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Claire · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject: Castration

Hope this is the right place to post this Embarassed

I am looking for the facts surrounding castration. For a variety of reasons we have not had Harris castrated. He turned 7yrs in Feb. He is not going to be used at stud and I have always turned down stud enquiries as he was a rather bolshy male when a youngster and the more time he spent on our shoot, mixing with other male dogs and learning they weren't all going to attack him (he was attacked 3 times before he turned 18mths) then the more his confidence grew. I didn't want to risk changing his attitude towards other males hence us turning down stud enquiries.

Recently I had a scare with a rescue dog. Also a 7 year old entire male but was highly sexed from living the life of a street dog and getting out mating gawd knows what. I thought he was going to have to be PTS because the vet suspected prostate cancer but luckily it was caught just in time and so off came his crown jewels and now he has the chance of the life he should have always had.

So now I am thinking heck, maybe I should be getting Harris castrated after all because I could be putting him at risk of prostate cancer. For those who don't know, prostate cancer in dogs is much more aggressive than in humans and most dogs will be pts within 30 days of diagnosis, others may live for up to a year if aggressive treatment is sought. Harris is petrified of the vets, REALLY scared and no matter what I've tried I've never been able to get him over it. So that was another reason for not getting him castrated and hip scored for that matter, because I try to avoid putting him through the stress of the vets unless necessary. Particularly because stress can bring on bloat and whilst he has so far never bloated, we have had a couple of scares.

So...... I don't want to be convinced that castration is the right or wrong thing to do. What I do want, is the true facts on how, if at all, castration affects a dog. I want the positives and the negatives. I have a spayed bitch, she was done early due to medical reasons and apart from the odd little urine leak every now and then I've had no problems.

Would appreciate your thoughts. Especially if you think there is a chance castration might somehow affect his working ability. I know some say it does and others say it doesn't. Confused

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DesO'Neile · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

I would nearly rather have a dog/bitch put down than have it neutered for other than medical reasons.
The suggested preventative benefits of castration/spaying are well documented but so are the contraindications and the last authoritative study that I read suggested that the latter outweighed the former. To me temperament is everything and a dog that it would be suggested could benefit from castration in this respect is of virtually no value and I would put it to sleep rather than keep it or pass my problem to somebody else.

josie · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:25 pm Post subject:

I sympathise Claire.

One in four unspayed bitches will develop pyo by the age of 10 yrs. Sad

I wish I didn't have to spay Slate, but I am about to make the dreaded phone call tomorrow and book her in for next week... Sad

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kiwi · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 8:13 pm Post subject:

i wouldn't bother myself.
i share a veiw of spaying and castration similar to des, i don't see the point in following the vets world wide fashion of chopping bits off or cutting open a bitch, for some health issues it may need to be done but i don't agree with the facts and figures that vets ram down your throat.
if harris is happy and easy going around other dogs why put him through the stress and risk of the operation,unless there is a family history of cancer,by that i mean in his line not dogs as a whole Wink

castrating or spaying is not a 100% fix for aggression, that should have been done by the breeder not the knife.

Claire · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 9:43 pm Post subject:

karenb · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:10 pm Post subject:

Hi
we had a mature working GSP castrated and I would not hesitate to do this again if I did not wish to breed or show. He was castrated to prevent kennel rivalries when visiting bitches came to my other younger male. He had never mated a bitch and I just wanted to minimise any risks of the two boys not getting along especially as they were kenneled together.

He recovered from the op very quickly.. infact after a couple of days was very fed up about not being allowed off the lead. His attitude and physical conditon did not alter at all.. he was mature when castrated so all his secondary sexual characteristics were well developed. He did not gain weight but I did watch his weight closely to start with just in case, that said I never had to reduce his food at all. Working ability stayed exactly the same - his drive and stamina was unaltered.

From a health perspective older males can get testicular cancers and prostate problems.. castration greatly reduces these health risks and therefore is a reasonable preventative IMO. I spayed my veteran SH CH girl in February - she has had 2 litters and I do not wish to run the risk of loosing her to Pyo or have to risk a more complex op to spay her in the middle of an acute pyo. She is just the same girlie she every was, has never looked better and one or two other people agree as she went Best in Show at our breed club show last week.

Karen
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Gamebourne GSP's

BritAnnie · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:32 pm Post subject:

I think we are all getting bogged down here, and emotionally involved too. Claire only wanted to know what the outcome might be if she had HArris neutered.
Personally I don't like having dogs castrated, but I couldn't explain why - I've never done it so I don't know what the consequences might be. But by the same token I've had 5 dogs and none of them ever developed testicular or any other cancer. Brett lived to 16, Clyde to 13, Flash now 9, Fred 5 and Allez 2, are still fit and well. Clyde was agreesive as a result of attacks at 7 months, and I was advised by our vet that castration or hormone drugs MIGHT solve it, but we decided against it and just 'managed' the problem.
I must admit I have often spayed bitchse at around 7, mainly to avoid the risk of unwanted pregnancies, but also to avoid the risk of mammary gland tumours.
JMHO
Annie
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Liz · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:40 pm Post subject:

Toby was castrated at about 10 because of prostate problems. I didn't realise that was what was wrong as he was having problems crapping, and I thought dogs would be the same as men and would have problems peeing! I wouldn't have had him done otherwise. He made a very quick recovery and it didn't change him at all.

I wouldn't want to have any of my males done unless there was a good medical reason.
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Liz

Bareve · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:58 pm Post subject:

I would only have a dog castrated or a bitch spayed if there was a veterinary reason to have it done. We had a dog castrated a long time ago due to prostrate problems but he is the only male we've had to have castrated in the years that we have owned males.

HTH
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josie · Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:13 pm Post subject:

Can we have more feedback from bitch owners here...? (Not wanting to hijack Claire's thread, but it seems to be the equivalent thing from the other gender!).

Pyo seems to be more prevalent in unspayed bitches than cancer is in un-neutered dogs. At what age would people have their bitches spayed?

If they wouldn't, would they just wait until/if their bitch got pyo and then spay? This is a far greater op, as if the infected uterus ruptures into the abdominal cavity during surgery it can lead to infection and death. A pyo spay is a much bigger deal than a routine spay, cannot be timed to happen midway between seasons etc etc. On the shoot which Slate was picking up on last season, another picker up with an 8yo GSP bitch had just had to have an emergency spay for her with pyo, and she was at the vet's about a week and nearly didn't make it. He said that he would have any future bitches spayed as soon as he didn't want to breed from them, after that experience. Pyo is much more likely in bitches which haven't had litters, too, and she hasn't.

On the other hand, I have to say (perhaps as a, er, fully functioning woman - am I humanising?!), I am still finding it hard to justify booking Slate in for what is a preventative op, and having what are probably perfectly healthy (at the moment) bits removed from her. So I do see the other point of view too.

What do others do and why? And when people are saying "not unless medical reasons", what exactly do they mean - they would wait until there was a problem?

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