Coping with your male dog if there’s a protracted wait to have them neutered

Covid19 coronavirus social distancing restrictions in place across the UK mean that even services deemed essential – like veterinary care – are not operating in the same way as normal or at full capacity.

Whilst vets are still working and providing care for companion animals, how this care is delivered is vastly different to normal, with telephone triage, video consults, and appointments that do require a trip to the clinic being handled where possible with no contact between owners and staff.

In terms of what pets can be taken to the vets for at present, this is limited to only emergency and essential care; which means that anything that does not fall into one of these two categories as defined as preventing or ending pain, discomfort or suffering, is not currently available.

This applies to even really important preventative healthcare measures too; and at the moment, you can’t get a dog vaccinated or issued with booster vaccines, nor get them spayed or neutered; the only exception to the latter being if failing to do so would cause pain or suffering (such as in the case of some reproductive conformation problems and health conditions).

This means that a lot of people who bought or adopted male puppies or young dogs in the last year with every intention to do the responsible thing and have them neutered as soon as this was viable have a problem. They’re having to deal with the realities of owning and handling an intact male dog capable of reproduction and with all of the drives associated with this, and many such owners are understandably unprepared for this.

With this in mind, this article will share some advice on how to cope in the interim period between your dog reaching sexual maturity and when you can eventually have them neutered, and some of the factors you need to bear in mind to manage their behaviour and prevent them from fathering an unwanted litter during this time.

Recognising sexual maturity in the male dog

First of all, dogs reach sexual maturity at different stages, and there is no set age at which every dog is capable of reproduction and apt to display sexual urges, although this often occurs at a younger age than people think.

Dogs should not be bred until they’re at least two, but they are physically capable and willing to breed from just a few months old, and so learning to recognise sexual maturity and knowing when you need to bear all of this in mind, is important.

The onset of sexual maturity may manifest as humping behaviour, a sudden boost in confidence or dominance, and of course, interest in bitches, as well as many other things. However, you may get no warning at all until your dog first scents a bitch in heat and effectively loses their mind!

Whilst you cannot prevent a male dog from being a slave to their hormones, having rules in place, training them appropriately, and ensuring that the dog is obedient and responsive can help to ensure they do not become out of control.

Keeping your dog contained and preventing roaming

Intact male dogs in the mood for love will go to extreme lengths to reproduce, often at the expense of their own safety. They will spend hours chewing through a rope, digging out under a fence, or removing any other barrier in their way, and they will commonly risk physical injury to get to their prize.

This means that keeping your dog properly contained is vital, within the home (and preventing them from taking the opportunity to escape through an open door) and in the garden; your fences will need to be incredibly good to contain an intact male dog if they scent a female, and they should be supervised in the garden at all times.

Managing and controlling your dog when out on walks

Your dog will still need to be walked every day, and you should be aware once more that an intact dog that has scented a bitch – which they can do over huge distances – will pay little to no attention to your commands, and can be hard work even on a lead, as well as virtually impossible to control off of it. Scenting a bitch in heat affects male dogs on a hormonal level, and this can be extreme in terms of how it manifests.

Keep your dog on the lead when on walks unless you’re in an area you know is totally secure and without any other dogs in it that might be unneutered (of either sex) and remember that fertile bitches are apt to be more common than normal too, because just as you can’t get your male dog neutered at present, neither can the owners of young bitches either!

Avoiding other intact male dogs on walks

Running into fertile bitches (or your dog running off after fertile bitches) is not the only problem you might face out on walks.

Intact male dogs see each other as competition, and whilst two well trained and well socialised intact male dogs will usually politely avoid each other when there’s nothing to compete over, if there’s a bitch in heat anywhere within scenting distance, this can be a huge problem.

Two intact male dogs that are both driven by the urge to mate will often fight, and very aggressively, which means that you should give other dogs that you don’t know, and particularly any that you know are unneutered, a wide berth too.

Also, if your dog is used to meeting and playing with another pup of a similar age, you might forget or not consciously realise that this dog will become competition too when they are both sexually mature. This means that two young dogs that played nicely together a week ago might become quite savage within a short space of time if a scenario occurs in which they both come to sexual maturity, are not neutered, and particularly, if there is the scent of a bitch in the air.

Factor this in before it becomes a problem – and remember to do the same if your male pup plays with another female pup that will be approaching sexual maturity too!