Having male dogs neutered is ‘standard’ procedure for many people. Any veteran pet owner will attest to the benefits of doing so, both from a practical and from a medical standpoint. But first-time dog owners are often times conflicted about this procedure because they do not understand how it will affect their beloved companion’s behavior. So to help out, here is first a list of the benefits of neutering your dog, followed by a description of the behavioral changes doing so will ensue.
Medical benefits of neutering your male dog include completely removing the risk of testicular cancer – for obvious reasons. While this might seem obvious and redundant, testicular cancer is a very common development for old, unneutered male dogs and is life-threatening. Another medical benefit is the reduction of prostate growth in neutered dogs, thus preventing them from developing prostate cancer and sparing them difficulties in old age.
Now that the medical benefits are obvious, let us work through the list of behavioral changes. First of all, know that neutering you dog will only incur changes related to the male sex hormones – your companion’s level or friendliness, playfulness, personality, or physical abilities will not be affected in any way. It will not make your dog more violent (or less violent, for that matter), for example. The changes that do incur are for the most part positive, and include:
• A dramatic decrease in urine marking. Dogs mark their territory with urine in order to advertise their presence to other males. Neutering them (and thus reducing their testosterone levels) strongly suppresses their desire to do so – they no longer feel the same urge to mark their territory. This can save your furniture, your yard, you home from excessive urine marking and will make you and your dog happier overall.
• Neutering your dog will also make him far less likely to roam and stray away from the house. Unneutered dogs will go above and beyond, and do everything in their power to escape the confinement of the house (or yard) in order to go in the search for females that are in heat. This means that they expose themselves to serious risks, such as traffic, other dogs (and fights), getting lost, etc. Neutered dogs will focus on their families instead, making for a happier household by far.
• A neutered dog will also be less likely to display certain behaviors such as inappropriate mounting. This only relates to sexually motivated mounting, however. Dogs can mount for many different reasons, such as an attempt to show dominance, or out of the simple desire to play. Neutering your dog will not inhibit these other types of mounting in any way, so do not be surprised if he continues to behave this way.
The recommended age for neutering your dog is sometime between 6 and 9 months of age – any later than that, and he will have already started to develop certain behaviors. If you neuter an older dog, they may still do some of the things they did before out of pure force of habit, and teaching them not to can be difficult.
