that they can actually be quite dangerous in the wrong situation.

& Rigs are even worse than stallions