Life stage health | SPAYING, NEUTERING AND THE ADOLESCENT PUPPY

SPAYING, NEUTERING AND THE ADOLESCENT PUPPY

Vet’s corner

What’s the best way to deal with chewing, jumping up and food guarding?

During their adolescent months puppies will exhibit unruly behaviours which first cropped up at earlier stages in their development. Detailed advice on how to deal with chewing, jumping up, begging, food guarding and possessiveness can be found in our puppy training articles on other pages, but in all cases it’s worth noting that your influence as pack leader is important. Calm, assertive commands and positive reinforcement are needed to deal with an adolescent puppy.

When a dog’s in season, what precautions need to be taken?

A female dog comes into season twice a year for three weeks at a time. During these times she’ll signal her fertility to males by urinating more than usual and spotting (secreting drops of blood mixed with vaginal discharge). Male dogs are pretty good at reading the signs that there’s a fertile female in the neighbourhood and will pursue her with surprising persistence. Spaying or neutering your dog is the most obvious way to deal with canine fertility, and a full explanation of the operation’s benefits are listed below. If you want to breed from your animals, however, care will have to be taken to prevent unexpected pregnancies. Females should be locked indoors and confined to rooms with hard floors (spotting is difficult to remove from carpets and rugs) while males will have to be kept away from receptive females.

If a dog gets lost, how is he identified?

Every year thousands of dogs are returned to their owners thanks to their identification, so it's essential your dog has adequate I.D., or you run the risk of losing him. Most owners use one or more of the following methods:

• Name tags. The most common and visible form of I.D., a tag simply attaches to your dog’s collar and displays your name, address including post code and (preferably) your telephone number. Your dog must wear his collar at all times but as it’s always possible that the tag gets lost you should also consider...
• Tattoos. More permanent than a tag, a tattooed pet I.D. will link your animal to identification details held on a national database. Because a tattoo (or microchip) could go undetected they should always be supplemented with a collar and name tag
• Microchips. Another permanent form of I.D., a microchip is the size of a grain of rice and is implanted under the dog’s skin (no anaesthesia or surgery is required). The chip contains an alphanumeric code that can be read by animal shelters and vet practices equipped with a scanner. The shelter or vet then notifies the chip manufacturer or national database that the pet has been found and the database administrator contacts the owner

At seven months old your puppy is growing up. Small breeds are already well into the adolescent period of their lives and it won’t be long before larger breeds are following suit. Here’s your guide to the big issues that you and your puppy will have to navigate over the next few months.

Neutering or spaying: the kindest cut

Unless you make a very conscious decision to breed from your dog – and you shouldn’t take the decision lightly unless you've thought about the hard work that's involved – you should always have your puppy neutered or spayed, vets will tell you.

Some first time owners may see the operation as almost cruel, but in fact it's anything but. If the procedure is carried out before a female's first cycle, for example, there is less chance she'll succumb to mammary tumors or uterine disease. There won't be so much mess when she's in season and the concern that she'll one day bear the pups of next door's German Shepherd is no longer relevant.

A neutered male is less prone to aggression and roaming. He won't have the same urge to mark his territory. And if your puppy is the German Shepherd next door, just think of the grief you'll save.

When to spay or neuter

Spaying or neutering should be performed before sexually maturity, which is reached at different times, depending on the size of the dog. The following guide shows when different breeds go through adolescence and then sexual maturity:

While all surgery carries risks, the normal outcomes of a sterilization operation for most dogs are recovery within a week and no lasting side effects. So all things considered, what's stopping you?

Teenage behaviour: how he’ll break the rules

Dogs passing through adolescence aren't exactly like surly teenagers (the two-legged variety), but there's a chance you'll have to endure some 'difficult' behaviour just the same. You might find, for example, that playfulness turns into boisterousness or even a little aggression. To your surprise there'll be pulling on the lead, or begging at the table, where there had been none for some time. Jumping up may be more of an issue than it was.

Your teenager (four-legged variety) is exploring the boundaries of what he can and can't do, trying to assert his authority. You need to curb this with firm reinforcement of basic training but also understand that, with the right control from you, the phase will pass and normality will break out once more.

The second fear period

In the wild a puppy's self-preservation mechanism often kicks in about this age to make the dog wary of predators he might soon face. In the home this characteristic (known as heightened awareness) can result in puppy suddenly becoming fearful of things that hadn't bothered him for months. The Hoover is frightening all over again and excited children have him scuttling for his crate before they're through the door. Again, this is a passing phase that you can help him through with your own display of calm patience.

Don't be tempted to make him confront his fears or provide him with too much reassurance - you'll either make him even more frightened or reinforce his irrational behaviour. Instead, increase his exposure to experiences gradually, gently rewarding any progress with verbal praise or a treat.

Training takes a step forward

Raising a puppy isn't all frustration and heartache, of course, and the fact that he's now a teenager means you should be able to build on the skills he's already learned. In fact, to not do so risks boredom, which in turn risks him chewing – bad news for shoes.

His listening skills and recognition should have improved to the extent that his retrieving, walking on the lead and response to basic commands will all take a step forward. In the next eight weeks or so he should be able to:

• Remain sitting as you walk away from him
• Look directly at your face when you require his attention
• Recognise individual names of family members
• Find hidden objects

Just one little note of caution – remember that he has a teenager’s attention span and is not yet physically the full ticket. Too much exercise could actually hurt his young bones.