Hey All, My boy is now just turned 1! Time flies ... Since he is not neutered, he marks his territory everywhere .... However, its been a few times now that as he is lifting his leg to mark a bush or pole, but he also poops at the same time. Is this just a bad habit or does it have a meaning? A more general question, any special attention to give to not neutered labs? Thanks all, I appreciate it
Hehe, Shadow did this for a while. It made me chuckle. He grew out of it for the most part, but still does it every now and again. I think it's just a spot of confusion, nothing to be concerned about. I don't think marking is just an entire thing. We had neutered dogs growing up and they were forever stopping to cock their legs. Willow (female, spayed) also marks sometimes. Their sister, Annie (also spayed) marks a lot and cocks her leg while she's doing it I don't think there's anything specific (that I can think of at the moment) that you need to do with entire boys, other than the obvious of being aware of bitches in season and how he reacts to them.
Charlie always cocks his leg to poo. He has been known to do a handstand while pooing, in his efforts to poo up a tree. He says it's a boy thing.
If he's just turned one year you might run into other dogs, mostly males but any dog, who take exception to his soaring testosterone levels. Apparently they can go up to as high as 7 times what they will be at maturity. Read at the link at Puppy License to Misbehave, about half way down. We encountered some of this but we were always off leash in areas where the dogs had lots of room to move away from each other. http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/dog-communication
When Pongo was between about 1 and 2 years of age, he got a lot of unwanted attention from other dogs (neutered and entire) who seemed to find his smell threatening - especially in high-stress environments like doggy daycare. He was on the receiving end of some odd aggression (quite a shock until I realised what might be going on!). Since he has got a bit older that problem seems to have gone away.... although we don't take him to daycare any more so I can't really be sure. He also, very occasionally, develops an obsessive interest in another dog (male or female) and won't leave them alone. This has happened maybe three or four times in his life, so not frequent! I would guess this is probably related to him being not-neutered, but it is not a big problem - we've just learned that if he acts like that there is no point trying to dissuade him, the only solution is to get him out of there!
