Altered States: How Important is Intact Status to Social Skills?

A recent interaction on a social networking site clued me into the fact that not all dog geeks know about things they may not have personal experience with. I believe this subject to be important enough to repeat some information from past blogs. So while this particular blog isn’t specifically about multiple dog households, it is about multiple dog interactions and therefore applies to multiple dog households as well.

Those of you who have followed my blog have seen mention of this topic before; especially, if you have been tracking the saga of Kenzo’s neutering. Mixing intact males and neutered males is a social setting can be tricky when the goal is interactive play.

While there are no scientific studies to support this subject, I expect that many behavior professionals have come across this particular quirk in their careers. Many a client has commented to me that their own neutered male “doesn’t like intact males”. Science, while wonderful, isn’t studying every subject so it behooves is as behavior junkies, to learn from other sources as well, such as observation and repetition of occurrences.

Now those of you who have never had the opportunity or the right circumstances to see such an issue for yourself may wonder what this consists of. The manifestation can vary according to the dog. I have a former class student who’s neutered male screams and stands on his back feet when he gets the close by scent of an intact male. This happened once with a dog in class owned by a friend, who I knew had just been neutered so we assumed that the surgery was simply too fresh. I later learned that said dog had a cryptorchid testicle so the hormones had not fully been removed. The reacting dog had been right!

I have been witness and a hearsay recipient to such occurrences for the entire length of my dog behavior career so it surprised me that not every behavior savvy individual had been exposed to this. But when pondering how frequently the occurrence actually happens, it makes sense to me.

You see, not all neutered males are threatened emotionally by an intact male. My sweet Merlin had no issues at all with any dogs he interacted with unless they were rude to him. Even then, until he reached his senior years, his fuse was long. Intact or altered, it was all the same to him. We had literally dozens of males come through my house as foster dogs, mostly arriving needing snipped. Interactions were pleasant all around. But Merlin was a confident dog for his entire life, sure of his place in the world, even as a puppy.

However, Trent, my Pit Bull is a different story altogether. He is very insecure, despite being very loved and cared for and having a secure life. He is on anxiety meds and has come very far with his issues but will likely always be insecure of his place in the world. Yet until Kenzo started reaching sexual maturity, I never noticed that he was among the neutered males affected by intact males. He never reacted any differently when out and about or having intact foster dogs in the house. But Kenzo stayed and was raised here and grew bigger and bigger in front of his very eyes. It became very clear that Trent felt increasingly threatened by him, although nothing that Kenzo did was at fault.

I have already chronicled what transpired with Kenzo’s social group visits with increasing frequency as Kenzo matured more. So I won’t repeat myself. But what I will do now is describe it further. The moment we entered the room with the other dogs, a dog or two, who would turn out with questioning of the owner, to be a neutered male, would rush over and snark at Kenzo’s face, trying to nip at him both in his face and around his face. The owner and I would interrupt and send the dog elsewhere and he (or they) would come back targeting just Kenzo again. The owner(s) and I would have to be continually on top of this for the entire hour long social. It was exhausting. So I stopped attending until Kenzo was neutered.

Other clients have told similar tales from either an off leash walk in the park or a visit to the dog park. Intact dogs are typically not permitted at dog parks but many people don’t abide by rules and most dog parks are not supervised by an authority figure. Anyone can bring their dog, well behaved or not, intact or not, to most dog parks. There is an assumed risk there. So while there is almost always some sort of a disagreement between dogs at a dog park, most people don’t ask questions to determine why. In many cases, it is the intact/neutered male equation at play.

What does this all mean in the whole scheme of things in the dog world? Well, as previously mentioned in many blogs, I am very pro-altering for the majority of the American dog owning world. Disagreements about the health pros and cons of either point of view aside, the behavioral aspects of having an intact male in a world of neutered males is an important consideration. If you have no plans on having your dog be social with other dogs up close and personal ever, then you have no worries. If you are a behavior professional and qualified to deal with the potential aggression directed towards your intact male, then go for it.

But if you are just a loving dog owner who doesn’t want to have to become a behavior expert just so that your intact male dog can safely interact with your neighbor’s neutered male dog, then just make the appointment for neutering. Why punish the intact dogs by neutering them when the true issue lies with the insecure neutered male dog? Well, I don’t see neutering as a punishment. Unless you are a responsible breeder or showing your dog (in which case you probably do have the skills needed to handle this correctly!), then I just don’t see the need to keep a dog intact. I expect that statement to anger many people. I am sorry if it does but that won’t make me change my mind on the subject.

In conclusion, the stakes are just too high to take the chance of leaving your dog intact, in MOST cases. So feel free to offer your opinions, POLITELY phrased, in the spaces below, on both sides of the issue. I especially want to hear from those who have experienced their own dog aggressing at intact males. Play nicely in the sandbox people!