To castrate or not?!

[bizzylizzy]

My personal choice in 31 years of Cocker ownership (dogs only, no bitches) has been to leave them entire unless there's been a medical issue, such as William's undescended testicle. He was castrated at 15 months. I wouldn't have had him done any earlier than that because there's plenty of proven scientific evidence that neutering dogs and bitches before their growth plates have closed and before they've gone through puberty can lead to joint problems from a young age.

I've never yet had a male dog that's been a sex pest, roamed off after in season bitches or marked indoors. My first one went through a really tedious phase of humping the legs of dogs and people when he was adolescent, but once his hormones settled to a normal, adult male level he stopped, and only ever humped his towel when being dried during the rest of his life

The only marking indoors incident was when a 13 month old got a bit confused when a real Christmas tree was brought into the house and cocked his leg on it  . I think it was just confusion about an outdoors thing being brought inside, because he never did it again.

Just smiled about the xmas tree, my first GSD did exactly the same thing, we‘ve laughed about it often.