A friend of mine has an 11 month old lab. She would never breed from him  but is unsure of the advantages or disadvantages of male castration. He is a lovely, well behaved albeit boisterous dog and his only problem is that when loose he will not always come back (she is working on this) if he sees another dog, he just wants to greet them and play. the dog training class she goes to says that castration will stop this. She is just unsure . I have never had a castrated dog so cannot give advice from experience so said I would run it by those that know better than me.
Cheers
Sue

A neighbour of ours has a seven year old yellow, castrated lab who still does not come back :) The neighbour never persevered with the training classes :(

Daisy

If you do a search for 'castration' or 'neutering' you will find literally hundreds of threads covering the pros and cons.

For what its worth, my neutered male's recall is every bit as bad now as it was before he was castrated (almost a year ago).

Surgery is not an alternative to training! ;)

Tell your neighbour to persevere, Alfie my Setter is 11 months old and is an absolute sod when it comes to bitches or castrated males (he classes them the same as bitches ;) ) he follows them and will not come back when called, it is seriously about training and the fact that he is going through his teenage stage :rolleyes: I wouldnt for one minute consider getting him castrated, his hormones are all over the place at the minute :p

>his only problem is that when loose he will not always come back (she is working on this) if he sees another dog, >he just wants to greet them and play. the dog training class she goes to says that castration will stop this.

Have to say that doesn't sound like a very good training class........ :( Why would castration stop him from wanting to play with other dogs?! The only thing castration can cure is male to male aggression, and that is in only 50 % of all cases. She could ask the vet for a Tardak injection which mimics castration, that way she'll find out how he would act if he was done, and can then decide after having seen if there was any difference at all.

No, dont castrate to make up for a training issue. My castrated male will still go off after a bitch in heat, will still turn a deaf ear to a recall command occasionally.

Please dont use tardak without researching the downsides of it. Tardak is a VERY powerful drug, and caused a friends bullmastiff to damn near kill a cairn terrier, its taken her YEARS of hard work to get her dog back to the happy laid back boy he was previous to teh tardak injection.

She recently spoke to someone involved wtih the development of Tardak, and he was not surprised at all to hear of her dogs depression and aggression after use of the drug.

Em

Castration could well make the problem worse as the dog will more or less stop developing mentally and remain a pup/teenager who wants to chase after all dogs for a play  there are also health issues that come with castration which may be worse than the present problem :(  As others have said, castration is no substitute for training and of course the dog is at the teenage stage, once he matures he'll become much more sensible and reliable - with proper training :D :D

Thanks for this
I will 'report back' to  her at work this afternoon. Apart from the training issue and the breeding side what are there any other strong arguments for castration.

This is just my opinion, based on owning many male borzois over the years and based on my own preferences - please don't shout at me :)  I prefer neutered males and would neuter any other male I kept at a relatively early age. I find them much more loving, more bidable and generally easier to live with. This may not apply to other breeds but I have found that neutered borzoi males pay far more attention to me and are easier to train. They are also more playful which I personally like. The entire males I've kept to show have always seemed a bit distant and are always looking for potential mates etc. Just my opinion :)

But then being a sighthound that is their nature, Afghans too can be very distant, independant and reserved ;) So in effect you are castrating the males to change their nature to fit what you want ; 

A labrador is a completely different creature, they are by nature very loving and usually very trainable anyway and  castration would be torture for a food-orientated dog, most castrated Labs have to be watched and fed very carefully or they put on enormous amounts of weight.  The only thing this dog really needs is training and maturity, it would be a real shame to castrate when really there's no need :(

That's not at all correct Dill - sorry :)

Borzois and Afghans are distant and reserved with strangers - not at all with their own families. My neutered boys are still distant and reserved with strangers, they just pay more attention to me :)

Thanks to all for your help. My friend has decided not to castrate at this stage as he is just a puppy but to keep an open mind as he matures.

Hmm.. well I'll have to tell my friends who keep and show Afghans, they often say they wish the Afghans were more effusive, they just don't make the fuss of their owners that their other hound breed does, there again, they don't neuter them.  My only complaint about my old Afghan cross was that he wasn't one for playing or making a fuss of us and didn't really like it much if we fussed him.  But he did like to be with us and would sit right by my leg and always preferred to be near us, he just seemed to feel that 'fussing' was beneath his dignity, he was a very 'serious' dog, the terrier part never really showed thru.  People outside our family were completely ignored unless he felt they were a threat.

how strange...I have many friends with afghans who absoutely adore their owners and love cuddles, this includes entire males. Hounds are usually extremely attached to their owners, but distant with outsiders. Just goes to show that every dog is different I suppose.