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Decided to adopt a dog? So this is a precious moment, but it should also be the moment when, as an owner, you must accept all your responsibilities to provide your pet with everything it needs to be happy.
Is it a male or a female dog? This is a completely individual decision, although regardless of the chosen sex, a controlled, responsible and desired reproduction by the owners will be essential for animal health. In this sense, the control of your pet's reproduction should be a matter that deserves your full attention.
However, in this PeritoAnimal article we are not going to analyze the subject of neutering as a responsibility, but rather as a means to improve canine behavior. Keep reading and find out if it is necessary to neuter male puppies to improve their behavior.
Castration in dogs
First, you should know that castration is not the same thing as a sterilization process, as it is a more invasive surgery, but it can also have greater advantages. Castration consists of testicle extraction, preserving the scrotum. This technique not only prevents the animal's reproduction but also inhibits the sexual behavior of the dog. But what does it mean?
A male dog has a strong reproductive instinct and it is enough to see a female in heat next to him for this to cause real chaos. This happens through different mechanisms:
- Testosterone increases, this is directly related to an increase in aggression and irritability.
- Has your dog suddenly returned to urinate at home? In this case, it is not simply a question of a kidney function, but rather of marking territory due to your instinct for dominance.
- A puppy that closely detects a female in heat will do everything possible to escape, so our attention should be maximum.
- The dog suffers from great anxiety if he cannot reach the female in heat, cries, moans, and even stops eating, although good dog training has been his priority, the anxiety level becomes so high that the dog enter into an absolute state of disobedience.
With castration, this intense hormonal dance does not occur, which has a positive impact on the dog and also on its human home, however, this practice goes further and reduces the risk of the dog having certain conditions of hormonal origin such as the following: prostate cysts, prostate hyperplasia, testicular tumors and tumors in the perianal zone.
Does spaying the dog help improve its behavior?
This is the question many owners ask, but it is not the right question as it is poorly formulated. We must first clarify that a male does not have sexual misbehavior, simply displays sexual and natural behavior that can be problematic..
Puppies that show bad behavior do it because of bad intervention on the part of their owners, not because they are expressing their sexual physiology. In all cases we must ask if it is appropriate to neuter the puppy to reduce its dominance, aggression and disobedience when detecting a female in heat.
The answer is yes, it's adequate, although this doesn't make a male displaying sexual behavior a male you can't control. We could then say that neutering reduces the dog's anxiety caused by its strong reproductive instinct and the problems that the owners have to face.
Does this explanation still not convince you? Maybe you have some myths in mind, so let's unravel them quickly:
- A neutered dog does not automatically gain weight. Neutered dogs that gain weight do so because their diet and lifestyle do not adapt to their new nutritional and energy requirements.
- A neutered dog is still a gait, although their sexual behavior is not observed, they maintain a male anatomy, and if they do not lift their paw when urinating, it does not mean that they have become "feminine", it is simply due to decreased hormone levels.
- Is your dog an excellent guard and defense dog? Castration will not affect your abilities., will only make you a better watchdog, as the best-trained puppy can lose concentration very easily with a female in heat nearby.
A completely individual decision
Not all dogs are the same and that's why I would like to share the experience I had with my first dog, who soon became one of the most dear to me. Verdi was a mix of Pekingese who accompanied me for 19 years, thus becoming another member of the family.
If he ever manifested behavior typical of a male dog, it must have been insignificant, for we never saw in him all the signs that this implies. It is also important for you to know that at age 15 he had to be operated on for a perianal tumor, which although not malignant, caused oppression in the anal area and was clearly hormone dependent.
By this I mean that there are dogs that only get affected when a bitch in heat is nearby, so, it may be that you do not neuter your dog, but that you never encounter sexual behavior either..
But that's not the only thing you should be aware of. Maybe he didn't decide to adopt a Pekingese but a Siberian Husky, a robust, precious and very close dog.
In this case, the problem is not just the fact that the dog can cause the greatest chaos in the house by having a very robust structure, the problem is that the castration will imply for you the intervention on the wild beauty of this animal.
Do you want to conserve all your pet's instincts, trying to respect its nature as much as possible or, on the contrary, decide that this is not an option for you? There is no one decision better than another, castration is a generic theme, as it must be treated individually according to each dog and each owner.
