Advice please!! Castration or not??

Milo2001

Looking for any advice/help pretty please!


I have a 9 year old JRT, i have never had any problems with him and agression until about 2 years ago when my mum moved house. The village she now lives in most of the dog's seem to be quite agressive and just generally bad behaved. Milo had never gotten into a "scrap" before until one day one of the dogs went for him, then a couple weeks later another dog goes for him. I assumed that being the "new dog" in the village alot of them picked this up and wanted to get him to be honest. I have heard before that in a small community like that all it takes is one agressive dog to spark the rest up (don't get me wrong not every dog in the village is like it!). I only lived with my mum for 6 months or so but after this I have seen a slight change in this behaviour, he never goes for another dog first but it's like he's always ready. We had a really bad incident with a boxer (who is entire) they ignored eachother the first time they met, the second time they met they had a slight growl at eachother (they were both on the lead), the third time the boxer went for him and had him basically pinned down against a fence and actually drew blood on his ear, luckily the owner manager to pull the boxer off - this is the worst we've ever had.


I think he now has "nervous agression" as he gives out completely the wrong body language, he stands there and is almost waiting for them to go for him, if they do he's right back at them, if they don't he has a little sniff then wonders on. He's well socialised with dogs but it always seems to be entire males that go for him/they go for eachother!


The only other problem I have with him due to him being entire is when bitches are on heat that live near us, he will whine a bit at night and on walks will tend to wonder off on his own accord, this doesn't bother me too much as I know what it's about and will therefore put him on the lead - still surely castration would help this hormonal urge!!?


I have come to the conclusion that it now it may be the best form of action to have him castrated - BEFORE it gets any worse, and to be responsible and recognise there is a problem. If it was to get any worse and one day he bites another dog I could never forgive myself! I have a great interest in dog psychology and cannot see how I can eliminate the problem without removing the hormones as it seems to be the actual hormones that are causing the problem!?


Any advice would be much appreciated, I know he is 9 years old but is it too late for castration? Also has anyone experienced their male entire dogs getting more agressive with age (i've heard this before aswell!).


I'm calling my Vet in the morning for some professional advice aswell but i'd much rather hear it from any who's experienced it!


Thank you!!

Tess

It sounds to me like what you are describing is more or less two problems, with only a loose connection between the two.

As far as Milo being restless to see the females in heat, yes, castration should help that problem immensely. As I understand it, "neutering" as we call it in the states, is not as common in the UK and Europe. So you may get a lot of enthusiastic "yes neuter him!" advice from this crowd. We spay/neuter everyone here as a matter of course unless the dog is to be bred.

The other issue, with your Milo and dogs attacking him, and him reacting in return, might only be slightly helped by neutering, if at all. He is simply responding as any dog would, to having been attacked several times. The simplest solution I can think of for this issue is for you to take a more active role making sure other dogs cannot threaten Milo. One person I know carries an umbrella on walks and if another dog approaches with hostile intentions, she opens it up to block the way. That works well. If you decide to try this you might want to get Milo used to you doing this so he is not startled. You could use treats in association with slowly opening the umbrella while he is on lead. If you don't have an umbrella, often just a you stepping towards the approaching dog and putting out your hand in a "stop signal" and vocalizing firmly to the other dog, will stop it.

Any of these things you do will give Milo confidence in your leadership and protection, and help him to feel less threatened as well.

Overall, my thought would be to do all you can to safeguard Milo so he is not finding himself in situations where he must be aggressive to defend himself. Enough of those events and indeed he may start to instigate the attacks. Help him to feel safe, and then he can begin to relax.

There are also a lot of training exercises you can do to keep him focused on you as you take him for walks, so you can help him not to be thinking of other dogs. There are some experts here who may be able to describe this to you or refer you to threads or articles discussing this process.

tankstar

neutering him now I doubt will do much of anything to help him out.

I think the issue really is with the other dogs. Offcourse if a dog starts somthing with a dog, the other dog will fight back.

My dog is "entire" but gets along with every one, unless they start with him, then its on. I doubt it has much if anything to do with him being intact

Milo2001

Thanks for your comments, very much appreciated.

I think I may have mis-read what "type" of agression it is, the reason why I think his body language is making the dogs go for him/eachother is because he stands there really stiff with his tail pointing straight up (completely still). I can see the change in his tail if he then starts wagging and the other dog is ok. What is your opinion on this? He never acts as though he is afraid but I thought it could be nervous agression from it happening after the couple of scraps he did have?


I am a great believer that the dog is never always to blame - it is the owner, i don't think there are "bad natured" dogs, I am very hard on myself and find it all quite distressing when things don't go to plan and i'm actively trying to avoid it! I am VERY confident when I am walking him and am never expecting anything bad to happen - 9 times out of 10 we have a very happy walk. I do believe that if you anticipate it then it will happen as dogs really can pick up on any anxiety coming from their owner. When the boxer dog attacked it literally came from no where, we were just passing as normal but for some reason that day he just went for him - i don't think he has been the same ever since this.


I no way think that i'll have him done and all his problems will disappear. I know he will need further training to re-instate that not all dogs (particularly big ones) are out to get him, but I do believe that surely him being done will change how entire dogs greet him - and will therefore avoid the "scraps".


Will be interesting to hear what the vet has to say, still waiting to hear back!


Thanks guys!