How do you know when your neutered male is maturing?

[DolphinGirl]

I know female mature a lot in thier 1st heat. Intact males start to hike a leg when peeing, I guess...but what are the signs for a neutered GSD. Just curious.

[Good_Karma]

Well, my neutered male is two years old and he doesn't lift his leg yet. I can see his body maturing though, he has filled out with muscles a lot in the past six months, and he is using his brain more too (although that is partly a training success).

Was your question about mental or physical maturity?

[DolphinGirl]

I was looking at mental maturity. Thanks

[JakodaCD OA]

depends on the dog,,My last male, I don't think mentally matured until he was around 3, and he was still rather doofy his whole life

Leg lifting, heat cycles, aren't a sign of physical or mental maturity..

[Draugr]

I'm probably going to take a lot of flak for this, but from what I've seen, and what people I know have seen, they don't.

If neutered too young, they kind of get this "eternal puppy syndrome" and don't ever really grow up, mentally speaking.

There's some exceptions, obviously, but this seems to be largely the case with many males neutered before mental maturity.

My dog's best friend, Jake, was castrated at 15 months - not "early" by most definitions but I notice some stark differences in maturity between him and my dog. Some of it's personality, too, however, I fully admit that - you can't completely isolate that element. But I think some of it has to do with his brain being deprived of necessary hormones for proper development.

[kennajo]

ok so when do you think they should be neutered (if thats the choice you make) to obtain the physical/mental maturity? I'm wondering why to have Rocky "done".

[Draugr]

Well, this is JMHO, but I'd say "never."

I wouldn't do it sooner than 3, though, if I was trying to minimize damage to mental and physiological development. Age two is generally physical maturity, around a year later seems to be mental maturity - but that sort of thing is *HIGHLY* subjective, and it's based on anecdotal accounts. I'm not claiming to have any kind of scientific opinion on that - that's just what I've seen other people who own intact dogs say - that their males seemed to mentally mature around three.

This, again, is a *huge* generalization, but it seems to me that if you castrate a dog, he will focus and settle down sooner - but he doesn't attain the same level of focus and self-control that intact dogs acquire eventually.

This too, depends far more on the kind of owner, though =/. If you pick any intact dog at random his owner is probably not the best kind of dog owner - the opposite is true for neutered dogs.

And again, big disclaimer, that is ALL just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt.

It's hard to really scientifically gauge a dog's mental maturity because so much of that is highly individualized, and very subjective. I do the best I can though with that in mind =/.

[Emoore]

My Rocky was neutered at nine months. (I now believe that was too early). He matured mentally around 3, but never really got the look of a mature adult male. He's definitely mature mentally, however.

[DolphinGirl]

Thanks all...I was wondering what the signs are for maturity...(ie...focus, self-control, etc)