Can Spaying A Dog Change Their Personality

Ildar Sagdejev Photo — Creative Commons License

Source: Ildar Sagdejev Photo — Creative Commons License

Co-ordinate to two large sample investigations, in that location appear to be some surprising and undesirable behavior changes in dogs who are spayed or neutered.

If y'all believe many of the websites maintained past a number of humane societies and veterinary groups, the spaying or neutering of dogs seems to be a solution for many behavioral problems. Some of these websites will even talk nigh "The Responsibility of Spaying and Neutering Dogs." A sample of the statements that I found on these sites include:

"Spaying and neutering makes pets better, more appreciating companions."
"Your dog should be spayed or neutered because sex hormones pb to unnecessary stress and aggression amidst dogs."
"Unsterilized animals often exhibit more behavior and temperament problems than do those who have been spayed or neutered."
"Many assailment bug may exist avoided past early neutering."
"Female dogs, like males, accept an increased run a risk of aggression if left intact."
"Male person dogs brandish hormonally influenced aggression toward each other. Neutering eliminates much of this beliefs."

My interest in the question of possible behavior changes associated with spaying and neutering was rekindled when I had a pair of European visitors, who were quite amazed at the number of dogs in North America who were spayed or neutered. According to them, the idea that a dog should be neutered to control sure behavior tendencies seems to exist a uniquely North American notion.

Apparently, Europeans don't buy into this idea. A Swedish study found that 99 percent of the dogs in their sample were not neutered. A Hungarian study showed 57 percent intact dogs, and a British survey establish 46 per centum intact dogs. In fact, it is against the law to neuter dogs in Kingdom of norway unless at that place is a specific medical reason.

The vast majority of the enquiry done on spaying and neutering has focused on medical bug, such as the reduction of the incidence of certain cancers and hormonally related diseases and canine population control. All the same, since my interests focus on behavior these gave me piffling insight.

Ultimately my search of the scientific literature uncovered two studies that appeared to exist soundly designed, which used a like methodology, collected data from a large number of dogs, and straight addressed the effect of behavior changes as a result of spaying and neutering. To be honest, I found that their results to be surprising and somewhat shocking.

The get-go of these studies was reported by Deborah Duffy and James Serpell, both at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Information technology was published in The Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Nonsurgical Contraceptive Methods for Pet Population Control*. The 2nd was a primary's thesis at Hunter College in New York which was submitted by Parvene Farhoody**.

Both of these studies used the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Enquiry Questionnaire (usually abbreviated every bit the C-BARQ) which was adult by Serpell and his associates. It is a long questionnaire, involving 101 items, and it has been shown to be a valid and reliable style of testing various aspects of canine aggression, fearfulness and anxiety, zipper, excitability, free energy level, and other factors. It is based on owners directly reporting the occurrence or not-occurrence of specific behaviors in their dogs in a structured way.

The number of dogs tested in these two studies is quite large. The Duffy and Serpell study tested two different samples, one of ane,552 dogs and the other of 3,593 dogs. The Farhoody study tested 10,839 dogs, thus the combined studies provide data on 15,984 dogs in total, making this an amazingly powerful information set.

At that place are as well many measures for me to report in item, nevertheless, the main results were the same across all iii samples of dogs. Given that ane of the accepted behavioral reasons for spaying and neutering is to reduce aggression, the distressing results of these studies are that spayed and neutered dogs actually show considerably more assailment. Depending upon the specific class of aggression (owner directed, stranger directed, etc.) the size of these effects is quite large, varying from a depression of around a 20 percent increase to more than double the level of aggression in the neutered dogs as measured past the C-BARQ scoring scale.

A further surprise was that these effects were similar for both males and females. Ane slight difference between males and females is that for male dogs the age at which they are neutered makes no deviation in the increase of assailment relative to intact dogs, however, for females early on spaying (before the dog is 1 year of age) causes a considerably larger increment in aggression relative to later spaying.

A different worrisome finding is that there was a roughly 31 pct increase in fright for both sexes. This is accompanied past a 33 percent increment in bear upon sensitivity. The spayed and neutered dogs also showed a roughly 8 percent increase in excitability. Virtually the but positive effect on behavior that seems to result from spaying and neutering is the roughly 68 percent subtract in urine marking.

I must admit that I was astonished and greatly bothered by the management of these results. Farhoody summarizes her findings proverb, "Our data showed that the behavior of neutered dogs was significantly different from that of intact dogs in ways that contradict the prevailing view. Among the findings, neutered dogs were more aggressive, fearful, excitable, and less trainable than intact dogs." These results accept been confirmed in another, more recent, large scale study.

Considering that one of the reasons recommended for spaying and neutering dogs is to correct a range of canine beliefs issues, Duffy and Serpell's conclusions expose this to be a myth when they say, "For almost behaviors, spaying/neutering was associated with worse behavior, reverse to conventional wisdom."

Perhaps on this count, the Europeans have it correct.

Stanley Coren is the author of many books including Gods, Ghosts and Black Dogs; The Wisdom of Dogs; Practice Dogs Dream? Born to Bark; The Modern Dog. Copyright SC Psychological Enterprises Ltd. May not be reprinted or reposted without permission

References

Deborah L. Duffy and James A. Serpell (2006, Nov). Non-reproductive furnishings of spaying and neutering on behavior in dogs. Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Non-Surgical Contraceptive Methods for Pet Population Control. Alexandria, Virginia.

Parvene Farhoody (2010) Behavioral and Physical Furnishings ofSpaying and Neutering Domestic Dogs (Canis familiaris). Masters thesis submitted to and accepted by Hunter College.