Quote:
Originally Posted by miran
But I still have a question for Ina. In my case I come to you're vet and ask as a responsible dog owner with my reason why, to let them neutered,what will he/she do then? Let them intact so they have to spend there lives in a kennel or help them so they can be free?
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I can tell you what I do, I ask the owner for his reason for neutering, if it is a medical reason I neuter. I also tell him the funnily often not seen fact that a bitch normally gets in heat two times a year (most CSW only once) for around three weeks and that there is only a dangerous period of about 4-5 days. I tell him all positiv effects and all negativ effects if he insists on neutering I neuter, though there have been cases where I have refused to neuter for example a single familiy dog with massiv overweight. Very many owners decide to take the heat after thinking it over because they didn´t know all aspects before.
I don´t neuter before the first heat and don´t like it in males before they are through puberty. There has been one research involving 1000 owners in Germany with the clear result that this is no good thing to do especially from behavioral aspects or only in very, very few cases.
In males we get very few owners asking for it without any reason, if they have a behavioral reason and a case where you can´t be sure the behavior inproves after castration I give them the advise to test a hormonal castration before. It is very unpleasent for all sides if the problem still occures or gets worse after castration.
Coming back to groups without medical problems or behavioral problems: Though it is seen as no good solution to sterilise females there is the point of view to sterilise males. You don´t have any side effects, the social structure doesn´t change. It is also seen as the better solution for male stray dogs because nowadays you know that castration of male strays doesn´t help the population, the can´t keep their social position in the population and new uncastrated strays come in. So it is better to sterilize males to decrease populations.
For dogs in living in homes you should look at the individual dog, if it is really painfull for him to have so many females in heat around him it might be better to castrate.