What Do You Think The Pros and Cons are of Neutering?

 

One of the most opinionated, avoided, fluffed up, sugar coated and misunderstood questions by many professionals in every field of dogdom.

"So Erik, my vet says to clip em! twist the tubes! Reap their god given ability to sow! Trainer A B C & D all say different things; Margie Bragsalot, the show handler down the block with ribbons across her thumbtack board preaches another... I'm just so confused! Should I fix them?"

MY take on it:

That’s a very versatile question depending on lots of variables. Who owns the dog, where does the dog live, how much control and time does the owner/handler have on the dog. For instance If I’m a man living in a very populated city with high percentiles of dogs roaming the streets I can have tons of taunting pheromones moving about the air from females within a 5 mile radius.

Those smells increase the desire for a dog to seek sex on top of a bunch of other things. Now if I’m at work 8 hours a day and my dogs pent up in the living room with the window cracked open, or in the yard with a weak fence. I may have an issue. And there's nothing worse then 8-12 homeless puppies. So in the sense of responsibility I think it definitely benefit’s the dog and owner a great deal to have males and females fixed.

The rate of homeless dogs euthanized or not is sickening. We’re talking almost 3 million healthy dogs a year in cement kennel runs big enough to eat and shit. To put that in perspective that’s about 46 sold out football stadiums EVERY SEAT filled with a homeless dog--per year! So one huge pro is the reduction of dogs in shelters or gas chambers.

With that being said there is also a lot of modern day reasoning thrown at castration and tied tubes for the sake of health, aggression, and energy problems. I personally and professionally disagree with this. I have dogs unfixed that are very human/animal friendly as well as quite sociable and very content laying at your feet when there's not a whole bunch going on. I also have fixed dogs who need some work on their temperament and excitability.

To me the seemingly growing obsession with clipping a dog for irrelevant reasons lies adjacent to the reason we lock our doors at night. You can go an entire lifetime and not get robbed, but there's always that chance. In today’s day we play better safe then sorry.  So depending on if you live in Alabama Oregon New York or LA, spend 12 hours a day with your dog or 2--there is always going to be a what if.