Michael, what are you doing with him, obedience wise?

Neutering of it's own accord will not make anything go away except a mature dog. It arrests the dogs development both mentally and physically, as well as cause health concerns farther down the road.

If the dog is beyond the handling capabilities of someone, they should seek professional help or the dog should be rehomed to a handler that knows how to deal.

Thanks Connie.

I hope some of the folks on this forum who do have the experience with aggression situations will help Michael with this decision.

Michael, I went back and re-read Ed Frawley's ebook on the subject, and he said that neutering a dog doesn't necessarily help with aggesssion unless done between 6 - 9 months old. This kinda complicates your decision, doesn't it, since your dog is 9 months old? He also says that most issues of this type are related to pack structure / leadership issues.

You are obvisouly working hard to do what is right with your dog. Are you and your wife on the same page in this regard? Do you think there might be areas in regard to pack structure and leadership which could be improved?

Since you don't really want to neuter your dog, IF there is a way to work on the problem from a management/training view, it is worth discussing. However, in my opinion (as a non professional) if both of you aren't in agreement on how to handle your dog, especially this breed of dog, you are going to be in for a very rough and dangerous ride.

obediennce wise im working with him everday with marker training in the house no distractions yet .and i have not conntacted anyone else yet last week my car broke and i got pneumonia on top off that so i missed a whole week off work and had to pay around 400 to get my car fixed so im not going to have anyextra money for a bit

No distractions is good, but I think you need to get him out away from the house. Don't completely seclude him from what bothers him, use distance to help him get comfortable. A balance of training and then just hanging out.

Also, start with one thing in training. Something simple like sit, and then a clear release. Let him have a lot of success with that before you add anything.

If $400 for your car is going to get in the way of addressing this problem...don't you think you're in over your head?

No. He just needs to work with some consistancy.

Is Michael having just the routine puppy problems or are we talking about aggression issues of some sort?
The only thing I can remember is something about barking in the car.
If we're on about aggression, what kind of aggression are we looking at?

I'd say this dog should be neutured....not because that act alone will help with the actual aggression but getting rid of the distraction, and the potential danger of not being able to control an intact dog (so, what happens to the person who's between him and a female he wants?). And I don't think 9 months is to early in this case. I'm sorry but we have enough problems with people with their uncontrolable "stud dogs" in this country...we don't need more. Yes their are health risks but there's a great risk to the public in this case if it's not done. If everyone trained thier dog this wouldn't be an issue...but people don't or don't know how so until that happens I support neutering ALL non-breeding (or breeding quality in pet homes) owned by the average pet owner (obviously this doesn't include people who compete or train working dogs/sport dogs etc as these are not the majority). This includes females not being bred....pyometra is nasty and the changes of getting it go up dramatically with each heat she's not bred...in that case it's an "if" not a "when" and the average pet owner won't catch the signs in time....

For someone who has control over their dog there is not reason they couldn't wait (I do think if the dog is not a breeding animal it should be done by age 2 or 3, some exceptions if you have the property for it to be fair to the dog to keep him intact). I did my dog earlier than I would have liked (a bit over 1 year) because it wasn't fair to keep him intact (he wasn't allowed outside, he stopped eating, he couldn't ever be off the long line, etc._