Does anyone know what the cost difference would be between vasectomising your dog compared to castrating it in the UK? Not for me, I'm happy for Shadow to stay "fully loaded" - he doesn't know what to do with it anyway! I was just looking up some stuff about neutering and it made me wonder.
Just waiting for a reply dont think its that common in the uk. My vet friend says she doesn't do them a the are not 100 percent safe
What does she mean? Not safe surgery wise for the dog going through them? No surgery is 100% safe. Or does she mean not 100% effective in preventing puppies? I see other drawbacks to vasectomy. The dog still looks, acts, thinks like an intact dog, other dogs perceive it as intact. You still can't let it run amok for fear of being hit by a car or lost so the likeliehood of puppies resulting would be curtailed by those same fears so, I feel, the dog might as well stay intact. I would neuter instead, after growth is finished. Then it might still act as it did before though, as to marking or some other things learned.
I'm not sure any dog should be allowed to run amok and I don't see why an intact dog is any more likely to get run over or lost than a neutered one. I think the advantages of vasectomy are pretty obvious. No removal of hormones while removing risk of unwanted puppies.....
Well....based on my extremely limited knowledge of dogs mating....I am not at all sure that a snipped dog mating with a bitch in season - unsupervised and unarranged - is a stress free safe activity. So I'd been pretty much as keen to avoid it as with an entire dog. If you have an entire dog, then secure gardens, locked doors, dog in sight (always) and so on is just your responsibility. And if you have a bitch in season, you should have her on a lead and in areas where there are very unlikely to be other dogs off lead - like a street pavement.
LOL, well I AM sure NO dog should be allowed to run amok. I can't tell if @bbrown is agreeing with me or misunderstood me and is disagreeing? In case I was not clear, the fear of getting hit or lost, I think, pertains to the dog neutered or not and would also limit unwanted puppy potential. So no running amok for either.
Agreeing, I think. An entire dog (well, any dog) needs to be under your control, and supervision. That's just the way it is. I wouldn't be any less cautious if the dog had a vasectomy. I mean, it's not ok for a dog to leg it to a bitch in season under any circumstances, and agree it's the fastest way to get a dog killed....
This is a serious question - do most (Shadow aside lol) intact males try to leg it after a BIS? So if your dog is off lead, sniffing around the park, and suddenly a BIS appears, how much control are you likely to have over your dog? Presumably (I know nothing about dog mating) a dog could quickly mount a bitch and then ejaculate? Or does it really depend on the individual dog?
Fred has got all his tackle and we have no problems. Touch wood, he has never run off in his life and is more interested in playing with his toy or ball we have with us. Fred is 2 years old now, maybe he is like Shadow
LOL, well my experience of entire dogs is limited to Shadow and the two my sister has had, one Staffie and one cocker. Neither of which has been remotely interested in girls "in that way". My question arose from a discussion about the blanket neutering of rescue dogs, which I disagree with. Their claim has always been "it prevents unwanted litters". I don't think it does (but can't put my hand on any research). Irresponsible dog ownership causes unwanted litters and people who want to breed their dogs, either responsibly or irresponsibly, just won't have rescue dogs. So, my question was, if this is their only reason for neutering, why don't they vasectomise, allowing the dog to keep his gonadal hormones, rather than using castration?
It varies dramatically, and there does seem to be a spectrum. For a fact testosterone does surge in young males, so more marked sexual driven behaviour is to be expected as they hit adolescence. In terms of a BIS, Benson will pick up the scent and be gone, nothing will stop him, he would run across a busy road without a thought.
Charlie is fine. He will be very interested in a bitch in season, but I have had no trouble in putting him back on his lead. He might then be extremely interested in sniffing, but not uncontrollable at all. He has never disappeared after a bitch in season. We've met loads now, for some reason people think it is acceptable to walk a bitch in season on Wimbledon Common. One thing that bugs me is that everytime I've had to act quickly to grab my dog, the bitch has run up to us. People seem to forget that the bitches can be as keen to find a boy as the boys can be to find the girls.
I don't really see the point in a vasectomy, it is putting a dog through an unnecessary operation. I tend to think it unfair to keep a dog entire, he will have the desire to mate, but be frustated. Though not all dogs have the same level of testosterone. @JulieT yes, indeed bitches can be very tempting creatures and flirt like mad
The point is, they are saying that they castrate to prevent the dogs breeding. They are already performing what I would deem to be an "unnecessary operation", and certainly a more invasive one. Potentially even a life-limiting one, as reports I've read suggest that entire dogs live longer than neutered ones and are less prone to certain life-altering conditions (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096726/). I'm not saying that no dogs should be neutered - each owner needs to make that decision based upon the myriad of factors that affect them individually. What I'm asking is, when the reason the rescue centres neuter their dogs is solely to prevent further litters, then surely it makes sense to use the less invasive method. Unless the cost is prohibitive. I don't mean surgically invasive, by the way - I would have thought that the vasectomy would be less surgically invasive, but I don't have the medical knowledge to back that up. What I mean is that a vasectomy is less invasive in that it doesn't change the dog's hormones in the same way as castration. That's why I think it would be preferable, if the whole argument for desexing (by rescue centres, not individual owners) is to prevent puppies.
You make excellent points Snowbunny. I can only think that people think the full castration has a positive affect on the dogs' behaviour. I don't know the science but I personally see no evidence of this whatever. ...
I think that applies to humans too, or it used to when they first started being done. I've read the vas deferens can actually grow back together. Neuter or castration is not immediately effective either, viable sperm can apparently survive for some time, forget the time, only a few weeks or months? And that dog with an unwatchful owner can impregnate. I am not sure what people mean when they say "castrate." I thought castration involved complete removal of the scrotal sac, same as horses and cattle, so that reproduction status was obvious, not including the small time delay mentionned above. Neuter, my understanding, these days is more likely to remove only the testes and the sac remains, sometimes shrinking up, sometime not much. Though Neuter can mean either, castration means complete removal? Is there a definite definition or is it a local language thing?
My experience has been than some people think castration will stop pulling on leads etc when only training will do that. They seem very put out when their dog still pulls but they've never actually done any training. For some owners castration equals quick fix no pun intended to all their problems without any work. I see it a lot round here were people seem to hold on to very traditional views. They seem to be confused, and think castration will solve all boy dog and none boy dog problems
The scrotal sac isn't removed in horses. Only the contents. The incision is generally not stitched, but otherwise it's basically the same as in dogs. Castration is the same as neutering is the same as desexing.
