Before I get into this post I do want to point out that I support spaying and neutering your dog.  There is a definite pet overpopulation problem and it doesn’t help if you allow your dogs to breed.  That is unless you are a responsible breeder and are looking to improve your breed and place your dogs with responsible pet owners.

There are many myths, though, about neutering and it’s power to fix behavior problems that I would like to talk about.

Neutered dogs won’t lift their leg or mark in the house:  The truth is that there are many dogs that won’t lift their leg after being neutered.  But there are many that will.  The younger you get your dog neutered the greater the chance you will avoid your dog marking your house but the best remedy is simply sound training techniques.

Marking is a behavior that connotes dominance, territorial tendencies, etc.  Neutering your dog MAY help him be less dominant because it drastically cuts down the testosterone in his body.  There are numerous dogs, though, that even with their diminished testosterone are perfectly happy to lift their leg on anything and everything.

If your dog is marking getting him fixed may help but what you need is supervision, prevention, and obedience training to fix the problem.

Neutered dogs won’t engage in embarrassing ‘humping’ behavior:  All the time I get clients who complain that their dogs are humping their legs, their couch cushions, and gasp! their guests.  This is an embarrassing issue for sure.

Will neutering fix a humping problem?  Sometimes.  The thing many people don’t realize is that humping is most often a dominance behavior.  Getting a dog fixed will most likely not help with a dominance issue.  The best thing to achieve dominance is to obedience train your dog.  During obedience training your dog learns to put your will ahead of his own and learns to respect your leadership.

Neutering will fix your dog’s aggression problems:  Aggression springs from numerous places.  It comes from fear, territorial tendencies, dominance, possessiveness amongst other places.  Very little of these will be affected by getting a dog neutered.  Aggression problems need to be addressed with an intense training program.

 To sum up, get your dog neutered.  It is the right thing to do.  If your dog has some of the above problems get your dog neutered still.  Just don’t be surprised if your dog’s behavior problems aren’t affected by the surgery.