Yesterday some of us were dicussing the advantages and disadvantages of spaying/neutering dog's, we kind of took over some poor souls thread so I thought I would start afresh after trying to read further into it.

I have looked all over the web, (dismissing any American sites - thanks for the tip :) ), and I still can't find anything, like a major dog organisation, that isn't 100% behind spaying/neutering of all dog's that are not kept for breeding purposes.

I am quite split on this now, as all of the people who had something to say on the subject have had dogs for many years and know almost everything there is to know, and as a whole you are saying one thing, but then all of the books and websites and dog organisations say to do something completely different.

Obviously this is something we (OH and I) will have to decide on when the time comes, but as with everything I want to make the choice with as much knowledge as I can possibly have.

Any more advice to share around anyone? :D

I'm getting my two boys neutered in a couple of weeks. One is 5 and the other is 2. Basically, what I did is looked at the dogs themselves. The youngest, is not allowed to be shown or bred so I can see no point in him being a full male. The older boy is allowed to be shown and bred but the question i asked is: do I really want to do these things? I don't have any potential to breed from him and as much as I'd love to show him I don't have the time. So, with both dogs being unneutered it would be a health risk to them in later life. Not something any dog owner wants to go through.

My vet also recommended that Ihave them neutered on the same day so that they both go through the same hormone changes at the same time.

Overall, I have decided to neuter even though they are full pedigree. At the end of the day, the owner has to ask themselves a set of questions. E.g., am I ever going to breed from this dog? Am i ever going to show/event this dog? If he/ was unneutered/unspayed, what benefits would this bring me or my dog?

But, everyone's entitled to their own opinion!

K

Hi K,

I am not going to show or breed from our pup at all, we were talking about just routine neutering yesterday - sorry should have made that clear!

Are you not worried about the GA, coat change, hormonal changes? I wasn't until yesterday, now I am trying to keep an open mind till I have all of the facts.

Hi Nat,

I think you probably know where I'm coming from on this topic so I'll not go over old ground :)  What I would say is that "major dog organisations" will obviously recommend neutering as they tend to be Rescue organisations that have to take in all the waifs and strays that are the result of accidental or ill advised matings -  which is a perfectly understandable stance for them to take under the circumstances :)   However responsible dog owners don't let their dogs become latch key dogs or whatever hence they are not off roaming unattended between 8-00 am and 6-00 pm to get into all sorts of trouble - which includes much more than just accidental matings anyway :rolleyes:

It is definitely easier on owners keeping a male entire than a bitch.  Often even those who are anti the routine castration of males are less vehement re. bitches being spayed as after all bitches are the ones who will physically produce the puppies if things go wrong on the husbandry front.  But I think I've probably said enough so no doubt others will have their own thoughts to share.  Regards, Teri :)

My view (which may be based on cynicism!) is that the big charities tend to favour the 'chop its bits off' attitude because they're the ones that deal with the fallout from irresponsible owners of the latchkey dogs who cause most of the problems. Because they deal with large numbers, maybe the associated problems aren't as important? If a few dogs out of hundreds suffer side-effects, there are plenty that don't - but that's not a lot of consolation if it's your dog that's one of the unfortunate ones ... After all, it's not as if we're going to take the attitude of 'oh well, plenty more where that came from'.

Also, you need to take into account the nature of the individual. I have two entire males. One I used to show, he did reasonably well at champ shows, and he's been used at stud a couple of times. He's a lovely dog, fits the standard pretty well (though of course not perfect!) with a fabulous temperament. His litter brother was never going to make show-quality in a million years, is unilaterally deaf so was never going to be used at stud ... why not castrate him? Because he's always been somewhat timid. He needs all the testosterone he can get to stop him becoming fear-aggressive ...

Neither of them wander, or cock their legs in the house, or all these things that 'they' say always happens with entire males ...

I also have two spayed bitches, one of whom was spayed at the age of 7, and the other at 5 - only because I was having to keep the two male puppies, and neither bitch would ever be having any more litters. In the past I've had other bitches spayed - one died from the surgery, the other two were spayed at about a year old, after their first seasons, and lived healthy lives (barring a touch of incontinence, like my current two also have) into their teens.
:)

Well one thing for sure is that our pup will not be wondering the streets on his own at all. (One of our neighbours latchkey dog's was run over and killed just a few weeks ago :( )

JG, have you ever known an entire dog to cock his leg in the house, or wonder off in search of a mate? The main reason I am concerned about the wondering off thing, is because our garden is completely fenced in with 6ft fence panels, but on the left hand side the drop into our nextdoor neighbours garden is about 12ft. I am worried that we may have a dog that is doing his best to get out, realises if he tries he can clear the fence to the other side and then really hurt himself because it is a bigger drop than he thought it would be be. To be honest he isn't going to be outside unless going to the toilet or if we are all out in the garden either playing/bbq/agility and so on, so really speaking he won't be out there on his own, but anything could happen if you turn your back for a couple of minutes. Or am I under-estimating the physical ability of the dog, and a 12ft drop wouldn't do any harm?

Thanks :D

I must admit the entire dog we had when I was a small child used to take himself off for walks - but back in the 60s that was quite normal - obviously now it isn't. But he never ever cocked his leg indoors.

My own garden has five-foot panels down two sides, and three-foot panels at the end. We've had 6 dogs during our time in this house, and none of them have ever jumped over. Whether they'd be different if we did agility with them and taught them how to jump, I don't know.

Sorry should have made that clearer - my form of agility is a tunnel, an A frame, a seesaw, and those post things that they go in an out of! LOL I am only doing that for the dog to have something to do so I am not getting to bothered by it yet, as the pup will have to grow a bit before we did anything stressful. I have known dog's that have never even heard the word agility to jump fences though, and if one of next doors cat's are on the fence we would have a nightmare keeping him from jumping up to them.

>if one of next doors cat's are on the fence we would have a nightmare keeping him from jumping up to them.

Even if he had his bits off too ;)  

Yep very true Teri :D

In fact I just thought, he might even come with a neuter contract, in which case I haven't got much choice. When we first approached our breeder we said we would be having our pup spayed/neutered, so it hasn't become an issue yet. I am seeing them at Blackpool, will have to ask them then.

If you do decide to spay/neuter you would then have to decide at what age. Personally I prefer them to mature first but that my opinion.

Nat  - I had it in my contract that I had to have Tara spayed - not sure whether it would be the same for a male. She didn't have her first season until she was over 12 months, so she wasn't spayed until she was 15 months

Daisy

I should think then that we will have to have ours 'fixed', I think I will speak to our breeder and see if she would let us wait till he is mature though, at least then he has a chance of gaining his coat. Was there anything else in your contract Daisy that was any different to what you would expect, alwasy good to have a warning ;)

Natalie

Sorry, I missed your reply :) No - the contract, as far as I can remember, was pretty standard - but she is a mismark and we had never intended to show/breed from her :)

Daisy

Thats OK Daisy :D , well they know we are not going to be breeding or showing our pup, in fact if there is a mis-mark born, depending on where the white is (we want colour around both eyes and ears) then we will be very happy with that, if not then we will be looking at a 'pet quality'. I should imagine that mis-marked/pet quality puppies are sold on the same contract.

If you don't want to neuter but your breeder wont let you use the dog for stud so is recomending nutering ask if they will endorse the pedigree instead. This prevents any puppies (Intentionally bred, obviously) from being registered with the Kennel Club. so there is no point and no financial reason to breed.
I personally have had bitches spayed and found they put on too much weight and have so far had no problem with my dog now 11 months old. since being house trained he has never gone indoors.

I'm Swedish and in general (there are always exceptions) I am against neutering as a routine procedure. In Sweden, it used to be illegal to neuter dogs. There was an article about ten-twelve years ago in the Swedish KC magazine about neutering, it mentioned pros and cons (mainly cons) from both breeders, trainers and vets, it mentioned various studies done etc. I translated that article some years ago and have it as a Word document and would be happy to e-mail it if you're interested -just PM me.  It's just my own translation, not official, although I have done paid translation work so its not too terrible. :) Anyway I think it makes interesting reading.

Marianne

I have PM-ed you Goldmali :D

Please can I have it :D 

In terestingly I have read the negatives in Polish dog magazines also, but rarely in UK ones and certainly not in any US literature.

Brainless do you want me to forward it on to you?

That is OK Mariane has sent it to me :D

I think that it depends on your lifestyle as to whether or not to get your dog(s) "done" and where you live.  Obviously, if you live in the country its not going to be such a problem as if you lived in an estate where you were surrounded by people with other unspayed bitches etc.,  If its not a problem, don't fix it.  If you think its going to be a problem and you can't handle it then it is your decision.  There are always differing views on every aspect of dog ownership and that's what makes the world go around.  I always try to listen to the other side of an argument and have to admit that my mind has been swayed on many occasions because of that but, when it comes down to it in the end, the decision is up to you and you have to do what's best.  Whatever you decide will be the right decision for you no matter what any of us say.

Annie

Well we live on the edge of town, on one side is countryside, the other is a fairly big estate, but if we decided to not castrate him we wouldn't have a problem that was too big for us to handle. We do realise that owning and training a puppy/dog is going to be hard work from many perspectives, but we wouldn't be getting a dog if we thought we couldn't handle anything he throws at us! I see your point though, and we know it is our decision (depending on spay/neuter contract), but as you say after you looked at both sides of the argument sometimes you have been swayed, that is all we are doing - looking at both sides of the argument. :D

Good for you.  You seem to have looked at every angle.  Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Annie

As you have said Nat, talk to your breeders.  To be honest I don't know what it does to an aussies coat as much as I have never experianced it.  If you do decide to Neuter then wait untill he is fully mature and is all grown up physically (he won't grow up mentally that much!) 

Good luck...

Listen to you Rox moaning on about them - you know you love 'em! :D

Who told you that!!!!???? :D