Debate Over Neutering

What is natural dog training? It means that dogs are social by nature. In other words, every part of a dog, every part of its makeup, both its physical and temperamental constitution, is part and parcel of its social nature. Nothing needs to be "fixed" or eliminated in order to make a dog more social.
A brief note on my background:
I’ve been in the dog business all my life. As a boy I worked my father’s kennel, “Canine College” in Redding, Connecticut. My father, John Behan, began his career in the Army Canine Corps during WW Two, training dogs for deployment in the Pacific theatre of combat. After the war, Dad was one of the first trainers to install service dogs in police departments, and could very well have been the first trainer to apply the idea of wolves as pack animals organized around a pack leader, to the relationship between a dog and its owner. I am well versed in this theory as it comprised my introduction and apprenticeship in dog training.
I can distinctly remember when in the sixties, the question of whether or not to neuter a male puppy started to nag at dog owners. They were beginning to hear from a growing number of veterinarians and dog experts that neutering had many benefits for male dogs, behavioral as well as medical. In the beginning of this trend many owners wondered why (and this was most true of men at that time, however now I see it being more true of women for reasons we shall explore) any part of a happy, healthy puppy’s anatomy be removed?
In those days I didn’t grasp why there was any cause for concern in the first place. My family always had whole males as our family pets. Most of the male dogs we boarded and trained were whole. We trained police and personal protection dogs, all were whole and all were perfectly social when off/duty. When dogs misbehaved we didn’t attribute the problem to too much testosterone. In our minds problem behaviors represented social rather than hormonal imbalances. We believed that any dog raised and trained properly could easily be social and learn to get along with anyone or any other dog or animal. If something was off in a dog’s behavior, our first impulse was to find the cause of the social imbalance and redress it. This was my beginning as a “natural dog trainer,” the first step I was taking in understanding that dogs are social by nature, an understanding however that would ultimately place me far outside the mainstream consensus on dogs.
However in the seventies as behaviorism and the science on wolves and dogs took over the marketplace of ideas and the commerce of dog training, the debate over neutering became more like a theological schism. And by the eighties, whether or not to neuter was a hot-button subject, and whoever stood on the wrong side of the inquisition was treated like a heretic. It became virtually impossible to have a reasoned exchange of ideas on the matter. If I broached the topic at a gathering of dog folk, it provoked anger. I learned to tread softly and carefully pick the time and place for a full disclosure on what my position was. And when puppy owners came to me for consultations or lessons, I noticed owners visibly squirming simply at the prospect of resisting their vet’s, breeder’s, trainer’s or next door neighbor’s arguing the so-called benefits of neutering.
Now today in the 21st century we find that there is virtually no debate on the question of neutering whatsoever. Trainers, behaviorists, breeders and veterinarians have convinced the vast majority of dog owners that there are overwhelming benefits to neutering. Castrating male puppies is now considered a basic rite of passage into human society, as automatic and necessary a procedure as a rabies vaccine. A three-pronged argument in favor of neutering has stamped out the heresy.
First of all, neutering is said to calm a dog, so that he won’t become sexually frustrated, or hyperactive, and he won’t roam the countryside looking for potential mates, and the most often cited behavioral benefit, the dog won’t become aggressive.
Secondly, neutering is said to improve the health of male dogs. Neutered male dogs do not get prostrate cancer.
Thirdly, widespread neutering reduces the number of pets in circulation, and as the reasoning goes, fewer pets in dog pounds means that fewer pets will have to be destroyed.
It would thus appear that the argument in favor of neutering hasn’t a downside in sight. Advocates claim that neutering improves everything about a male dog’s physical and temperamental constitution, and yet has absolutely no impact on a dog’s personality or disposition. It’s the miracle “fix.” Neutering changes everything, and yet it doesn’t change a thing. However I will argue that sexuality is so vital to the canine’s social nature we must reopen the debate on neutering. In this article I am going to present a new explanation for why sexuality evolved in nature, what its real role is in behavior and evolution, and from that perspective, we will revisit each argument that’s made in favor of neutering male dogs. My objections to neutering arise from what I’ve learned about how dogs become social, as well as the correlation between wholeness and health. With an almost universal rate of compliance in the neutering of male dogs, with an exponential increase in the percentage of dogs trained through nationally certified and affordable dog training programs, and with the wealth of behavioral information available through the internet, magazines, videos and television programs, we need to ask therefore, why is there an alarming rise in rates of aggression in dogs these days, at younger and younger ages, and in breeds that would be unthinkable forty years ago?
The next post will outline the issue in new detail.