Dog confinement is 100% an owner choice. Some people are just idiots and unwilling to take care of the consequences of their actions. As I type this there is an unaltered male rottie at the end of my driveway. Every night as the sun sets his owner sets him loose upon my neighborhood. I guess walking the dog is too much trouble and confining him "cruel". There is no leash law in my county so we deal with loose dogs as we need to.

Take one more owner who is that careless and borne to the world another litter of puppies no one wanted. That said I think at least 50% of the unwanted puppies in this world come from people who own both the dogs involved rather than true accidents.

 Quote: Melissa Thom

That said I think at least 50% of the unwanted puppies in this world come from people who own both the dogs involved rather than true accidents.

Interesting... I have never considered this. You are probably right. Deep sigh.

While I think the choice of sterilizing your dog (or cat, for that matter) is a personal decision, I personally believe that unless the owner is going to purposely breed the animal, it should be sterilized. I don't think casual pet owners (people looking just for a companion animal, not a working or sport animal) should own intact animals.

I'm a vet tech student, and all of the animals we work with at school come from the local animal shelters. More than 75% of them are intact, and many of those were surrendered to the shelters because of behavior issues relating to that, or because their dog was unintentionally bred and now they have a litter of pups that they don't know what to do with. (Last semester more than half the dogs we had at school were under 6 months of age - all were surrendered because their owners didn't want them and couldn't place them or sell them on their own.)

I also used to do a lot of fostering years ago (am actually getting back into it again - I have a mama GSD mix coming in next week with three pups found abandoned on a highway with pellet shot wounds!!!) and the majority of the animals I worked with then were intact or were the result of unwanted litters.

As a kid, a lot of the neighborhoods we lived in had packs of roaming dogs that didn't belong to anyone, pretty much feral, and most of them were intact and presumably breeding on their own, causing havoc with the rest of the neighborhood. Let's not get into the problem of intact feral cats.

 Quote: Jessica Foster

I'm a vet tech student, and all of the animals we work with at school come from the local animal shelters. More than 75% of them are intact, and many of those were surrendered to the shelters because of behavior issues relating to that

Do you think that training can overcome behavior issues arising from being intact?

Training for whom? The owners?

leih

 Quote: leih merigian

Training for whom? The owners?

leih

Maybe so. Perhaps I should have asked for the particulars of the issues being spoken of for the dogs from the shelter to see why they were turned in.

If dogs are given a grounding in basic obedience as puppies and could be called back despite distraction, what issues would there be?

I was a vet tech for 7 years and none of the behavior issues I encountered were because of a dog being intact or not. Behavior issues come from ignorant dog owners not training their dogs, not testicles. Spaying does not fix behavior, the vet schools teach this bologna to the world and its just #%*@!! Its all driven by money not concern. Soon these same people will be telling us to neuter ADHD children because it will fix their behavior. Dog behavior is dog behavior regardless of sex, I've seen just as many fixed males humping people as unfixed males. The only thing fixing will fix is the possibility of the vet world making more money. Learn to control your dog and all problems will stop. Humping is DOMINANCE not sexual they are saying something through their actions and its not "I'm feeling randy". 99% of the time humping is dominance, its usually only sexual when theres a bitch in heat.

Well, your much braver than me!

There is no doubt in my mind that that dog would have been waiting at my door everyday if my dog went into season. He was nasty.

 Quote: leih merigian

Training for whom? The owners?

leih

I want more than pencil-eraser-size cut up hot dogs to mark what I do right

Another thing to consider, while not a behavior issue in itself, is the increase of territorial and rank behaviors in male dogs. I read a statistic that something like 80% of attacks on humans are by intact male dogs.

It may not be an issue for dog owners who take care to actually train and supervise their animals, but we all know that there is a significant number of people in the world who are careless. Just look at all the threads on here about how to protect yourself from loose dogs!

There is also a definite problem with male/male issues that can arise in a neighborhood. Just imagine finding yourself in this situation. My friend had a massive 150 pound intact Rott. The neighbor had an intact pit. One day the pit jumped the fence and started a nasty fight.

The fight went on for almost an hour, nobody could safely break it up. The dogs actually ended up fighting inside her house! They almost killed each other.

It might have happened anyway, but i don't think it is coincidence that both dogs were intact.