[Twyla]

Very interesting read:

When someone purchases a new puppy they have been conditioned throughout the years to take the puppy to the vet, get their series of boosters, get their rabies shot, and then schedule their dog to be neutered. The first question that I always ask, much to the owners surprise is “Why are you deciding to castrate your male puppy”? Many times people don’t even have an answer and reply, “That’s what I thought I was SUPPOSED to do”. Other times people do provide a reason ranging from health benefits, which I can usually quickly dispel, to preventing unwanted behavior. In this post I will deal solely with the behavior modification issue in male dogs. The issue of behavior modification is far from clear cut and may surprise some people. - See more at: Neutering and Behavior | Angry Vet

 

[KristiM]

Good article. I tend to be anti speuter for health reasons, but just had my 2 year old male neutered to help alleviate inter dog aggression. Time will tell if it will help in my house but after 3 weeks I am already noticing a difference in how my males are interacting. I worked in a dog daycare for about 5 years and can say that the majority of the time when we had "problem" males that got neutered the problems generally stopped within a few months. Personally I wouldn't neuter my own dog just so he can go to daycare, but being able to live peacefully in my house is kind of a must. My other male is still intact, he's just generally a pretty reasonable dog....so his man hood stays lol. I look at neutering in my case as kind of a last resort, I wouldn't just go chop off a hormone producing body part for no reason....

 

[Shade]

Personally I wouldn't neuter my own dog just so he can go to daycare, but being able to live peacefully in my house is kind of a must.

My family spends a lot of time together and that means our dogs as well, 8 in total but sometimes a foster dog as well. We find having all the animals speutered keeps all fighting to a bare minimal. Knock on wood we've never had a drop of blood spilled

If I didn't have that to think about I probably would have kept him intact, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy he was to manage.

Sometimes it's not just about the health benefits/risk but everyday life you have to think about.