Should You Desex Your Dog? Expert Vet & Trainer Reveal Pros, Cons & Timing

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count.

Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, a podcast hopefully giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, it's friendly. My name is Jack Lawrence. Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer. Max, we're going to be talking about— I mean, I was going to say a controversial topic, but I mean, I feel like most topics when it comes to dogs is controversial in some aspects. But desexing, luckily we've got an expert we can talk to this about.

Yes. So really happy to have Ingrid from Creature Connections, who's a behaviour vet.

Cool.

Welcome, Ingrid. Thanks for coming back. We've got a few interesting topics to unpack with you today.

Yes. Desexing, which is, it's obviously an interesting one. People have some very hardcore views either way. Obviously, there's people that say you should get a dog desexed as soon as possible so that we don't have, you know, inundation of dogs, which we've already got, and they end up in pounds, et cetera, et cetera. And then there's those that say, No desexing because of health situations and, you know, getting the full growth out of your dog and all those sorts of things. I suppose it's probably a hard question to say for or against, or, you know, what are your views when it comes to that side of things, the desexing pros and cons, I suppose?

Yeah, it's probably better to pros and cons. And because I think that's so far from black and white, it's not funny.

Yeah.

So there is no for, I guess for me, there's no for and against. It would really depend on the situation, on the dog. Sometimes now, maybe on the breed and the age.

Let's go first of all with the pros for desexing in your opinion.

So obviously no puppies if we don't want them. And while you often hear, oh, you know, you just need to confine your dog, blah, blah, look after your dog. And yes, in theory, of course, that's what should be happening. But I guess we also know that accidents happen.

Management inevitably fails or something.

Yeah, it does. And I guess especially in an environment or a place where a lot of dogs still spend a lot of the day maybe outside and no one's home, a dog that wants to get out because there is another, there's a female in heat, probably find a way. They can be quite determined. So it's, I think it's a lot easier to say, oh, you should just make sure your dog can't get out.

In theory, it doesn't happen that way. It's like Kira's from an organisation that deals with last litter programs for dogs that are out in sort of rural Australia. So she came from the outback. Miles away in the middle of nowhere where they've seemingly just, the dogs just sort of roam and they end up doing what dogs do and then litters are born. And then, so they have these last litter programs where they take the dogs in that are having the puppies, put the puppies out for fostering and then obviously to be looked after. And then those dogs get then spayed, neutered, or whatever it is. And that's how they do it. So, in those situations, obviously makes sense because you've got an inundation of dogs that are just, you know, having puppies left, right and centre and there's too many dogs and not enough people obviously to take care of them all.

Yes, we still have too many dogs. Obviously there's a lot, there's a lot of reasons for that, but unwanted litters are definitely going to contribute to that.

It's incredible how many dogs you see that are, yeah, like you can tell it's not a litter by design. And we did a mixed breed episode last week, but you'll just see some very random mixes, you know, German Shepherd pugs. And you're like, no, no one's out there looking for a German Shepherd pug. That's just a very motivated Shepherd or a very motivated pug that's hopped a fence at some point. I've brought my dog around for a barbecue and found them tied in the backyard with my, you know, nan's dog or something. It's, uh, you're right. So desexing from that point of view is definitely going to help keep the, the numbers down. And from a, from a behavioral point, and I guess it's probably worth splitting this one in 2 because how females and males react to desexing is probably quite different. And again, I've got no numbers sitting on me to back this up, but at least anecdotally. But I noticed quite a drastic behavior change in males, um, post-desexing, and sometimes that's Better or worse, case-by-case basis. And sometimes they change by 1%, sometimes they do a pretty large 180 in terms of their temperament. But we'll get to males in a second. I'd really like to chat to you about the females. Do you find that desexing females changes their overall temperament all that much?

Probably not hugely, I would think. Again, it's very difficult to kind of flesh out why things are changing sometimes, especially in the In the behavior space and the age that a lot of dogs do get desexed. So I think the majority, even if, you know, even if we wait now a bit longer, will be like, it will be in adolescence where a lot of things change and a lot of things happen. And, um, the behavior does change regardless, but we, we don't necessarily know if it was due to, or how much was due to desexing.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's it.

Maybe there was some, or there was a lot, or there was none, but it's, we don't necessarily know how much influence there was.

Yeah. Once it's done, it's done. It's impossible to know if those same changes would have taken place just with, because like you said, we typically desex not out the blue when the dog's 5 or 6 years of old, once they've reached that very just like plateau in development mentally, but it's generally around, you know, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months when their dogs are having some pretty huge mental milestones, right?

Yeah. There's a huge, So much development going on at that age. And then sometimes, you know, it may still be that just the experience of being in for surgery may have a huge influence at that stage in the dog's development.

That's a great point.

That may have an influence. Yeah.

So for females, like, I mean, obviously not going through 2 heat cycles a year will make your dog feel quite different because they can be, it can be a pretty long month or a pretty long couple of months while our dogs reach homeostasis. hormones settle back down again. But generally for females, you see, desexing doesn't overall affect their temperament that much, would you say, is pretty reasonably fair?

I don't think, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I can, like, I've paid close attention. So it's not something that I noticed, but I don't think I've kind of like, that's in the veterinary space.

Yeah.

Put it that way. Cause I don't, you know, when I see, when I see patients as a behavior vet, I usually see most of the time I see them a bit later in life.

Yeah.

Like I don't see a lot that come just, oh, just was desexed and now this is, this is happening, if that makes sense. So from a purely veterinary view, I don't see a lot of difference in terms of male or female, if they change or not. Yeah. It's probably not a useful answer for you.

No, no, but it's good. It's good to unpack it because again, there's, it's, it's important to have these discussions so people realize it isn't so black and white because a lot of people just think, Oh, my dog barked at a dog today, so we've booked him in at the vet next week to desex. And that's why I like your answer, because it's like, well, it's just honest. Like, it's, it's not going to be this one-stop-shop fix. And I think that's where I kind of want to lead into with, with male dogs. I think they're, you know, at least from what I see, there is a pretty drastic change post-desexing. And I think the bigger thing, and I'd love to hear your answer for this, but I feel like there's a pretty obvious lack in or drop in testosterone production. And people might instantly think, oh, how good does that sound? But I would argue it could really go one way or the other. I see a lot of dogs who, when we go through our initial behaviour consult and we chat and we go, all right, tell me everything from the moment you got your dog. They might say he was always a bit shy and a bit nervy and this and that. And then we noticed it went from like lunging to get away from other dogs when he was on the leash to lunging at them to barking at them. And then from the moment we got him desexed, within a week or two, things got even worse. And I would argue that, that sudden drop in testosterone can make them almost feel a little bit like not quite themselves. And like you said, it can be this process of the surgery itself, the pain from healing, the hormones, everything. And sometimes that can exacerbate the issue where people often think, if I had to sex my male dog, it's gonna stop the dominance and stop the aggression and stop all this. And it's, and it's quite often not the case, is it?

Yeah, it would definitely not be my first approach if someone comes to me with an entire Uh, male dog that, like, desexing doesn't even come into discussion. It's not something I would do to address a behaviour issue. If I think, and it's usually a bit down the track, I think, oh, maybe, you know, is there, is there a component that may be contributing, like, then I would also not go straight to desex the dog. I would recommend to get, um, a chemical castration done because it's reversible.

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So what does a chemical castration involve? And do you mind?

I've never even heard of that.

Yeah, yeah, I have. That was one of the ones on the list we wanted to talk about.

Yeah, chemical castration. It's, it's an implant.

Like a blocker or sort of. Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Yeah, it's basically blocks testosterone. production, a bit higher up in the production line.

But like, are they still, are they still sexually reproductive? Are they able to produce sperm? So both, so sperm, semen, and the testosterone are both nullified for— is it a 6 or 12 month thing?

Is it? It's, it's a 6, uh, there's a 6 month implant and a 12 month implant.

Right. Okay.

I've got patients come to me and the clients will ask, oh, you know, I really want to get MD-Sexed, or should we get MD-Sexed? And I'm like, definitely don't rush to do that.

Yeah.

Anyway, there's other things that are higher up the list I would address and look at. But if we think we want to go down that route or the client really wants the dog desexed for whatever reason, I would say just trial the implant first to see how, how it affects the dog.

Yeah.

So I think my main thing is I don't want to risk what you just talked about is that for some dogs, that little bit of testosterone is the only thing that gives them any confidence.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then if you take that away, it may exacerbate the behavior issues they're having because they've got nothing left.

Yeah. And at least if you've done, if it's not permanent, you can say, well, that's all right. A few more, a few months' time, it'll be, you know, we turn around and we'll, we'll work on something else.

Yeah, exactly. So my main approach in that is like, I don't want to just go to castration. I just, I don't want to make things worse.

No, I like that. And I think that's a really important thing because I hope one thing that our listeners are taking away from this is Ingrid is a behaviour vet, and as you can see, desexing isn't this willy-nilly thing where you just go up straight away, desex the dogs. And again, this is not a slight at, you know, your typical, typical vet, but I do see quite often it's quite a rushed recommendation. Oh, my dog barked at a dog. Oh, let's get him booked in next week for the chop. And like you said, that's where at least the What was it? What wasn't it?

Chemical castration.

Sorry, the chemical castration. Sorry, can be, can be good things to go, well, let's at least try, like it might be a fix. But I would argue, like you said, like in most cases it's really not. It doesn't either— that doesn't have as big an impact on behaviour as we'd like to think, or it actually can impact our dog in the wrong way. Like most reactivity we see isn't because this dog's got as much testosterone as a Brahma bull and it's trying to take on the world. It's actually quite the opposite. And The cases where you could argue, okay, like I do see some dogs who come to me and their aggression lies from being sexually competitive with other, other intact males. And, you know, when they'd come to our place, how they'd react to Turtle, our female greyhound, RIP, versus Nelson as our intact male is an entirely different response. And even then, desexing might not be the thing by then. They might just be locked in. They're like, I don't care what's between or not between my legs. I hate intact males. It's, it's just often not this thing that affects our dog anywhere near as much. It's if you've got this rambunctious 12-month-old Labrador that you go, oh, I need to desex him. Newsflash, he's going to be the same dog in a month's time.

He's still going to be rambunctious.

Exactly. People, it's, it's very much this band-aid miracle pill. I feel like it gets maybe marketed as or pitched as, but it's, it's really not. And if you are on the fence about trying it, like chemical castration for males is at least a better option because you might find it does not a whole lot. Is there an option like that for females?

No, not really.

No. Okay.

Unfortunately we don't.

So, so obviously one of the cons we're talking about is the testosterone, the drop in that can, you know, have a negative effect. So, uh, other cons, you know, that come with desexing dogs, as you would talk about, I've seen a lot about sort of health concerns around desexing a dog too early, the growing of a dog, the dog doesn't get to its potential, full potential size, maybe. Are those all sort of—

Yeah. So there is, um, it can, so the hormones do a Affects the closure of growth plates. Um, and sometimes you actually get the opposite.

Um, there's really leggy dogs, don't you?

They might, they might, um, close later because there's no hormonal influence. So it, it, um, hormones definitely play a role in, in maturing physically as well, not just like on a mental, mental, um, level. In terms of other health concerns, again, it's a very gray area.

It is. Yeah.

So like I said, there's a lot of strong feelings around the topic.

Yes, there is.

And, um, people like to, we all do, but people, you know, you like to kind of jump onto anything that may support that, that strong feeling. And, um, often I, I think the, you know, they grab research paper abstracts or just a headline to be like, oh, look, that's what it does. And then when you read, when you read the research, it's a lot less clear. Like science is usually not straightforward. Again, because the things we look at, health or mental health or behaviour, is always multifactorial. It's never just driven by one single factor.

Hmm.

It's often not so easy to determine, you know, so what, what was the reason that my dog got that cancer or that behaviour problem? And Hormones may well play a role, but it's very unlikely that they're the only factor playing a role. And then there tends to be a bit of bias in the studies as well.

So it's really a case-by-case basis, basically. It's what's right for you. Because I know there'd be people out there, because I think because it's been, it's one of those things I feel as someone who's not really, you know, a dog person per se, like from the industry, but from an outsider, for me, it's seen as a thing you must do. Like you get a dog, desexing is something you must do. And if you don't do it, you kind of, people almost raise their eyebrows. You're going, oh. Oh, not dissexed?

Oh, oh.

Yeah, it's the first one we go, oh, you're breeding for nursing?

Oh, you're not worried about that? So I think, you know, if people are listening to this who've got a dog and they're kind of like, well, I don't really want to dissex my dog, then I think probably what they could probably take away from this is if there's no need to, if you're not having any behavioral issues and you're keeping your dog under, you know, I say in quotation marks, control, and you're managing that, there should be no reason to do it.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not a frownable thing where they, people, you know, you should feel bad about the fact that you're not desexing your dog. I think that's the stigma that probably floats around is that if you don't desex, you're a bad person.

Yeah, I think a little bit.

Yeah.

Especially, yeah. Especially in Australia, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. Because everyone's like, too many dogs, get your dog desexed right now. So yeah, I mean, I think, and that's for my, when I, 'cause my next dog, I've, you know, all my dogs have been rescue dogs, but I think my next dog I'm going to get, you know, there's a specific dog that I want and I'll get a specific breed. And I won't desex because of everything that I've learned, because I feel like there is no need. You know, there are obviously, as we said, case-by-case basis situations.

I mean, I guess one interesting thing too that kind of fits into this is like, again, that's anecdotal. If I see dogs, like, I just work with dogs, the dogs that have a good temperament and, you know, everything's done right and they're, you know, they're confident dogs. And if those dogs get desexed, I often nothing happens. So they don't suddenly become those nervous wrecks because it is not a single factor. Because they are confident dogs, it's not going to disappear just because you dissex them. If the dog's normal, for lack of a better word.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's got no, no issues going on with it. It's just a basic dog.

It's not going to suddenly make them a wreck just because you dissex them either.

Yeah.

That's a great point. I think one thing that's pretty like non-debatable about dissexing is that when it happens at an early age, you know, under, under 2 years of age for our dogs, It does impact their physical and mental development for better or for worse. It just, it would impact them. Like you said, desexing a dog early without that, you know, those hormones reaching a certain amount can leave growth plates open, which for those listening, the long bones, which are the bones in our dog's legs, can stay open. So sometimes you'll go, wow, it's a very tall golden retriever. You'll often find they'll desex around 8 or 9 months. And that's why they're 3 or 4 inches taller than everybody at the park. And they look like Michael Jordan.

Oh, really?

It's one of the things. Yeah, absolutely. We saw a vigil like that yesterday. Or you see other things. You see, I mean, you know, quite often people desex their Rottweilers really early because they're, you know, terrified that they'll—

Get aggressive.

And yeah, you see them and they're, you know, half the size of Nelson. They look like a Doberman almost in their build. They're much more slight.

But— Nelson's a scarily big dog.

I mean, he's not even that big for a Rottweiler. But one thing I want to show you guys, and we're actually going to post this in the group, is a photo of these 2 Labradors. And this is something, again, this is anecdotal, but something I I observe every single day in my job is these 2 Labradors in the photo are littermates. This photo is taken on the exact same day. Both dogs are 2 years of age. It's pretty obvious one of those dogs is clearly an intact entire male, and one of them, the one that looks a bit more cute but gimpy, is the one on the left.

Is that your technical term? Is that a veterinary term?

It's a medical term.

Yeah, I've got a gimpy dog.

I'll have to read the paper again, but I'm 90% sure that dog was— it was between Uh, 6 and 10 months he was sexed. So don't quote me, but 6 and 10 months. And you can see a pretty stark— and again, we'll post this in the group— difference in the dogs physically. But I would argue the thing that I observe is mentally I see that same thing, is when we do something that's so disruptive to development, the same changes we see physically are massively happening internally. And a really common thing I get owners say, they go, oh, this is my dog. Yep, cool. His name's Hank the Labrador or the whatever. And he's 7 years going on 7 months. And I almost see this thing that I call, you know, call it whatever, Michael Jackson syndrome, where this dog never grows up entirely. I feel like they hit adolescence and then desexing them just does something to it where they never quite get out of there. And you see these dogs who consistently have just juvenile levels of impulse control, concentration, emotional regulation, and all sorts. And you see these dogs and we go, wow, so-and-so never really slowed down. And I know that happened to our chocolate Labrador Gus growing up because he was mental till the day he, he dropped. He was just a puppy still, and we desexed him at 8 months when he— the first time he humped one of our legs, we went, oh my God, he's dominating us, get those balls off him immediately, and, and all that sort of stuff. So it's one of the first things I do in a consult. How old's your dog, and are they fixed or not fixed? Or like, I just— it's, it's such a thing for, for some reason I've always been very hyper aware of.

Yeah.

Pretty consistently see a pattern. It's, it's one of our consult things. Is your dog entire? If they were desexed, what age would that have been?

What percentage would you say of clients you get, would you see that have, that their dogs are desexed?

80%. Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's definitely more, um, the anomaly that they're not. Um, I would say, yeah, 80, 80, if not 90%.

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of my friends I spoke to have got getting dogs. Like, you know, I was speaking to actually a mate of mine not that long ago. He just got a dog and he said, oh yeah, booked in next week for desexing. And I was like, guys, is there a reason for that? No, we're just getting it desexed. So I think it's in people's minds, it's just what you do. It's just the thing you do. You get a dog, you get it desexed. It's the right— it's the thing to do. So I suppose the takeaway from this is if you don't want to get your dog desexed, it's not a huge issue. Like, you don't have to do it.

Yeah. And it's obviously tough. It's a grey area. It's a case-by-case basis, as we've spoken about today. But the thing is, is if you're feel like you're about to do it because you just think it's the norm and the status quo, maybe just cancel that appointment, sit on it for a couple of weeks and do some research. And you're going to get this information that argues for, this information that argues against. Ultimately, it's your decision, but at least if you have, you know, information, you can make an informed decision and one that you feel fits best to you rather than just doing what you think is the norm.

Beautiful. All right, well, there we go. Got any questions? As always, jump in the Facebook group, just search The Dull People Podcast. And we'll catch you on the next one. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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