Why Castrate or spay your dog

One morning, I got a call from one of our oldest client. “Ooooh Doctor this my male dog don climb the female again oh” He screamed! - meaning that the female came on heat and the male had mounted her and he was not aware she was on heat to stop them. The man has been troubled by the incessant “puppy production” from this pair. The fact is that he does not want them to have puppies due to many reasons including the fact that the both of them are of different breeds (Caucasian & mastiff). He was finding it difficult to sell the puppies & even when given away freely most of the recipients tend to care less for the puppies. He asked me what he could to stop them and I had to recommend either spaying the female or castrating the male or both.

Many Nigerians, from my experience will rather leave their dogs or bitches intact because most want their females to get pregnant and deliver puppies while others will want to use the males to mate with other females so they can equally get a replacement puppy.  

What is Castration & spaying?

Castration is a surgical or non-surgical means of rendering a male dog sterile or unable to impregnate an intact female dog while Spaying is a means of render a female dog sterile or unable to get pregnant and deliver puppies. They can be collectively called Neutering. A neutered dog or bitch is a dog or bitch that has been castrated and spayed respectively.

Standard practice

Some established standards exist to determine whether a dog or bitch is to be neutered. Dogs that fail the breeding test for instance are recommended to be neutered for example if a male dog has a genetically inherited deformation, it is recommended that he is not used for mating or breeding to stop the transfer of these genes to the off springs and hence neutered or castrated. In dog rescue homes, most dogs are neutered to stop them from breeding. Undesired males or female dogs are also neutered to stop them from procreating. The veterinarian is supposed to issue a certificate to indicate that the dog has been neutered.

What I will recommend for Nigerians

Many Nigerians love to keep varieties of dogs which usually result in breeding of cross breeds or mixed breeds which reduces the market value of the puppies in the market so to stop this kind of negative occurrence it is recommended that the dogs that should not mate be neutered to eliminate the possibility of accidental mating.

I will also recommend you castrate your male dog to stop him from running away from your home in search of females on heat. It might surprise you to know that dogs can detect females on heat from a very far distance and will try to trace the female for copulation.  

When is it best to neuter your dog?

I do recommend castration or spaying from 6 months of age upwards to allow the dogs develop masculine or feminine looks before neutering. From the early castration I did, I noticed the dogs growing into obesity and near obesity. Anything can cause obesity but this is my own observation from the ones we did at early age. There are other schools of thought on this so you can choose when to do yours but definitely not on puppies below 3 months –my recommendation.

Common believe about Castration in dogs

Most Nigerians castrate their dogs because they were told that the dog grows into a bigger adult if castrated as puppies and this forms the basis for most castration carried out on dogs in Nigeria –I cannot prove the authenticity of this practice. It’s rather unfortunate that this procedure have been done mostly by untrained people who mercilessly carry out this procedure without anesthesia while the puppy or dog screams in pains – mostly done in the rural areas.

In conclusion

I will recommend neutering for dogs when there is a convincing need to do so. It is not to be considered a sin to do this because it might be beneficial to both the dog owner and to the dog.