neutered dogs - are they less aggressive

[meatboy]

Why not bathe them both, so their natural smells are brought more in line with one another.

Unless you want heartache, vet costs for stitching up attack wounds, and suffering dogs; I'd invest in two muzzles in the interim until peace is achieved.

As for #14, your pets should not be allowed to go out and about: they can easily return with ticks, pick up terrible debilitating and costly-to-cure diseases,get into fights, or worse - be picked up to be served as dinner in Laos/Vietnam(and SanPatong CMai) - a truly horrific, extended, slow death being skinned alive, and then par-boiled alive having been beaten almost senseless.

Well, they are occasionally allowed out to play and socialise with the other dogs in our soi, who are all owned and cared for by the other people who live there.

I would say that they spend 95% of their time in our house and garden. They sometimes go round the corner to our sister's house with either myself or my wife. They also get baths in the river from time to time, and have a run up and down the river bank and a bit of a sniff around and a few mouthfuls of whatever grass/plants they like to chew on from time to time.

They regularly get checked for parasites (at least once every couple of days) and treated for fleas/lice etc. They're never out of our sight for long and have a happy existence, but thanks for your concern.

Yours, #14

letting play with other dogs in the soi who are all owned and cared for is no guarantee that they are safe.

do you know if all them other dogs have their vacinations regular,there is much i see that i dont like at all,

but you have to keep your mouth shut.

[meatboy]

j.f.if you are concerned about them not aable to get their end away you can always buy a blow up doggy doll.

they do go down on them after awhile.

[Nienke]

Just before Xmas last year, one of our two male dogs went missing. This week he has been found and is back living with us… …The problem is that he, and our other dog ( a jack russell) now keep growling at each other which is strange as they were the best of mates before he went missing.

Growling is part of dogs’ normal communication system. With growling a dog communicates it feels uncomfortable with the other one coming too close to an object valued high by the dog, such as space, a food item, toy, sleeping/resting area, etc. and its desire for an increase in distance between him/her and the other individual.

As the Op does not mention fights, I assume that the other dog understands and respects the growling dog's communication and feelings. And be glad that these dogs are growling. It means they are still on talking-terms instead of going over to a full-blown confrontation

Have you tried to observe how the dogs communicate before the growling starts? When they start growling, in what context etc.?

It appears to be a dominance thing although the Jack Russell always seemed to be the boss.

No, it's not a dominance ‘thing’. As said before it's an expression of anxiety by the one dog about the other dog coming too close to a high-valued object and a strong request for an increase in distance.

The reason for the anxiety is most of the time fear: fear for encroaching the dog’s safety zone, fear for taking away a high-valued food item, toy, resting place, space, etc. . Nothing to do with dominance.

Take away the dog’s fear and you will take away the dog’s need to communicate in this way.

My question is this. Would speying/ neutering ( whatever it's called) make the dogs less aggressive towards each other.

It can help in some cases, but as said by another poster's dog behaviorist: S/N can sometimes cause an increase in aggressive behavior. Something I have come across a few times.

But .... as the home-comer obviously has been able to escape (and, big chance, will try this again) and even more probably has put many unwanted puppies in this world it is strongly advised to first have him carefully checked on any diseases (tick diseases, intestinal and heart worms and, especially sexually transmitted diseases), and then make sure he can't ever put more pups in this world.

As for the two dogs, and the current growling communication: as said in the OP one dog just came back. So, things changed in the life of both the Jack and the home-comer. What was before predictable and clear is not so anymore, and that is what these two are trying to figure out now.

What you can try, before deciding to neuter one or both dogs (provided that the home-comer and the Jack can never ever produce more unwanted puppies in this world) is:

• implement a clear daily routine. And if you like doing this by always feeding one dog before the other and have him going through a doorway first as well, by all means, please, go ahead. Not that it will make that dog more ‘dominant’ over the other; it just will make life a lot clearer to the dogs.

  After all, by implementing these kinds of rules it will make THE OWNER/s more consistent and it will provide a clear routine for the dog/s. And in many cases that is just what was needed for establishing an improvement in the behavior of the dog/s.

• teaching the dogs some basic manners (in case they haven’t been taught yet), such as a polite sit-stay before they receive a release cue (okay, free, break) or another cue (eat, down, come, go, heel, etc) that indicates to the dog it can go ahead and eat or go ahead through (any) door opening. In such away you avoid that the dogs can bump into each other which can have a fight as a result.
• concentrate on the behavior you want from your dogs and reinforce that (not by using force, but by rewarding the desired behavior when it occurs). Make note of all the moments when the dogs are fine with each other, or ignore each other. When does that occur, at what distance between them, where are they at that moment, what are you doing at that moment, etc.?

  Reinforce and reward this desired behavior.

• Redirect (not by force, but in a nice way way) the attention of the growling dog towards you at the moment the growling or the intention to growl occurs. Reinforce and reward that.

Punishing a dog for behavior you do not want is not equivalent to training him to show the behavior you do want him to do. Correcting undesired behavior does not tell the dog (or human) what you do want him to do.

Besides that:

* correcting/punishing an expression of communication (especially growling) is a bad idea, because when a dog stops communicating in this way it means it will skip that part and will straight away go over to the biting., and

* in the OP’s case correction/punishment, or establishment of the pack leadership status of the two-legged one will primarily occur when the other dog is in sight. So, from the dog’s point of view: “No other dog’s around owner acts normal and kind, other dog comes in the picture giving ‘me’ an anxious feeling already and suddenly my owner changes behavior which sure isn’t for the better. So, for a peaceful life it’s better to have this other dog far and beyond. “ (the dogs’ dislike of each other increases, growling increases and may go over in fights)

Edited October 1, 2013 by Nienke

[Slip]

The always happy dog we have in our building entrance has been castrated and now he looks so sad, so sad, so sad... he now lays down and only move his eyes when we talked to him.

Have seen that myself.

His 'get up and go' - 'got up and left'

To be fair it did no such thing, some bar steward had it lopped off!

[maxme]

The always happy dog we have in our building entrance has been castrated and now he looks so sad, so sad, so sad... he now lays down and only move his eyes when we talked to him.

Have seen that myself.

His 'get up and go' - 'got up and left'

To be fair it did no such thing, some bar steward had it lopped off!

Is that why you look the way you look in your avatar?

[bina]

my two cents:

neutering can change behaviors that are connected to hormones. however, and it is a big however, learned behavior will stay. and olfactory rememberance which triggers behavior stays. my male, castrated after breeding bitches and losing an eye in a dog fight (removed the exploded eye and two balls in one operation) still remembers how to breed bitches and will mount and tie my female when she is in heat. hwoever, each year he is less and less inclined and does spend less time searching for the other in heat females here in our area.

same for dog to dog agression. he is also older, 7 yrs, and seems to be less bothered with the whole 'this is my area ' thing. now having three of our pups here, the first few weeks after they started to 'walk and talk' he spent time ordering them around, but has relaxed.

so every dog is different at different times.

try leashing both , try working with both separately and together, obviously who rules the roost has changed. also, the wanderer has indeed become a survivor with survivor actions that have to , again, be changed (fighintg for food, shelter, protecting himself).

sort of like post trauma. his postition is no longer the same, and he as a dog is no longer the same, having gone thru who knows what whiel wandering.

treat him as if he is a new dog that you have to introduce back in to the family (although dogs do remember, both visually and olfactory. foofoo remembers his original owner with an intensity that is amazing, as he does not see him very often.

the dog might have been beaten, or injured and of course cannot tell you what he went thru, so a good vetting also needed.