is it a load of old cobblers or is there some truth in this?

No, it's not cobblers. Spaying removes the softening effects of the female hormones, and makes a bitch's behaviour more like that of a dog. Not all dogs are aggressive, of course, but the tendency is there.

Is there anything that can be done to remedy this?  Is it something that your vet could give hormone replacement for?? 

Possibly - but it would be for life and would, of course, negate the medical reasons for spaying ...

OMG :(  I didn't know this.

Paris was speyed couple of weeks before Christmas.  About a week after Christmas she had pinched olive stones off OH's plate.  She never steals food or such like normally and we have never had any problems taking anything off of her ever but as he tried to retrieve the stones from her mouth she bit him.  The bite was nasty and punctured both sides of his hand.  I can't tell you upset I've been about it and couldn't even look at her for a few days.  Nothing has happened since but I am very carefully watching out for cues.

Could it be the operation that made her feel a bit iffy then?

No, that sounds like a normal training issue, not hormonal. How old is Paris? Spaying doesn't generally affect a bitch's behaviour towards people, just other dogs.

Nearly two.  Not done anything like that before. It was completely out of the blue and such a surprise.  It's worried me ever since because I feel I can't trust her now.

since I had my dog speyed she has been showing more agression to people.   She is very agressive when people come to the house and is also barking at people in the park.  She was always vocal when people came to the house, but now she is very agressive and we have to put her on a lead or take her out of the room when she meets someone she doesn't know.  It's absolutely heartbreaking as we don't want her to do this, but can't help feeling it's my fault for having her speyed :-(

my bitch was very sharp before, spaying improved her temperment 100%.  i can sympathis how girly hormones can make you tetchy!!!!!

I've booked Lottie in for spaying next week, and as any of you that have read my thread "Why have they started fighting?" will know, I have been having problems with her and my Spaniel fighting (luckily things do seem to have quietened a bit). I hope this doesn't cause a renewed outbreak of fighting, but the fighting does seem to have been hormonal and tied in with Lottie's seasons - I guess it will either kill or cure, so to speak.

I have to say all the bitches I have had spayed have improved 100% temprement wise, some didn't have a problem beforehand and they never changed.
I think leaving them in tact makes them more tetchy, us girls all know how hormones make us so up and down temprementally wise.

Bev

Can't say that I have ever had a problem with bitches temperament after spaying either.

I agree with you Bev on the hormonal front ;)

I had my 10yr old GSD speyed 4 years ago and didn't note any change in her temperament.  She has always had a fantastic attitude to everything. 

I think the most significant change in her, had to be after her first litter was born.  Despite me keeping a pup from this litter - thereby dispelling all the ideas that taking the pups away encourages problems - she became very possessive and still is to this day.  She adores her ball/her kong/her food and lo and behold any other dog which tries to come between her and it!

Having said that - I have never encountered any problem taking anything from her

Well I haven't got a clue as to why she did it then

She is my dog but she prefers the male of the species ;) She seems to adore OH and she lets my son lay in her bed (dopey 15 yr old) and never shown aggression to any of us.  I just don't understand why she did it :(

Haven't noticed any difference in Maddies' behaviour, towards us or the other dogs'. Hope it doesn't change her :( She's only been spayed 5 weeks though.

I've always been told by vets that if a bitch has a dodgy temperament in any way, spaying can make it worse so should be avoided. I have had 2 that indeed DID get worse -one towards other dogs and one towards people. (Didn't have any choice as if to spay or not due to brewing pyos.) In others I've had spayed that always were fine I've not had any difference at all.

If we're discussing spaying generally, I'm not sure how you tell what is due to spaying and what isn't.  If a dog has a behavioural problem (as opposed to a medical, genetic or training issue) then unless behaviour modification or management/avoidance techniques are used, aggression will normally increase over time.

As far as the OP goes, I'm with Jeangenie in thinking it might be a training issue.

My dog was the one that bit but I am at a loss.  She hasn't done it before and shown no aggression since so what should I do?  If it's a training issue, how do you mean?  It's a long time since we've had to retrieve anything from inside her mouth and we haven't made her open her mouth as a matter of course so is that the training issue?

Certainly could be a problem. It's a sensible thing to check your dog's mouth and teeth as often as you check her ears, eyes, nails etc. You should be able to handle any part of your dog without bother.

Ooo 'eck, gonna have to start doing that somehow then.  Ears, eyes, feet or anything else doesn't bother her and son plays with her lips and that doesn't bother her either. 

I am wondering if it is that, yes.  If she had never stolen anything before and it's a long time since you took anything from inside her mouth, and if you were worried that she would swallow the stone with dire consequences so leapt up and over to her quickly, then maybe she was frightened into a defensive reaction?

Just a thought.

That sounds very possible, Lillith. A startled dog will often react with a snap - but this sounds like an uninhibited bite, to actually break the skin.

Cheryl, is she allowed to mouth you at all, or was she taught that touching humans with her mouth was a total no-no?

She was really bad at mouthing as a pup but once over that she was fine.  When I play with her she will nudge my hands sometimes but never uses her teeth.  I have boot slippers (very sexy) and I allow her to playfight those when I am wearing them and sitting down.  She sometimes puts her mouth over the ends but never applies any pressure.  When I tell her 'enough' she stops and seems fine.  She doesn't attempt to play with anyone else's feet, she knows it's only when wearing these slippers.

OH is not the type to jump to attention so I doubt she was startled. He told her to 'drop' the stones before reaching to open her mouth.  She growled, he told her off and continued so she bit him.  He has taken things from inside her mouth before but it has been a while.  We've taken lots of things from her that she's picked up like sweet wrappers but you can see these so you don't normally have to actually open her mouth to retrieve them. 

The bite was nasty, like I said punctured both sides of his hand and the puncture on his palm didn't stop bleeding for a long time and came up in quite a bruise the next day.  I was so shocked but obviously so as much as OH

Getting advice this way, facts sometimes only emerge slowly because they don't necessarily seem relevant at first.  I had been wondering why such a well-adjusted dog went straight to biting.  But she didn't.  She growled first.  A growl is a warning, to be ignored at your peril.  Unfortunately, if a dog gets told off for growling, this can escalate things into a bite because the dog may feel it has no more options.

To be honest, unexpectedly faced with that situation, I'd have done whatever was necessary to get the stones out of her mouth and taken the chance that I'd get bitten just to keep the dog safe.

But the question now is to prevent such a thing ever happening again.  How did she get the olive stones?  (Sorry, not asking this in a nasty way, I've done my fair share of silly things and dogs are hugely resourceful, but I'm just wondering how she got to them in the first place.)  Is there any reason that she might feel hungrier than usual?  That's another aspect of it to consider maybe.

I know what you mean about the growl.  OH hasn't got any prior experience of dogs so even though he knows a growl is a warning he didn't believe she would bite.  The stones were left within her reach in living room so she sneaked past him and pinched them off a plate.  She knows this is a no, no as when we have food in living room she stands back as she knows it's our food not her food.  She might get leftovers depending what it is but only ever given in her bowl.  OH tends not to take empty plates out straight away.

She gets fed once a day.  It was twice a day but she used to leave so much of her breakfast I cut it to once a day.  I have already been thinking about splitting it to twice a day again.  How do you tell if a dog is hungry?  She doesn't normally scavenge but will always take treats, but don't they all?

It is a mystery to me but now it's done I will have to deal with it, only I don't know how

the only thing that has happened since my dog's behaviour has changed is that she has been speyed.  I'm sure this is the root cause of it all and to be honest, part of me wishes I'd never had it done. If I'd have know this would happen there is no way I would have gone ahead. 

There has been some research on whether aggression in bitches in linked to spaying; it was done by Valerie o' Farrell and  Erica Peachey.
The survey was done on 300 bitches, 150 of which were spayed. Owners were interviewed before the op. and 6 months later; the questions were also asked of 150 bitch owners who were not intending to spay to give some balance.  The latter bitches were matched with the spayed ones in terms of age and breed.

There were various behavioural changes anyway as expected; one change that was interesting was that in bitches who showed aggression before spaying, half got worse after the op. and half improved. In the unspayed group, 86 per cent improved and 14 per cent got worse. The practical suggestion was that if a pup or young bitch shows aggression already, it may be best to not have her spayed.

The aggression referred to is towards humans/owners.
Bearing in mind that the book in which the research was noted was written in the 1980s (Valerie o' Farrell, Problem Dog).

Hope that's of interest, not sure what it means though as there must be so many X factors including owner understanding of behaviour, training methods etc etc...

That's interesting, Lindsay.

Cheryl, what I meant was, is there any reason your dog might have started to scavenge, since she didn't do it before?  My dogs scavenge like mad when out, particularly the Labs, I think they just do it because it's there.  But since your dog didn't always do it, I wondered if there might be a reason for this change in behaviour.

Seems like she no longer thinks that food left within her reach is a no-no, so you'll need to adjust to that.  I wouldn't expect my dogs to resist food left unattended on a low table or the floor or I'd certainly expect some tentative lurking. I'd start training the OH!

Dur, I suppose it could be to do with being spayed ... have you reduced her food as per the vets instructions?

Just re-read your last post - perhaps it might be better to go back to feeding twice a day.  I'm not one of the better people to ask about this but surely whether she eats her food is down to the total amount that you feed not the number of meals?

Sorry didn't make myself clear.  When I changed her from twice a day feeding to once a day (and this is going back more than a year) I increased her evening meal and reduced her morning then cut out morning.  She was getting the same daily amount but she would eat it all in the evening where as she was picky in the morning even though the daily allowance was split.  Hope that makes sense.  I feed the same quantity every day unless she gets extra treats for training then I might reduce it a bit.  Her weight hasn't changed since July and she is definitely not underweight, her ribs are covered.  Vet didn't mention changing quantity of food and I wouldn't unless I saw her getting too porky.

She does lurk when there is food about but doesn't normally approach because she knows she would get told off and she really hates being told off. If I tell her off her head goes down and slinks past me really slowly.  She hates it if you are cross with her and she will keep her distance until you call her to you and then she acts submissive and silly excited.  This makes it all harder to understand why she bit.

Been married 25+ years - can't teach old dogs new tricks :D

He's been told it's not fair to leave things lying around, I think he's learnt.  Time will tell.  That reminds me OH likes his cheeses and this is something he takes into the living room after dinner.  The dog knows she will get any rind that's left and will wait patiently until OH takes out plate and gives it to her.

Sounds like you have all the bases covered, Cheryl, and that a reduction in food or change of feeding habits is not an issue.

>This makes it all harder to understand why she bit.<

She's clearly a sensitive dog.  If she didn't understand what the problem was, after all your husband had finished with the stones so why shouldn't she clear them up, and she was told off then she would have been confused and anxious.  Then your husband just kept on coming and went for her face.  I think that might be why she bit, though others will have differing views.

Hope the handling exercises and newfound tidiness help!

We had a JRT bitch spayed and she became really agressive. so much so that eventually she had to be put to sleep :-(

She had always been yappy, as i said she was a JRT! And could be aggressive with our other dogs but once she was spayed she was much worse and intent on attacking people. She bit the postman, the parcel lady ( badly on the hand-drew blood) and my friends son and his friend. She jumped up t the poor boy and bit him hard on the nose and drew blood. another boy she drew blood on his ankle. The postman refused to deliver to the house and the parcel lady would ring first to make sure she was shut away.

we were devestated as she was so determined to bite. None of the children provoked her in anyway and then she decied that she wouldn't let OH in the house, down the stairs etc and repeated bit him. It got so bad the vet agreede she had to go.

We thought we wer doing the right thing by her by spaying here but if we hadn't i'm quite sure she would be here now.

Was watching dog with OH last night and it just baffles me what happened so I'm going to put it down to a one-off for now and will just keep a very close eye for any signs she might be showing aggression.  Anyway last night she could obviously smell something on his hand (just eaten cheese & biscuits) and she was sniffing and licking and he was watching tv but at thesame time was moving his hand around her face and mouth and she was letting him put his hand ring in her mouth and all she did was wag her tail   She didn't back off or show any signs that she was anything other than perfectly happy

His body language was presumably quite different though.  And yours.  Maybe?

I didn't actually see it and I wish I had because I might have spotted what was going to happen.