We aren't in Europe, therefore Fergus got fixed

I had no idea that whether or not to fix your dog would be such a controversial subject. I just assumed that when the Ferg turned 6 months old, it would be Off With His Parts. I wasn’t looking forward to having my beloved pup go under the knife, of course, but I just assumed part of being a responsible pet owner was to get my dog fixed. Apparently it is not that simple.

Most breeders and vets recommend you wait to neuter male Golden Retrievers, until they are at least a year old. Some say doing the surgery earlier will stunt the dog’s growth. Others warn of other medical issues, like joint disorders or even cancer. One controversial study says that neutering your Golden at all will triple its chance of getting cancer.

But what about the difficulties associated with dogs that don’t have the surgery? Testosterone mood swings seem to overtake my otherwise fairly well-trained, beautifully-mannered dog at the most inopportune moments. Like when we’re at the dog park, just sniffing out the perimeter. Along comes a cute female of some tiny breed. Her associate is a large, lean, exotic looking beast with bronze fur and gold-coloured eyes. He postures around the female, eyeing Fergus. Fergus catches the look, backs off a bit, then…wait. What’s that scent? The female must be approaching her heat. As he does when he doesn’t understand or is frightened by something, Ferg reacts by snarling. He snapped at the little female, who had done absolutely nothing to deserve such a rude outburst.

I had never seen Fergus act so badly before. I lunged toward his collar and he did a little Houdini move and wriggled right out of it. I was left holding the leash while my dog took off after the little female. Just then, a man emerged from the woods where the dogs had been. As the dogs rushed past him, he bent over and scooped Fergus up into his arms.

“Your dog fixed yet?” he asked.

“Nope,” I responded.

“You’re going to have this problem until he is,” he responded.

Embarrassed and confused, I thanked him for catching my dog, and marched Ferg out of the dog park like an admonished teen. It was our shortest visit to the dog park, ever. About ten minutes from start to finish.

We had put off the neutering surgery because of advice we had received from a friend and a breeder (not ours), who knew of the lymphatic cancer study. The vet and our breeder said we could put the surgery off until the dog started to display poor behaviour. (Does ripping heads off your stuffed toys and molesting your dog bed count as poor behaviour, I wondered?) Someone suggested we wait until age 1 to get Fergus fixed, but not to leave it until after age 2, as that presented a whole new bunch of problems. Someone even pointed out that if we lived in Europe, we probably wouldn’t be getting our dog neutered at all. It just isn’t the custom there, apparently. My head was spinning from all the advice and I didn’t know what to do.

Then I decided, since the Ferg was temporarily under self-imposed ban from the dog park, we could at least go and visit Cousin Rupert at my daughter Annie’s house. I loaded Fergus into the car and off we went, happy as could be.

When we arrived at my daughter’s house, Fergus made a beeline for Rupert. He displayed some extremely rude behaviour around the older dog, and then proceeded to urinate on the floor. All right. That’s enough, I thought.

I went home and booked Fergus’ neutering appointment for the week after he turned one. He is now lying at my feet, in a slightly medicated snooze. He is wearing a onesie that snaps open for bathroom breaks and keeps him away from his stitches the rest of the time. He is eating and sleeping and doing all the things he is supposed to be doing while recovering from surgery.

I’m hoping being neutered will make Ferg a little more docile, a little easier to train, a little less likely to chase the neighbour’s chickens or to run down the road when his radar collar battery dies out. And soon, very soon, we will be back at his beloved dog park, romping through the woods with his other four-legged friends.

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