Ril-Mas

This is one of those topics where there's no right answer. Everyone needs to do their own research and decide for themselves if it's for them or not.

Personally, I support altering. All of my previous animals have been altered, all of my family's previous animals have been altered. Never once have we had a problem. That's not to say we won't run into a problem and if that does happen, maybe it'll push me to the other side.

My main reason for altering is because I'm not a breeder and I have absolutely no intention of being responsible for an oops litter. I know that we would all do whatever we could to ensure an accidental litter didn't happen, but I also know that mistakes happen to the best of us. I would honestly feel sick about it if I was responsible for an accidental litter.

I do believe that there are risks associated on both sides of the fence on this issue. By not altering there are increased risks of certain types of cancers and by altering you're also increasing the risks of certain types of cancers. Neither route will protect our precious dogs from getting cancer. We can only do what we feel is best for ourselves and our dogs and do our best to handle what may or may not come. I hope that doesn't sound cold, I just can't think of a better way to word it.

__________________

Wyatts_Momma

You worded it nicely Mandy! All of our animals have been fixed and we've never had an issue. I too don't want an accidental litter, even though I have a male I'd still feel responsible. I know very little to nothing about breeding. For Wyatt's situation I had no choice but to get the undescended testicle removed and I rather not put him under twice so had them remove the other one as well. It is a personal choice and people should respect that choice.


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App

Tracilee014

Well, honestly I have thought of this. However, how does one decide which sex you want to chance? I think with having so many dogs right now, the only responsible thing to do is get them all done. 7 boxers is a lot to keep up with not to mention our visitor upstairs. What if I had my females done and a female in heat began wandering around outside my fence? Would the males do whatever they had to do to get to her? I'd not like to chance loosing one of my babies over or under the fence because someone else lets their dog run free. If I did the males, I don't know that I could handle all the issues that might arise having 3 females in heat around the same time. Would there be fights all the time? How would my neutered males respond? Testicles or no, they still have noses.

Ah, I wish there was a simple answer for me to leave them all unaltered but we've weighed the risks associated and someone even brought another issue to focus to my eyes yesterday with someone attempting to steal away one of our dogs if they were intact. No, it think in our current situation, it would be irresponsible for us not to. We've already made one very big mistake... I won't put any of my babies at risk of having to go through that again.

Like Mandy said earlier, to alter or not really has to depend on your ability to deal with the risks to either choice and for us, the choice has to be to alter.

__________________