Hi there,

We have a 14 month male lab, bruce, who is a typical lab, loves attention from people & other dogs.

On sunday we had a friend round who brought a nine month old golden retreiver, walter, over as we were having a BBQ, british summertime yay!!

The two dogs got on fine, no aggression or anything like that, but bruce persistently tried to mount the other dog, both from the back and from the front.

he also was 'guiding' walter around by getting face to face with him and basically blocking him from walking in the direction he wanted.

What i was wondering is, are his actions formed by being dominant? or is he just extremely randy?!!

my wife is pushing to have him neutered to stop him running the length of football fields to get to other dogs when we are walking him off lead and his antics on sunday aren't really helping his cause!

i'd appreciate some assistance as this is the first male dog i have had, nevermind an entire male dog.

thanks

barry

Dogs will mount for various reasons, at this age your dog is just walking testosterone, a bit like a 16 year old boy (I am sure you can recall) :D

Your dog was telling the visitor that he was top dog in your house; very normal dog behaviour not a problem.

Castration will not improve your recall problem, only training will do that!

thanks for that tohme

I don't think that Bruce is dominant or randy ;)

When you had Walter come over to visit, it was on Bruces home turf so to speak, so therefore in my experience, this makes them a wee bit more confident.

I think what Bruce was trying to communicate to Walter was "I am higher up the pecking order and it's my territory". Mounting is often a sign of being the stronger one, but also dogs often do it in play, or when they are over excited. My old bitch used to mount all dogs that she met/played with, regardless of their sex, because she was alpha female, it had nothing to do with sexuality.

The "guiding" Walter also suggests that he was laying down the law in a friendly way and just reminding him of what his position is. Some dogs wouldn't have tolerated this but obviously Walter was quite happy with it, otherwise you could have had a slight tiff on your hands.

As far as running the length of the football pitch is concerned, have you done any kind of training/ recall work with him? If not, this could be where your problem lays, not with him trying to impress himself on all and sundry :D :D

Hope this helps :)

Edited: Posting at same time as tohme ;)

thanks for that.

we have done training work, we took him to classes but he was too boisterous.

he would try to get to the other dogs whilst they were doing their exercises in the centre of the hall, believe me claws scraping on floorboards go right through you after a while. When it was his turn to do anything it was exactly the same he would just go to the other dogs when he was supposed to be walking to heel and don't get me started on recall in a packed hall!!

we continue to work on his recall when we are out, usually with good results, except when he sees another dog, he just takes off.

he has actually started to look around before returning when we call him back, looking for the reason he is being called back for, i.e. another dog.

we intend to keep at him ourselves until he settles down enough to take him back to the training.

I would say that the fault lies with your training class instructor ;)

Any instructor worth his/her salt would have worked with you to alleviate the problem. Afterall, that's why they're called training classes. No dog should ever be excluded or ignored because he is too boisterous and you shouldn't feel that he has to settle down before you can resume training classes.

What happens if he never settles down? Not criticising you here, ;)  but the question has to be asked.

If I was you I would look for some good training classes. Go along to some on your own first to get a feel for the way the trainer works, do it several times if you want to. This will also help him get more used to be around other dogs and hopefully he will realise that he doesn't have to go full pelt everytime he sees one :D The more you expose him to them, the less interesting they will be to him ;)

hairy pooch, it was our decision to take him out of the class, not the instructors, however i did notice it was taking longer for them to get around to him...

does anyone know of good classes on the southside of glasgow, the one i went to was the glasgow dog training club in clarkston at the overlee pavillion.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.apdt.co.uk/trainers_area.asp?area=Scotland

Have a look here..........

Sorry Barry, ;) I didn't explain myself properly, as usual :P

I understood it was your decision to take him out of classes but what I was trying to say was, you shouldn't have been allowed to come to that conclusion. They should have worked with you and if necessary suggested other ways that you could have dealt with him.

They should have been focusing on him, not taking a while to get round to you.

Tohmes link is a good way of finding yourself a better class.......

Good Luck :)

thanks to both of you for all your help, just spoken to a trainer locally who suggested castration and said i should have had him done at 6 months before this behaviour started!!!

will try the training first and then we'll see....

thanks again.

Barry

Very wise, castration is not a magic wand...................

i know, i consider it to be the absolute last resort but the vet/wife/trainer is pushing.....

Sorry, but it really makes me mad that there are still trainers out there with this attitude

Arm yourself with the facts and then no one can "push" you ;)

Tohme summed it up perfectly (as usual) castration is NOT a magic wand. There are dogs out there with problems, their owners go and get the snip (for the dog, I hasten to add) and those dogs still have the same problems despite being castrated.

All of my males have been entire, when they've had behavioural problems, I've dealt with them. I have had disagreements with vets about castration/spaying as they all seem to want to jump on the band wagon the minute you take the pup in there at the age of 7 weeks for their health check.

I haven't got any links to hand but will go and find some, so that you can read up on the facts of castration, reasons for doing it and hopefully put to bed any other "old wives tales" that are still lurking around.

Rant over..........;) :D

If it were that simple to deal with teenage adolescent behaviour I would have had both my human offspring castrated/spayed :D

Might still be an idea for the 14 year old son, ttoo lat for the girl though :D

LOL @ Brainless :D

What about adult male (human...I think :rolleyes: ) behaviour, he's not randy but he's sure got an attitude and behavioural problem that needs sorting.......training hasn't helped........chastising hasn't helped........what am I to do?? :P

I suppose actually that castration could be said to remove a magic wand........... :D

http://www.gsdhelpline.com/castration.htm

Well that was helpdul, not.  Teh only thing that castarion at a young age does is take away some of the dogs confidence (detrimental if the dog ahsn;'t enough anyway) and will supress sexually driven behaviour.  Your dog is probably not exhibiting that at all rather is just plain playful.  If he had been done young he wqould have stayed that way instead of growing up and out of it.

Well, castration 95% cured wanderlust in my dog Rocky.

He does occasionally get one on him and vanish for a few hours. Not often.

His recall is as ropey as it ever was, the only thing responsible for THAT is my training.

However, before castration, he was a happy confident dog who would occasionally vanish after a bitch.

After castration he is a skulking cowardly bully of a dog who occasionally vanishes after a bitch.

Not the magic cure it was sold to ME as!

Em

Was it castration that cured him?  Or was it something he'd have grown out of?

Sadly, we will never know :(

I think perhaps castration DID put a stop initially to his chasing off after bitches.. but not because he didnt want to, because he was no longer confident enough to do so.

But there again, im not sure, b ecause at the same time i was regularly walking with a couple of people in a local park -- between us we had a VERY dog-dominant collie bitch, a submissive collie bitch and a wimpy/cowardly/confused OES dog (the one who ended up biting me quite badly).

The OES used to bully rocky, running at him barking,a nd originally, rocky would take himself off for his own walk. However in time this stopped and rocks would just turn his head away when Dennis charged at him, and so Dennis stopped bullying him.

Then, their little 'pack' seemed to push rocky forwards to be the dog who greeted strange 'non pack' dogs..... i dont think this helped rocky at all, this happened AFTER neutering, and after the running away stopped and was the start of his nastyness towards other dogs, particularly submissive smaller males. (not limited to, he would and still will have a go at most male dogs and DEFINATELY have it out with anything smaller than him that gave him some lip!).

This definately is a lack of confidence on his part though, if im a long way away, unless the other dog starts something, there iwll be no fight (which is often why all the other owner sees of my is my butt disappearing into the distance!)...

The closer i get, the more likely he is to go, but even THEN, no fight/scrap/argybargy he has EVER had has resulted in bloodshed from the other dog (though the few times he has been attacked without provocation he has spilt some of his own!) -- he does the stiff standing, paws/head over neck/shoulder -- slow stiff tail wag and then IF it kicks off, he tries to pin the other dog down by the neck -- when he GETS that far, (which if anyone is thinking happens a lot, it does NOT), if the other dog says 'whoops, sorry mate im off' it all ends. If not, it carrys on, but thers never any locking onto necks, biting for the sake of biting, just pinning and holding, asserting his dominance.

S'a pain to live with, i have a nervous twitch where smaller dogs are concerned and i really DO think its all down to castration coupled with my lack of knowledge regarding castration side effects.

Em

Out of interest - has Walter been castrated?

Reading this you would begin to doubt that there is a happy, castrated dog in the world.  The most confident, dog friendly and co-operative dog that I ever had was a castrated rescue dog - although I do suspect he was castrated later on in life, when his owners were trying to re-home him to a household with a bitch.  It certainly didn't turn him into a coward or a bully, he was an absolute star with puppies and introverts.

You may not want to have your Lab castrated, that's fine.  I just wanted to even up the views a bit in case anyone else is considering it for a more serious problem and has been alarmed by what they have read.

Being well socialised has more to do with a dog growing up non agressive than castration IMHO

Agreed, Digger - being well socialised is far more important.  I was replying to the point made by theemx that castration had made her dog a bully.

Poo, should have read down a bit!

I think castration has a LOT to do with rockys 'bully' status now.

But more than that, HAD i been made aware of the possible side effects, i would have known what to do about it.

At the time, rocky was my first dog, i had little idea about socialisation, i certainly had NO idea that castration could cause a lack of confidence and that aggression was usually fear based!!!

That said, had that not happened, had rocky continued to be the happy go lucky, loves everyone guy he WAS previous to castration, then perhaps i wouldnt have sought out the information i now have. I think i know considerably more about dog behaviour than i did then, and i suspect i wouldnt had rocky NOT been a pain in the backside!

Certainly, Pteppic will not be castrated unless i find a damn good reason to do so, and currently there isnt one (although currently he is just 16 weeks old!!)

Em

Walter hasnt been castrated.

Another point, is there anyone who has lost a dog to cancer or other disease that has started in their testes and spread as a secondary disease after mandatory castration?

that was the horror story i was told by my vet.

Also, when can i expect bruce to mature?

Thanks very much for all your posts, i have been reading up all i can on here about castration prior to posting yesterday and i find it is more informative than my vet, which is quite scary.

Testicular Cancer is quite rare, more common is Prostate Cancer which is more common in castrated males, so it is swings and rtoundabauts really.

I think most of us are against the unecessary neutering of immature dogs and bitches especailly.  there are circumstances where neutering is the right oprion, especailly when tow pets of the opposite sex are living together, but it is more often for the owners comnveneince than any physical benefit for the dog.

I've known of one dog develop testicular cancer, when he was 8 years old. He was then castrated and he lived to be 14, with no recurrence of the cancer.

I have a friend who lost her obedience champion to prostate cancer & he was entire but he was nearly in his teens when this happened

As to castration being a cure all Hm I had a castrated male GSD(castrated as a puppy by the owner & then taken back) & not only did he was he still interested in bitches but he also mated one & tied no puppies obviously as it was three years after he had been done(he wasn't with me at the time) .  My vet at the time told me that his body might have been castrated but his mind wasn't ;)  He never got another opportunity though !

Your dog will grow up but when is down to the individual dog

Oooooh yes....

Rocky can, and will mate and tie with a willing bitch. He still humps (generally through frustration when the younger dogs are playing a wild game), and will EVEN hump my leg in times of desperate need!!!!!

Castration ahs its place, most definately, but routine castration, castration as the magic cure for randy dogs, for wandering dogs, for aggressive dogs is dangerous.

Know the side effects, know what to do about them and castrate for a damn good reason is what i say!

Em

My lab was castrated at six months (followed advice didnt know better) he is now four years old and mounts everything that will let him.
I sooooo wish i hadnt had it done. :-(