neutering - opinions

[dilly]

Just wondering what everyones opinion is on neutering a male pointing dog at a young age. If he gets fixed before he starts peeing on everything, will it make him an easier dog to hunt over in the field? Will it make him more "singleminded" smiliesex: (less concerned about the ladies or other intact males)? Is there a downside if my intentions are not to breed him?

[Drew Good]

Hey Dilly,

I have no idea how old your dog is but the latest research shows that it is not a good idea to spay or neuter your dog before the age of 13-14 months and if at all possible wait until the dog is 18-24 months. The reasoning behind this is by fixing your dog at a young age the dog does not have the proper amount of hormones to aid in the fusing of the growth plates.

A study of 1444 Golden retrievers showed that dogs that were fixed before the age of 1 were significantly taller than those dogs that were fixed after they were a year old.

Drew

[TK'S]

Dilly Drew is right the only reason Vet's want you to fix them before they are 6 mos. is that it is easyer for them so they say that it is cheeper . They will not develope to there full structure . You want that big chest .I don't cut any of them male or female . The females that are done having pups and are living in the house will be done but other than that I have never cut any. Terry

[Sharon]

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:qZsQF_Myk0cJ:www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf+neuter ing+a+scholarly+report&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=ca

[Drew Good]

Thats a good link Case, thanks for pointing that out. If you notice in the study there were 4x as many negitives as there were positives to fixing your dog.

The only way I am fixing my female is if something pop's up that stops me from wanting to bred her down the road ( ie: fails a CMN test or OFA xray ect...)

Drew

[dilly]

Thanks for the input folks. I have got some good info on this topic. I had never heard about the bone growth angle before.