You realy seem to know a different lot of vets to the ones I know and read a different set of research papers. Can you let me have a list of the papers you have gleened your information from, many thanks.

I'm a vet student, my sources are the people at the forefront of some of the research who I am privileged enough to be lectured by.

Like Jackie I too would be interested in your sources Your lecturers must have published peer-reviewed research?

Thing is Lou3 I was talking about a particular case, one I knew well and whose problems were defiantly not hereditary. This was not just my opinion but also the opinion of at least a dozen vets who dealt with him and of those who did tests on samples sent to the USA. You obviously do not believe me but that is your problem.

You 'spoke' with authority as if only your opinion is correct so we naturally wish to know where this information came from. My research is, I admit, about 5 years old so if there are papers that change the conclusions reached in the papers I have read I would be pleased to know what they are, when they were written and by whom.

We appreciate you have respect for your lecturers but as you will realise there is no such thing as a definitive answer to anything, particularly where a living creatures and their care is concerned. Vets are people and believe it or not they can be wrong and they can be bigoted just like the rest of us.

Think anyone with an inquiring mind will wish to look beyond what they have been told by one person or group of people and look to see what others think and most of us fall into that category, along with our joint years of experience there is a healthy distrust of what we are told and a wish to look into things for ourselves, so details of the papers that are shaping present thinking please.

My sources are my lecture notes and text books. I would love to have time to read papers on every topic, but its just not possible, the course would take thirty years if we had to do that. Researchers at every vet school publish many papers every year, but since they spit them back out to us in lectures I'm not worried that we're missing anything crucial.
I cant do anything about it if you choose not to trust vets. I'm not going to sit here and prove every last little thing I say with dozens of research papers. I know the basis of my knowledge is sound, if you dont trust that, fine, just dont follow my advice there's nothing making you.
I merely pointed out the most obvious alternative explanations for your dog's conditions, so people would realise that there are other much more common reasons for what you dog suffered from and that castration is on the whole an extremely low risk procedure - both during the operation and as far as post-surgery side effects are concerned. What you do with that information is up to you.

I am disappointed you are not able to point me in the direction of this new research; I will have to ask elsewhere to find out where this new information is coming from.

It is not that I do not trust vets, the ones I ask for information are my friends but they are not recently qualified and are too busy practicing to read all the latest papers. They would be the first to admit that veterinary science is not an exact one and there is always room for a second opinion or a new idea, it is never safe to be dogmatic in ones advice or opinion as you may well find that tomorrow, the knowledge you felt secure in will be overturned by someone else’s research.

Not sure why you keep on about the actual fact or procedure of the act of castration, that was not the problem and I don't think I suggested it was. My dogs problems did not start until he was over 2 years and had nothing to do with the operative procedure.

I`ve 4 males, 1x5yrs old & 3x6yrs old with 1 of the 1yr olds castrated & the rest entire. The castrated dog(Joe) came back to me & within 24hrs was living with the others. All live, sleep, eat & play together very happily & I`m very aware about the dangers of stress Never had a fight, either between themselves or with other dogs. They live with 6 girls, some speyed, 2 entire.

The entire males seem more *energized* than him. Don`t know how to describe it really I also had another male that had been castrated & he was similar to Joe behavioural wise. He is also, or was because they others are having an influence on him now, quite silly

I doubt very much my males will be used again at stud, one has never been used anyway, but I`ll not have them done except for medical reasons.

Maybe as J suggests breeders should concentrate more on educating people how to managing un neutered dogs instead of straight off castrating them.

If people are not confidant enough to keep entire males without accidents happening or behaviour probs then yes, by all means castrate but wait till after puberty

sorry, I haven't read all this thread so you might already have the answer, but someone told me that her friend's 23 weeks old dog puppy fathered a litter, totally unexpectedly - she didn't realise they could that young.

Sorry if it's a bit late! lol

By which time its too late to do any good for anything other than the fathering a litter problem.
Behavioural and health benefits are all associated with neutering BEFORE puberty.

making it even less likely they had anything to do with the castration. Testosterone is fully out of the system after six weeks so you would expect to see any problems associated with removing said hormone at this time.

Post-operative side effects do not just mean complications from the act of surgery itself. If the side-effect occurs ten years after surgery it is still a side-effect of that surgery.