Hope this is in the right place!

A friend of mine has an entire male dog with all the things that go along with it, bitching, scent marking and wandering off. He is also an agility dog and sometimes he can be a bit OTT ;-) She has decided that castration might solve a lot of the issues she is having. I had a chat to her yesterday and suggested having him injected to see if it would make a difference first before putting him through the op. She has spoken to the vet nurse at the practice and they don't appear to know anything about it........:rolleyes:

My question is does anyone know how often they have to be injected, ie; how long each one lasts and how much it might cost to go down this route? Would I be right in thinking that it's called tardak?

It is Tardak, and from what I understand it's an injection of progesterone.  I'm not sure how it works, but I can tell you I've a friend who had her bullmastiff injected to see what effect it would have - the dog developed severe behavioural issues and went on to try and kill another dog (he was well raised btw).  He's fine now, but it's been a long road for the owner with TTouch work, behavioural work and so on.

When I was talking to her about it a while back, she told me how she was discussing the dog's issues with a vet - he said that progesterone wouldn't have been responsible for the aggression, to which she said something along the lines of "haven't you heard of PMT?" :D  The injection is, as I understand, supposed to suppress testosterone - but I don't see how it can, it can only mask it as the testosterone is still being produced and is not blocked in any way.  There is now a drug that blocks it, designed as a male contraceptive for dogs, but I don't think it's available to the public.  I could be wrong.

That aside, she needs to establish if his behavioural quirks are really due to being entire or are just his personality.  Wandering off could just be his way - my dog was neutered at 9 months to stop him wandering off and up to strange dogs (I was naive :rolleyes:), it made no difference whatsoever.  He's an independant dog, and is much better now due to lots of training.  Scent marking might be helped depending on his age - that was another reason for having my boy done, he used to pee up everything in PAH and it stopped immediately - but he was young, and it wasn't a habit yet.  I believe the older the dog gets the less likey it is that marking can be stopped.  Again, I could be wrong!

Personally I don't see how castration would help with the agility - some dogs do go completely bananas, it's a case of training them to be calmer and focusing their excitement.  I've never heard of an example where it's hormonal, in dogs or bitches.  Both my youngest and oldest girls go nuts in agility - the oldest (6, spayed) has self control trouble and tends to just run and muck about, and the youngest (15 months, entire) gets so excited at the moment that she can only do one jump before she's trying to climb my leg and bite my elbow :D

Many dogs scent mark due to anxiety wantng to amek the place smeel more familiar, so if lack of confidence is the reason for it castration won't help.  the other issues may simply be training issues.

How old is he.

I have looked after castrated males that were horrosrs for scent marking and entrie ones that were gentlemen in that respect wven with an in season bitch in the house.

he's 3 years old. I have two neutered dogs here and the eldest still scent marks and buggers off on a walk ( I never know where he is but he always appears when I call). The youngest is still entire and is about the same apart from the disappearing and neither of them have ever scent marked indoors. I have had problems due to the first two being castrated so decided some time ago not to have the youngest done. So far it's not been a problem although I have been reminded of a few things that entire males do that I had forgotten about as it's been a while since I had one:rolleyes: My worry is that this could already be learned behaviour and she could put him through the op without any benefit to either of them. :-(

I would agree, after all jsut because a behaviour is shown because he is a amle training should reduce it.  A male may wander because he is looking for bitches or equally because he smells wildlife or the nearest KFC leftovers.  I live with bitches only and can't blame any of their foibles on testosterone.

Did this recently, so do have details (although because of where I live, my vets are more expensive than most).
Tardak was given once and repeated three weeks later.     It seemed to make a little difference (although my dog has never been a humper and it turned out that the one bitch he was humping had an anal gland infection).  As it was we decided to go ahead with castration (decided to get a female pup), and he has been fine. 
Initial injection £55 + consultation fee.   Second injection was same but no consultation fee.  Castration was £186.00 - total came to over £300   but because he was older and it was considered a behavioural problem my insurance covered it.
I would add that my vet did say that tardak does not always give a true indication of what would happen following castration.

So he didn't have a behavioural problem after all, as the reaction to the bitch was due to her infection confusing him, which is common, and often the first alarm call that another dog is ill, especially Pyometra.

In hindsight no :rolleyes: but fortunately, he does not seem to have had any problems with castration.  I was a bit worried about doing it because he is not a confident dog, but have had no problems.

I asume he was a amture adult when doen.  the males that I know who were doen as adults still seem to be the same as before, just a bit less libido.

yes, he was four.

tardak is like any other drug.  it can have side effects.  some dogs may respond badly to it.  you have to discuss it with your vet and make a decsion from there. 

we have used it once.
it cost something like £22 for the injection.

I used the jag a few times with my Mr Beastly. It didn't actually make any difference to him at all, I went ahead and had him castrated and it took about 6 months after that for him to start to improve. Neutering has worked for him, tardak had no effect on him at all neither positive or negative. I would say though that as long as he's physically mature then I would go for neutering rather than injections. It's a small op and the dogs are back to normal a day or two later versus the potential side effects of the jag.

We have used it a couple of times on one of our boys when te girlies come into season.  Worked lovely a couple of times, much calmer during the seasons then normal, not looking for trouble and alot easier to handle.

However once when we used it (the last time we used it) one of te girls came into season for a week then stopped and neither girls had a season for another 3 months.  Seemed abit weird and thought possiblythere could be a connection, well my parents did, I can't see a connection and how it's possible bt we will never know.

I think the injection's meant to last about 6 weeks (if we're talking about Tardak).

I had this done on Duibh last year to see if it would help with his problems with other dogs, especially my other dog. It made him 10 times worse. :( I would like him castrated but although he may just have reacted because of the progesterone and the effect of castration might be different, at the moment I don't feel I can risk making his behaviour like that permanently (though I believe in some cases castration will have effects that tardak won't and vice versa).