Not even sure your statement is correct, hormones are produced by the hormone producing glands of the body as and when the body needs them, removing some of these glands does make a difference one only has to look at the history of castrato to see the difference it makes not only to the voice but to the structure of the body, the development of early onset joint problems and in some cases reduced immunity. The testis may be present in the womb as are ova but neither are viable nor do they produce the characteristic growth hormone until puberty and this is not complete even then as the hormonal system is still required for adjustments and repair through out the life of the organism.

It is interesting to note that a female is born with all the ova (eggs) she will ever have, a male produces sperm, fresh, for his entire life.

Would add that people will never ever agree on this as those who love their males intact and developing the full male characteristics of their chosen breed can't understand why others would settle for a castrated male who to them seems a totally different animal. And those who have castrated males do not understand because in most cases they have never known what owning an intact one is like.

I do feel that a dog should be allowed to complete the growing process before part of the hormonal system is removed, the steroids produced by the testis are not just to do with reproduction but there is no doubt that a puppy will manage without them it really depends on what you want from keeping dogs.

Even vets can't agree on whether dogs should be neutered and if so when, nor do they agree on the side effects of neutering so what hope is there of us novice dog lovers.

Ok, ok, ok

The bitches aren't mine. I have no other animals in the house. I have no intention of using Max as a stud. I've heard varying ideas as to when a dog should be castrated (age etc).

Max's breeder, Anna, is my best friend and has 3 dogs of her own:
Norman (5yr old male boxer, castrated at 6mths old)
Lucy (black unspayed labrador, about 7 years old)
Lottie (Max's Mum - unspayed, obviously)

and they are keeping Millie, Max's sister, to eventually breed from.

We spend a lot of time at their house - we stay over, go walking and riding often, and go camping 6-7 times a year. We've always treated their dogs as if they were our own... when they first got Lottie, we had her staying at our house, as they were moving house at the time.

My only questions were that I wasn't sure when a dog was sexually mature. I've had experience with rats, and I know that as soon as they are 5 weeks old they are old enough to breed. I wasn't sure if there was anything like this with dogs - none of the books I've read seem to mention ages etc.

Lottie and Lucy aren't due to come into season again until about November, we worked out today, and Millie won't have her first season for a while.

Obviously I'll take precautions all the time until he is castrated, but was really just after a little guidance.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply/ask for clarification on things....

6-9 months is a perfect age to have him castrated. The best rule is that the day after he cocks his leg to pee for the first time is the day he gets castrated - of course My Finlay never did **** his leg, but he got done at eight months anyway.
The "give them time to mature" is kind of out of date now. The vast majority of vets will advise that six months onwards is fine to castrate and it should most definately be done before 1 year because after that a lot of the behavioural aspects that are one of the things you castrate to avoid are already learnt and it is very difficult to train them out. Also dog aggression is learnt by this point and the most common form of dog aggression is entire males "guarding" against other entire males. Thats certainly what they've been teaching us in vet school!
As for how young they can "perform" as young as 5-6 months in smaller breeds, often a bit older in large breeds.

From a veterinary POV you are WAY off base with the hormones. All hormones are present at all times. Only the levels of hormones varies. A male would not develop male "parts" without male hormones and a female would be sterile if the developing ovaries did not recieve sufficient amounts of the female hormones before birth. It used to be thought that the hormones released by the ovaries were in part responsible for the development of the urinary tract and that a bitch should be allowed to have her first season before speying.
Recently however studies have shown that there is NO link between speying and urinary tract development and the benefits of speying early much outweigh these old wives tale risks. For example a bitch speyed after her first season is almost 10 times more likely to develop mammary cancer in later life than a bitch speyed before her first season.

I've got a booklet about it somewhere - will scan and send you a copy when I find it. I was trying to find it for our dog training class recently when a similar issue was raised but couldn't find it - my filing system is lousey!

I completely completely agree - my boy is entire and I have NO plans to change that - the first 12 - 14 months has been an absolute whirlwind for us but it's also been incredibly gratifying watching a dog move through the diferent stages towards sexual maturity and a really good learning curve - he is now calmer and more grown up and is wonderful around our new little girl (furry kind!!)

As for aggression, I feel sure there are plenty of owners out there who have prevented this from an early age with the use of knowledge and effective training to re-inforce the dog's place in the pack, without snipping his bits off!!!

I'd be interested to hear about this if anyone has experience of this??

An interesting point re this, that I've noticed recently is the behaviour of an intact and a neutered male together

Norman was castrated and is 5 yrs old
Lewis is used as a stud (Maxwell's DogDad) and is 3 years old

Neither is in any way aggressive (although I suspect this is how they have been brought up) and they are both at ease with children and other (strange) dogs.

I guess to quite a large extent it's to do with training, beeding etc

We're not getting him done to stop him being aggressive or jumping etc anyway

As a matter of interest why are you castrating him?

Would be interested if you come across it, providing it is not one of mine have been researching this for about 16 years now have loads of information from vets, doctors and owners but am always interested in anything new.