I only did a quick google search so not sure how accurate this info is but it sounds like vets called for a repeal in the law after documenting the counties numerous health and behavioural issues associated with unneutered dogs. Im on phone but will post the link later.

The issue I have with these 'other' ways, is that they don't seem to be very widespread. I would rather go down a route that I know, than go down one that I know little about.

Thank you. I suppose I could have done that really!

rune

Hehe well google searching quickly isnt the best route, im guessing like me you are hoping the poster of the comment on Sweden will come back and elaborate, and we can all have a decent, interesting and thought provoking discussion.

I thinl the appropriate expression would be

Chance would be a fine thing!

rune

Haaa i just spat out my drink!

Since I attended the neutering seminar in February I have done a great deal of research into the pros and cons of neutering and, as is usual, many of the studies are flawed in some way, most are contradictory etc.

It is very much something that needs to be considered not in isolation, IMHO, but all the factors that may or may not affect this decision for the better or worse.

I would certainly not have a performance dog neutered prior to 18 months. However, for example, I will probably need to have a bitch as my next dog (my domestic circumstances do not lend themselves to having two full males alone in the hous) and thus she would need to be neutered at some point as my current dog is an entire male.

Contrary to what seems to be today's popular thinking, I can think of quite a few cases where castration did help matters.

Humping Harvey (as he became affectionately known) was humping anything and everything (even standing on his back legs humping nothing at all) from 12 weeks old. Training helped, but only a little. He was castrated at six months out of owner desperation. The humping stopped. He lived a happy life with his owners until he succumbed to age related health problems. His owners were considering other options before the castration as he was a large breed.

Way too hyper-excited Lab castrated at 18 months. Calmed within 3-4 months of the op - again a happy outcome for dog and owner and lived to a ripe old age

Not, in my opinion, something to be done routinely, but in certain cases in can help with issues and keep a dog in a loving home.

I'd have been happy to discuss things further but I was out working this evening and have only just checked this thread now.

I believe the law changed because more people are putting pressure on the govt/vets to neuter for behavioural reasons. It was hard to neuter even if a dog was aggressive and it was believed that neutering would remove that aggression. So it was at such an extreme, that the law really did need to be changed.

The situation in Norway is similar - it's more a Scandinavian thing. The Norwegian Animal Welfare Act makes it clear that surgical procedures are not to be used to adapt animals to the needs of humans, unless strictly necessary. Again, this is currently under review and I think some conclusion is due in 2012.

It's important to realise that neutering is a sociological/social phenomenon and not (only) about health benefits or drawbacks. It is social and cultural. In Sweden it was illegal to castrate a male dog until 1988.

They don't have stray dogs in Scandinavia - not in the same numbers we do - and people who breed dogs are (by and large) what we would consider responsible breeders. They don't have puppy farms. They have an entirely different set up. It is harder to get a dog, it is seen as more of a responsibility, and so on.

No, of course I don't apply the same rules to other species of animals in a blanket sort of way. Just as we allow the routine, non-anesthetised docking of lambs tails using banding and other methods, but we have decided that this should be banned for puppies on the basis of cruelty. Just as I eat chicken but not dog.

However, I do believe that animals should be left entire where possible (practical). For me, it is about the animal's quality of life.

In terms of dogs being aggressive unless neutered, I would really want people to look instead at the breeding of those dogs and whether lines which produce dogs that are aggressive unless an invasive surgical procedure is carried out, should be perpetuated. Breeding from them and accepting this as somehow 'normal' male behaviour for a dog is not going to fix the problem. Neutering all progeny and then not even knowing if they would have become aggressive, unneutered, also gives us little to go on. We would not breed from lines which are seen to produce aggression towards people unless the dog were neutered, so why this is ok if the target is other dogs, I'm not sure.

"are you saying in your last paragraph that we should breed from unneutered pet dogs to enhance the gene pools of various breeds?"

No, I'm not saying anyone 'should' do anything. But it does come about that frequently the last remains of a line end up in pet owners' hands. There was an example of this in show cocker spaniels, but don't ask me what the lines were. If pet owners have all neutered their dogs, then that's it - that line is extinct. Sometimes genetic variety (health) is more important than whether a specific dog has achieved something or not and whether as an individual it is a high enough achiever to be bred from. As we've seen with the dalmatian-pointer fiasco recently, it is really hard to get KCs to agree to inject anything from another breed - and even harder to get people in the breed's community to accept that as necessary. So it is in our interests to maintain (through breeding) as much genetic variety within all pedigree breeds as possible. That means that, the more different lines there are, with the more different genetic material, the better. That is not what will happen, if the only people who breed are people who show their dogs with a smattering of people who work them. Because those people tend to breed the best to the best, and the gene pool gets ever smaller. They use each other's stud dogs and they give a puppy back to each other.

Meanwhile, someone whose pet dog comes from a long line of pet dogs for 20 generations, often ends up with genetic material which is very different to that going around the competitive world. If that person (and all people like that) neuter their dogs, because they've been told 1) that is the responsible thing to do and 2) their dog hasn't achieved anything so should never be bred from, masses of genetic variety is lost.

Very topically, I just came across this link of John Rogerson talking about spaying and neutering. I don't agree with everything he says but he does make some good points which are strangely similar: