To Neuter or not to neuter

[luluq]

Hi everyone,

We are thinking of getting a male rottie pup (which would be the second rottie in our lives, the first is a female and now at one of our older son's home).
For many reasons, my husband and I would want him neutered at some point. However, our 17 yeard old son is adamantly against it. He feels that if the dog is neutered, then we would never see what the dog would have been like if it was intact. He feels that neutering is "altering" the chemicals in the dog and the dog would loose (or change) his personality. He also believes that all vets recommend the procedure because it is money in their pocket.
I would appreciate educated opinions on this so that as a family we can weigh this issue intelligently.

Thanks,

Lourdes

[LavenderRott]

Hmmm.

The medical reasoning for altering males is not the same as females. There is a higher risk of reproductive cancers, but not as high as in females and often not until the dog is older.

Statistically speaking, and we won't go into exact numbers - because there are no databases that are accurate as far as numbers go, more unaltered male dogs bite then altered males.

An altered dog will be easier for you to handle. He won't be chasing every "nice" smelling female in the neighborhood. This is not to say that he will be uncontrollable. It is to say that you will have to put in plenty of time training him.

Many people have males that they neuter when they are a bit older. The reason being that this gives them the chance to fill out.

My female is spayed and it certainly didn't change her personality.

[Wookie'sMom]

A lot of breeders recommend neutering at 18 or so months so that the dog gets the benefit of the testosterone while he is growing. I am going to be getting a male pup in a few years and you can bet that I am going to be thinking long and hard about this topic. I always have said that I would never want to own an intact dog, but I will be talking to my breeder and my vet and using my own judgement of the situation and the dog itself to make the final decision, and in the end it will probably be a decision of when, not if.

This may not be very helpful or the answer that you were looking for, but I just thought I'd share. :)

[Canadianrotti]

I would think that the only reason NOT to fix a dog is to breed. There are many health advantages to fixing a dog and very few draw backs. We had our Dogue de Bordeaux nutered at about 6 m/o and some of his brothers were not done for breeding purposes. From what I have seen in his brothers and our dog (3 fixed 2 not), their temperments are the same. They are all fun loving, goofy, bull headed dogs. The only difference that I saw with our dog was that about 1 month after he was fixed he seemed to pay more attention to me and have a little more respect (the $1000 bucks on training may have had something to do with it :D ).

[JDUCE]

We just neutered Duce - thank God! He was sold as a show dog, but floppy ears, 2 extra teeth, and one bad hip caused us to neutered him. It has been almost a week now and at this point I cannot tell you if it calmed him or not. But, before this he was acting up and trying to rule the nest! :(

We waited till he was at least a year - he has filled out, and looks good, and by no means will he lose it.

I am glad we did it though.