Willem

this is one of those websites promoting de-sexing that encouraged me to start this thread (and unfortunately there are many, many more of these ill informing sites): http://www.dogslife.com.au/dog-news/dog-health/desex-pet quote from the DogsLife site: More than 90 per cent of Australia’s registered dogs are desexed, which shows that most owners who are responsible enough to register their four-legged friends are also responsible enough to have them desexed . ok, got it...I'm in the 'not so responsible' group (BTW where did she get the 90% figure from?) quote from DogsLife site: According to Dr Sillince, the most compelling reason to desex a dog is the one that tends to frighten owners the most: cancer. A desexed male will never develop testicular cancer, while desexed bitches will be free of uterine and ovarian cancers and be much less likely to develop mammary tumours. Desexing also significantly reduces the incidence of prostate problems in males. “Not only that, but it also eliminates a truly horrible infection of the uterus called pyometra, which can kill bitches,” Dr Sillince says. “If you had the chance to eliminate all these diseases for your dog, wouldn’t you want to do so?” Several scientific studies clearly show that desexed dogs live longer on average than entire canines [those that haven’t been desexed where are these studies?...I only found these scientific studies that just prove the opposite: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055937 http://www.gpmcf.org/PDFs/Action.pdf, ....here a quote from the latter: In 2009, after carefully studying the association between the number of years of lifetime ovary exposure and highly successful aging in Rottweilers, we discovered that keeping ovaries longer is associated with living longer [6]. This link between ovaries and longevity was independent of lifetime The last link is also discussed here (might be easier to read): http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2009/12/30/surgical-sterilization-could-reduce-your-pets-lifespan-by-over-30-percent.aspx#! quote from the 'Dogslife' site: Dogs that are desexed early also avoid learning adult sexual behaviours such as fighting for territory, excessive urine marking and resource-protection aggression. “That means your doggy friend focuses on you and your family instead of the local doggy girlfriend,” says Dr Sillince. well, here 3 studies just showing the opposite: http://www.saveourdogs.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Aggression-and-spay-neuter-in-dogs.pdf http://associationofanimalbehaviorprofessionals.com/effects_of_neutering.html http://www.atftc.com/health/SNBehaviorBoneDataSnapShot.pdf....the latter one even disclosed correlations between de-sexing and ADD. quote from the 'Dogslife' site: The decision to desex has benefits for the wider community too. “The most obvious reason to desex is that it stops puppies. A bitch can produce up to 30 puppies per year, but a male dog can produce literally hundreds,” explains Dr Sillince. “It’s important to do your civic duty by getting your dogs desexed.” ...if my dog produces 30 puppies per year by accident I must be a complete idiot and shouldn't be allowed to have dogs at all (or in this case really only a de-sexed dog) ...or I might be just the wrong addressee for this statement? Dear DogsLife, IF DE-SEXING IS REALLY (???) THE ONLY OPTION TO CONTROL THE NUMBERS - SO BE IT!...BUT DON'T GIVE ME THE CRAP ABOUT ALL THE OTHER 'POSITIVE SIDEEFFECTS' ASSOCIATED WITH SUCH A SEVERE SURGICAL OPERATION! Note that his article on the DogsLife site was written in April 2014 so their is no excuse for not conducting an unbiased research and consider opposing studies.

That's not clear to me - to me it is clear that he doesn't like being tagged unethical because he doesn't desex ,he is tired of being penalised and having to defend himself because of his choice. He thinks his decision is right and he is defending why he made it and wants to talk about it - where is the problem here? Thanks!...hits the nail. I might look at the problem from a different angle, but my aim is the most healthy and most happy dog possible, and currently I believe that there is room for improvement regarding the currently adopted approach to control the numbers.

If you had done a search, Willem, you would have gleaned that is the concensus on DOL - there have been many discussions on the pros and cons of desexing on this forum over the years. But you would have known that from your penchant for googling as the discussions show up in searches. Instead you choose to be inflammatory and confrontational, well that's your choice, but I won't be drawn in and neither will many others who probably have valuable contributions to make to discussions. don't worry, a lot of people (including me) won't miss those probably valuable contributions if they have the same explanatory power as your last post.. Eta: ...guys, if you don't want to post in this thread: there is no need for posting that you don't want to post!...'I've tried not replying too but can't help myself.'...seriously???

@SG: I think we are not too far away regarding our views and opinions - I just would wish that people would recognize that an entire dog can be actually a healthier and less aggressive dog and easier to train and to handle and therefore actually in a way a better dog, and I have some hope that once people recognize the gain, it will motivate them to put the additional effort in that is required to manage an entire dog.

the same with dogs (there's enough studies done to verify this); I assume the changed lengths of the limps is one reason for the dramatically increased CCL damage and HD that comes with de-sexing.

I understand that going through this is a terrifying experience (I followed your thread about Amber) - however I don't believe that dealing with cancer is more pleasant. Here a study that shows some interesting figures about mortality for pyometra: http://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-6148-10-6...interestingly, the mortality for the medical treated ones was 0%!...the surgical treated ones (OHE) was only 1%. The overall mortality considering also euthanized dogs (due to various reasons) was 10%. Compare these figures with the survival rate of dogs with cancer due to de-sexing http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055937: quote: ...For females, the timing of neutering is more problematical because early neutering significantly increases the incidence rate of CCL from near zero to almost 8 percent, and late neutering increases the rates of HSA to 4 times that of the 1.6 percent rate for intact females and to 5.7 percent for MCT, which was not diagnosed in intact females. ...from zero to 5.7% for MCT!!!...plus all the other side effects. Based on these figures pyo seems to be the less dangerous evil... I dont desex, but then mine have dog proof fences so no accidents. in 40 years and being a breeder 3 to 8 bitches at any given time, from retired to puppies had one case of pymetra and one breast cancer in one teat, both removed and no further complications. other friends seem to have similar,others not as lucky. ditto results with friends with desexed pets.life tends to be a lottery for us and our pets http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/your-dog-needs-to-be-spayed-or-neutered-right/ ....more scare-mongering pseudoscience ...but hold on, so many studies coming to the same conclusion love this bit "Another danger is male aggression, though this is largely a cat issue, and in my experience much less likely in intact male dogs. Tom cats are prone to getting into serious fights when they are intact, and this can make for wounds, abscesses, and disease transmission, if they are wounded by a cat carrying FeLV, for example." our vet never told sylvester he was now a neuter. for the next 17 years he street fought his way to top cat on the block pile, with an array of expensive injuries to prove it. the other chap always came out worse, even the doberman who offended him once. one time I asked his vet to issue a desexed certificate we could show him to prove hes NOT a tom anymore. so whats up on the vets wall next visit? "warning, 11 % of desexed males wont know their desexed" thought it was funny at the time, but wait till the day that cute colt you had gelded grows up thinking hes a stallion AND YOU KNOW hes got no nuts, you saw the vet remove em...........GRRRRR! I found the comments about ADD very interesting too (the other stuff wasn't new for me), here the link (the link in the article seems to be broken): http://www.atftc.com/health/SNBehaviorBoneDataSnapShot.pdf quote: Summary The above data is just a small sample of the significant data that were determined in this study. By using large a sample of dogs than any used previously to examine behavior in dogs, we found significant correlations between neutering dogs and increases in aggression, fear and anxiety, and excitability, regardless of the age at which the dog was neutered. There were also significant correlations between neutering and decreases in trainability and responsiveness to cues . The other three behavioral categories examined (miscellaneous behavior problems, attachment and attentionseeking behavior, and separation-related behavior) showed some association with neutering, but these differed more substantially depending on the age at which the dog was neutered. The overall trend seen in all these behavioral data was that the earlier the dog was neutered, the more negative the effect on the behavior. A difference in bone length was found between neutered and intact dogs, suggesting that neutering has an effect on bone growth, which may be related to other orthopedic effects documented in the literature. Examination of changes in bone length of gonadectomized dogs is continuing.

wrt highlighted text: I absolutely agree!...de-sexing should be one option, but people should be aware that it can't be the silver bullet and that it comes with side effects. We should aim to use de-sexing as the last line of defence, not as the first line. As Steve worked out, the current strategy was adopted without detailed knowledge of what really causes the high numbers of dumped and surrendered dogs the pounds have to cope with - too many things have been overseen till now.

I have some issues with the persistent promotion of the de-sexing campaigns (vets, councils, politicians, rescue troupers etc.) that leaves dog-owners who don't agree with de-sexing in the 'unethical' and 'irresponsible' dog owner corner. The math I did a few posts (#108) before indicates that it is highly unlikely that the target, to reduce the numbers of dogs dumped and surrendered, can be achieved with the currently promoted de-sexing strategy. This strategy won't have an impact at all if not over 95% of the Australian dogs will be de-sexed - who really believes that those extreme figures can be achieved if it seems even impossible to register all dogs?...the responsible owners will register their dogs, and might de-sex their dogs - but it takes less than 5% entire dogs in the hand of irresponsible breeders to maintain the status quo, fuel the market and fill the pounds. Therefore it is not only a strategy without having a chance of any positive results (wrt less dumped / surrendered dogs), but will also cause severe health issues (including death / manmade cancer due to de-sexing) and even more dog aggression and behaviour issues. I'm aware that some people will still ignore the findings of recent studies, but some might not, and who knows, perhaps the day will come when there will be enough dog owners acknowledging the studies and force the authorities to develop a smarter and less harmful management scheme to control the dog numbers. At this stage the only outcome evolving from the currently adopted approach I can see are rising numbers of sad stories with mourning dog owners. Eta: BTW: thanks for asking. Eta: I acknowledge that there are also other factors beside irresponsible breeding that lead to overfilled pounds, but these factors won't be addressed via de-sexing either.

I understand that going through this is a terrifying experience (I followed your thread about Amber) - however I don't believe that dealing with cancer is more pleasant. Here a study that shows some interesting figures about mortality for pyometra: http://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-6148-10-6...interestingly, the mortality for the medical treated ones was 0%!...the surgical treated ones (OHE) was only 1%. The overall mortality considering also euthanized dogs (due to various reasons) was 10%. Compare these figures with the survival rate of dogs with cancer due to de-sexing http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055937: quote: ...For females, the timing of neutering is more problematical because early neutering significantly increases the incidence rate of CCL from near zero to almost 8 percent, and late neutering increases the rates of HSA to 4 times that of the 1.6 percent rate for intact females and to 5.7 percent for MCT, which was not diagnosed in intact females. ...from zero to 5.7% for MCT!!!...plus all the other side effects. Based on these figures pyo seems to be the less dangerous evil... I dont desex, but then mine have dog proof fences so no accidents. in 40 years and being a breeder 3 to 8 bitches at any given time, from retired to puppies had one case of pymetra and one breast cancer in one teat, both removed and no further complications. other friends seem to have similar,others not as lucky. ditto results with friends with desexed pets.life tends to be a lottery for us and our pets http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/your-dog-needs-to-be-spayed-or-neutered-right/ ....more scare-mongering pseudoscience ...but hold on, so many studies coming to the same conclusion

...I hope it is nothing epidemic...we had already a few cases in this thread

do the math: ...we have 4.2 mill dogs in Australia; if we assume an average life span of 10 years (you can adopt the math to other figures - it won't change much) and an average litter size of 5 it takes just 84,000 entire bitches to produce 420,000 dogs per year to maintain the 4.2 mill dogs. In other words: the de-sexing strategy would only have a significant impact if at least 95% of the Australian dogs would be de-sexed! (in this estimation I assumed 200,000 entire dogs to count also for males and some reserves). ...so, it seems to be sheer window dressing that the highly rated de-sexing strategy will have any impact in the future if you need only 5% entire dogs to achieve the critical mass!

This thread was trolling from the get go in my opinion. If you are totally comfortable with the decision not to desex your dog, then one wonders why you need to go to such lengths to justify it. I have three undesexed male dogs in this house. I don't feel unethical and I certainly don't feel irresponsible. I do feel very responsible for ensuring that they create no accidental litters. That's it. Seriously, enough with the pseudo philosophy and pot stirring. Undesexed dogs owned by irresponsible owners are a drain on the resources of their community and the primary source of pound dogs. That we have to apply surgical solutions to animals to deal to owner irresponsibility is hard cold fact of life. The fact that some dog owners are perfectly capable of managing undesexed pets doesn't mean that everyone can. Smile and wave people and lets move on. ...To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing... :) I think it safe to say Willem that there's a snowballs chance in hell that you will apply that statement to yourself. you are damn right!

This thread was trolling from the get go in my opinion. If you are totally comfortable with the decision not to desex your dog, then one wonders why you need to go to such lengths to justify it. I have three undesexed male dogs in this house. I don't feel unethical and I certainly don't feel irresponsible. I do feel very responsible for ensuring that they create no accidental litters. That's it. Seriously, enough with the pseudo philosophy and pot stirring. Undesexed dogs owned by irresponsible owners are a drain on the resources of their community and the primary source of pound dogs. That we have to apply surgical solutions to animals to deal to owner irresponsibility is hard cold fact of life. The fact that some dog owners are perfectly capable of managing undesexed pets doesn't mean that everyone can. Smile and wave people and lets move on. ...To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing... :)

some light reading about the impacts of neutering on behaviour: http://www.saveourdogs.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Aggression-and-spay-neuter-in-dogs.pdf http://associationofanimalbehaviorprofessionals.com/effects_of_neutering.html

The RSPCA report discloses some numbers for the euthanized dogs, biggest number is due to behavioural issues, followed by medical, legal, infectious (that's medical too?) and 'others'... 'others' is not even 1% of the euthanized dogs. So it seems that most dogs that couldn't be rehomed are euthanized for a reason?... Is there clear evidence that the pounds are really too full?

The RSPCA is certainly not the only organisation that takes dogs in Australia. Even if it was, 50,000 undesexed dogs sure would produce a lot of puppies, would it not? yes they would, but 4.15 mill undesexed dogs would easily top that :) , hence I can't see that 50,000 de-sexed dogs would make a big difference. The question I would have for all the pounds and rescue organisation is: how many are too many?...we need pounds and rescue organisations, but what would be a 'healthy' number that would allow for enough time and for the required effort to find really suitable takers without a high risk that the rehomed dogs comes back into the pound?...do we have to half the number?...what is a reasonable target? If I'm engaged in a discussion about de-sexing it mostly comes down to 'you know why...pounds are full...we have to do something ...etc.'...so what are the numbers that allow all the helpers in a pound and rescue environment to do a decent job?....to address the required quality and not to be forced by quantity?

But hang on a minute even though you say we need better research and figures to show us possible solutions you have also decided that you know what solutions will be required . No amount of cheaper easier, new systems will work any better than any we already have if the unbiased data is not collected and options discussed and considered that are innovative. We need to define the problems, then identify the possible solutions not juts carry on as always with each person shouting about what they believe is the solution. you right, sorry...sometimes I jump to conclusions...

That is poor management on your part. If an owner is educated and responsible there will be no issues in managing entire dogs. Desexing is purely for the benefit of people who cannot adequately manage bitches in season. I am not sure how a phantom pregnancy could be distressing for you?? yeah, ...and that (poor management of other dog owners) is one of the reasons why I have to pay nearly 4 times more when I registered my dog :) ...a bitch doesn't come into heat over night, there are obvious signs!!!...it puzzles me that some dog owners use their incompetence regarding handling entire dogs to justify de-sexing!...what's next?...amputating 2 legs if the dog is too fast? So now people with desexed dogs are incompetent? Not sure why I even opened this topic as I really don't enjoy your high and mighty posting style. take your time and read again what I wrote and then tell me please where I made the generalizing assumption that people with de-sexed dogs are incompetent. Thanks for your help in advance.

There are so many variables that its impossible right now to be able to pin the tag of worst offender for dogs turning up in pounds on any group. Farmers [working dog breeders] who don't have to register their dogs and sell puppies un vaccinated and not chipped are in high numbers around rural communities .Working Dog Rescue is never short of dogs to help and you see everywhere you look on supermarket notice boards and facebook local selling sites advertising puppies for $50 each around here. they don't have a problem getting rid of the pups but people who take working dog puppies free or for a couple of bucks without knowing what their characteristics are would be high risk of not chipping, not vaccinating and not keeping them if they are too hard to manage. In another shire close by the rangers tell me their biggest problem is the hunting dog breeders and owners. Some BYB will chip others won't .the only dogs you can be sure will have a chip are those which have a registered pedigree because the pedigrees are not issued without them .That doesn't mean to say that registered breeders register all of their puppies or that all registered breeders chip all of their puppies. the more I read about this topic the more I'm convinced that the biggest problem is just the lack of decent management of the problem via the councils and / or associated authorities. We have 4.2 mill dogs in Australia, approx. 1-1.5% of them are received by pounds every year - promoting de-sexing of the other 99% is definitely not the silver bullet. Obviously there will be always some dogs in pounds, but how many are too many?...I think this is the first question that needs to be answered, what are the target figures?...0.5%?...0.25%?... The next thing would be to investigate the history of the dogs in the pounds. Once you know where the majority is coming from you can start thinking about solutions. And there won't be a solution that doesn't involve stricter controlling and check-ups on all these puppy sales over gumtree, newspaper etc.. Add cheaper and easier forms of registration procedures using iris scanning, make it mandatory and enforce it and we won't have the same discussion in 2 years again.

It seems to me the puppies aren't the problem. Even in cases where a pregnant girl or a young litter comes into rescue they are in high demand by rescue groups to take and their puppies are more easily sold for a higher price. It doesn't take much energy for anyone to sell puppies to new owners who present as people who will look after their dog and be responsible for it. Its the owners who have life changing situations, who cant stand the dog because it doesn't match their expectations, or basically people who see them as they see everything else - easily replaceable. Until the real stats are available we all just guess as to where they come from and who could be held more responsible. No matter how hard a breeder or a rescue tries to screen em, educate them, or support them the final onus for responsibility of looking after a dog is on the owner . Like Willem I don't believe there should be a system that rewards people for desexing their dogs over other responsible behaviours . How many desexed dogs are dumped? All of the studies including the one via the ACT where desexing is mandatory show that it doesn't change one little dot the numbers dumped - it does change the numbers of desexed dogs dumped. A government should not take the place of educated decisions made between an owner and their vet and all responsible behaviours should be rewarded . I am aware that the registration fee applies for life even if an animal changes hands but seriously Steve, this statement does not pass the sniff test. We are not required to register our dogs until they are 6 months of age. Are you telling me you register them at 8 weeks before they go to their new homes as breeding dogs? And, what you are doing is circumventing the very system you support. Not all of these animals would be kept by their new owners for breeding purposes. How could you possibly know that? So in essence you say you support it but you don't. No puppies are not the issue. No one will dump a puppy now will they? Wait till they get older and the human decides it too hard or not pretty enough or doesn't fit well with the kid…..umpteen different reasons that humans find to justify a dog being disposable. An example is my Jess girl, owners bought her advertised as a rotti, no papers and wasn't even close to a rotti. Once they realized that (12 months) they say they are taking her to the pound. Charging higher registration rates for undesexed dogs is not going to change the situation. The responsible owners pay the higher prices and the irresponsible ones find ways around that system. I personally have other issues with desexing a male dog also. Just because we are not required to register our dogs until they are 6 months of age doesn't mean we are not able to register them at 1 day of age. They are breeding dogs and all have Dogs NSW papers and MDBA papers they are mine when I register them and I have 14 days to transfer the new owner details. They usually go home between 9 and 12 weeks but often don't go until they are much older after they have done their preliminary training. I'm not circumventing the system - the dogs are microchipped, registered in the new owner's name and the rego is paid which I recoup from the new owner. the council gets their money. Not sure where Ive ever been seen to be supporting a system which charges a higher fee to people who choose not to desex their dogs unless they have paid membership and prefix charges to an approved body . Edited to ad in NSW you have to register your dog by 6 months of age .Dogs NSW require someone to be a member for 18 months before they get a prefix so if we assume that someone owns a breeding dog and intends to go through this with DOgs NSW and follow the NSW law they would be charged the higher rate. at the dog's 6 month age. When their prefixes are approved there is no refund . we got our dog from a BYB...but she came microchipped and with the first puppy shot. All our contact details were sent to the council and if we wouldn't have registered her officially after 6 month (we did it a few month later so as we just forgot it) we would have been hit with a hefty fine (up to AU$ 2,200 - I was told when I asked about the procedures that they send out an reminder first). So it seems that also a lot of the so called BYB do the right thing.

http://www.rspca.org.au/campaigns/responsible-pet-owner/micro-chipping ...compulsory everywhere except SA and NT.

:laugh: I totally love you Maddy. Hitler is dead, but his morbid ideologies wrt dissidents seems to live for ever... Eta: ...that might be actually the real cause why it is so hard to change things for the better.... Godwin's Law!! :rofl: ..yeah, pretty funny...not...you should work for Trump...he will appreciate your ideas he can implement then for Mexicans and Muslims once he is in charge....

Do the incentives reach their goal? When microchipping laws were introduced its was supposed to be about identification - well if you want an incentive for everyone to microchip having no registration fees would seem to make more sense. ...as I suggested before: if eye / iris scanning would work also for dog eyes it would be much cheaper and easier to handle; no special scanners required, no microchips...just scan the dog's eyes and send it off to the database... Eta: ...internet search shows that it seems to work and is already in use for horses and cattle...

I understand that going through this is a terrifying experience (I followed your thread about Amber) - however I don't believe that dealing with cancer is more pleasant. Here a study that shows some interesting figures about mortality for pyometra: http://bmcvetres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-6148-10-6...interestingly, the mortality for the medical treated ones was 0%!...the surgical treated ones (OHE) was only 1%. The overall mortality considering also euthanized dogs (due to various reasons) was 10%. Compare these figures with the survival rate of dogs with cancer due to de-sexing http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055937: quote: ...For females, the timing of neutering is more problematical because early neutering significantly increases the incidence rate of CCL from near zero to almost 8 percent, and late neutering increases the rates of HSA to 4 times that of the 1.6 percent rate for intact females and to 5.7 percent for MCT, which was not diagnosed in intact females. ...from zero to 5.7% for MCT!!!...plus all the other side effects. Based on these figures pyo seems to be the less dangerous evil...

http://www.rspca.org.au/sites/default/files/website/The-facts/Statistics/RSPCA_Australia-Report_on_animal_outcomes-2014-2015.pdf ...some numbers; for the past 5 years the RSPCA received a little bit less than 50,000 dogs per year. That counts for a little bit more than 1% of the total dog population (4.2 Mill) in Australia....so it this 1% the reason for aiming to de-sex the other 99%? ....seems to be at least a weird approach....