how will neutering my dog affect his growth/personality?

Hi all!

We have decided to take samson soon to be neutered. Were hoping by doing this will help his aggression towards other male dogs. I know sometimes it wont make any difference but some people i have spoken to have different experiences. What are some of your experiences? Do you think it will affect his growth in any way? He is 2 now so pretty much fully grown anyway.

thanks for any advice

Before you go lopping his bits off, have you considered the Suprelorin implant route ? Suprelorin reduces testosterone to nil & gives you at least 6 months in which to assess any changes in your dogs behaviour & if his dog aggression reduces then you will have a good idea that castration will have the same effect.

I think it's important to wait till he really has stopped growing before you go ahead with this. He's going to need all his hormones to develop the bone density to support his big frame. After that you just need to make sure you don't let him get too porky. People seem to associate neutering with weight gain, but there's no reason why you should let it happen to your dog.

By the way, if he has a problem with other dogs, castration might diminish it, but you will still need to be actively addressing it, possibly in conjunction with a good behaviourist. It might be aggravated by hormones, but he's still had plenty of time to ingrain the habit.

Samson does has heightened levels of aggression, well, we think its that. At the park, and at home. Challenging other intact dogs, and telling him to go in his kennel results in some serious growling and snarling towards us.

Before cutting his bits off I would look at a behavioural route...would you consider that? I can recommend someone who is brill. I don't know if you are a positive reward based trainer or not...or if you are open to changing methods..but I can recommend someone. She uses positive, reward based methods. I have no idea how much she costs.

I'd never neuter an aggressive dog unless I was 100% sure he wasn't doing it out of fear, how sure can you be?

If I was in your shoes - I think I would try the implant first - castration is very final - and if it does change his behaviour for the worse there is no going back...

I would also get someone in to have a look at his behaviour and advise you a route to go down - possibly including the castration but at his age - I don't think you will get the results you are looking for with castration alone.

Is the kennel used as punishment? My dogs always rush into their kennel because they know they're gonna get a treat.

I had a dog who showed aggression to other dogs. Went down the chemical castration route & it made him much worse. So no castration but work with a behaviourist. I'm so glad thats what my vet reccommended.

A chemical castration is not the same as the implant - and will often make the probelm worse as it is a OD of female hormones as opposed to inhibiting the production of testosterone.