So. At Doggy playtime on Saturday I got speaking to a lady who sends her dog to the same Daycare as Rolo. She said she had to withdraw him temporarily as the daycare advised he be Neutered as he was unmanageable with other females. Anyone have any experience of this being a daycare requirement? I am conscious Rolo is coming up to 7 months now and I think it becomes more prevalent as they get older, the interest in females. Do you think its a fair requirement?
All daycares have this requirement I believe. Stanleys been to 3 - one he can't go to anymore as their requirement is 7 months. Janine - who was happy to wait until he was around a year. He's trying his new one tomorrow who wasn't overly pleased that he wasn't done by 10 months. He did try to mount her dog but he soon got the message she wasn't happy with it. She said she'll let him go & see how he gets on when I explained we were getting him done in the next couple of months. He has turned into a bit of a mounter which I don't like. He doesn't do it with toys or pillows - only other dogs.
No , I don't think its a fair requirement at all . Neutering of males and females should be a decision made by the owner themselves and not enforced by anyone else . I also tend to think that the longer you can leave castration ( if you do want to go ahead ) the better it is for the dog , seven months seems very young, good luck .
This has comes up a LOT on the forum. As someone who had a dog who had many health issues that were linked to early neutering including his ultimate cause of death (albeit at the ripe old age of 13), I don't want to neuter my next dog. He may already come neutered as a rescue, but down to my choice, I won't do it. I've done enough research on my own to conclude it is bad news health-wise and doesn't help behaviour-wise. I know this is pretty controversial (in fact I just had a heated discussion with a friend in the US last night about it), but this is my personal opinion after being 100% pro neutering for years. So no, I don't think it's a fair requirement. I think it's outdated, close-minded, not science-based, lazy and dangerous ("Tell us how you really feel, Emily! ). However, it does seem to be a COMMON requirement. And depending on how much you are between a rock and a hard place with your daycare/work situation, you may decide that it's best for you.
Thanks all, Being honest, I've never wanted to have him Neutered and haven't considered it a risk worth taking on my dog just from minimal research. My OH's work requirements may be changing in the coming months in which case, If the daycare tried to force my hand I would be able to walk away and say no, thank you. And he would look after Rolo, But if his work situation doesn't change, I would really be stuck. So I think its just a wait it out situation, I wouldn't consider it before 12 months... But I was just sounding out here if others had been required it for daycare. I feel daycare's think it easier to try to 'force' male dog owners rather than females which seems unfair.
My day care requires that both male and female's be neutered/spayed or they won't take them. Actually, ALL day care's in my area require that. So for those that work full time, they are sort of forced into it and at an early age,mind you. Six months.
lol Emily, love that comment. I am on the same page as you. I mean I GET it ya know, that's one thing they do not want to worry about it, but it's a pretty intense requirement. I didn't send Chandler to a day care just because I was unsure of what to do.
All day cares in my area require neutering of both males and females at 6 months. Snowie went till 6 months -- the day care was very strict with this requirement. He is not neutered (5 years old). But anyway, I don't think he'd like day care at his age now. He LOVED it as a puppy, but I think now he'd want to know he has his own, peaceful space at home even though he is very sociable and loves being out and about. I am lucky that my husband and I are quite flexible when it comes to working at the office or working from home, and we have a cleaner who also takes Snowie out during the day on the days she works for us. If you can't find a day care, another option is a dog walker. My sister (in another city) has two dog walkers, one for the morning and one for the afternoon, because she has very long work hours at the moment.
INtact males don't usually become unmanageable with females unless the female is in heat. That said I do know one who was besotted with any female dog, spayed or not, heat or not, and from the way he acted I guess it would be completely reasonable to ban him from DDC. Does your DDC allow females in season to come for the month or so that they smell so different to the males? I think it's only unfair if they allow entire girls (not in season) but not entire males.
I took my boy out of Daycare when they said he needed neutering at 9 months. When I asked if there had been a problem they said no, he's been a bit boisterous though, I asked them to be a bit more specific but they couldn't - I believe they just had a bee in their bonnet about it. I mentioned the research regarding the effects of early neutering but they had absolutely no idea, they were shocked. It is actually my friend the owns the daycare and I thought she had quite a good knowledge about these things but it appears not, one of my other friends had her Rotweiller there too and they started going on at her in the same way, again with no specific reason, she looked into the implants for him and again the Daycare had no idea about this - which I find very disappointing to say the least, it's their profession so in some respects I expect them to have a better knowledge than me. I have another friend with a neutered Boston Terrier and he still humps anything that moves and yet he'd be welcome at Daycare, can't figure that out. Anyway what I want to say is, don't despair, I now have a fantastic dog walker, who is more than happy to leave my boy as he is, she deals with the issue on a case by case basis, she has excellent dog knowledge, believes in positive training, clicker trains all her own dogs to competition level in obedience and tracking etc. and I believe he is much happier being out and about for a couple of hours (increased as he got older) and then a good sleep at home rather than be holed up in one place with a big group of dogs. Sorry to go on but one further thing, I also don't think the Daycare set up particularly helped with my boys training, he's a friendly boy and I think it led to him thinking that yippee every time he saw a group of dogs it was playtime, which I know is a lab thing, but the unstructured set up at daycare only served to reinforce this. My Spaniel detests daycare anyway so she won't even go through the door, again she adores her walker. Oh heck I appear to have had a bit of a rant there.
