Hi all

I am now down to one Shar Pei.  Dutch who is now the grand age of 14months.  Since he has been an only dog (nearly 2 months) he has become very shy and nervous.  He seems to be lacking confidence basically and I feel so sorry for him.  He was the under dog in the house and he is due to be castrated this week but I wondered if that is going to make him more depressed and lacking confidence.

He is still very confident (and friendly) with other dogs but with humans he is a nightmare and basically barks at them then hides and he is getting nervous with us now too.  So any suggestions in how we can give him a bit more confidence?

Thanks
Nicky xx

Personally, just going from what you say here, I wouldn't castrate a dog like this - not unless there was a v good medical reason to do so.  As you say, if you castrate, dogs often lose more confidence.  Sometimes that can just give them the push from being afraid and showing fear behaviour, to being more defensive (ie aggressive).  But there might be some reason you want to castrate him that you haven't told us about?

Over the last few months he has been trying to hump every dog he meets and has started to pee in people's houses to mark.  He's a very clean boy in doors as are all Shar Pei but he seems to want to mark other people's houses regardless of whether they have dogs or not so this is the reason we are getting him castrated. 

If you do a search on here about castration, you'll find that many people own castrated dogs which continue to mark and hump other dogs - the only thing which castration always fixes is the dog's ability to impregnate a bitch. 

Agility was suggested for our timid lab.  I wouldn't say she was nervous but shy with many people, though not with friendly dogs.  So don't know if your situation is really similar but she loved agility and she did become more confident when meeting other people.  Supposed to work sort of like Outward Bound for people does, gives them confidence in doing physical things that spills over into other parts of their lives.