Will neutering my male Domestic short hair, help keep him closer to home. He tends to fight for territory.?

Question

He has injuries from possibly another animal--large cat or a dog, or human. He has been hurt by neighbors before; they poured some kind of acid on him around a year ago. It is horrible for him to stay inside, and my kids cant resist his whining at the door. He has a wound on his face now that just makes me ill. His cheek area is damaged. It is a rather gruesome wound. Have meds from the vet, it will heal and mend, but I want to convert him from indoor/outdoor to strictly indoor. I am tired of him getting hurt. He has lost a step and is getting the worst of the battles these days. I want to neuter him and was wondering if it might keep him home. Id like to see him grow old with us. He is awesome with the kids, loving and smart, but this territorialness and the peeps that hurt him before scare me. I need suggestions for the convesion process. Please help, I am afraid he will get killed one day. I couldnt bear that.

Answer 1

A neutered male is generally less likely to fight & roam ... he no longer need hunt out females & fight other males for them ... he's also much nicer to have around the house as his urine should stop smelling quite so pungent & any tendency to spray it all around should lessen.

It will probably be a difficult few days or weeks persuading him to stay inside but as his hormone levels decrease it should get easier. Feed him well & fuss him loads, get the kids to play with him more ... gradually he'll decide that its better inside. Or, when he does go out, he won't go quite as far or get into quite as much trouble.

Your neighbours sound horrible by the way ... but maybe, after being neutered, he won't be shrieking war cries outside their house, so maybe they will leave him alone.

I'd get him done as soon as possible. Good luck with him.

Answer 2

Neutering both dogs doesn't solve the problem because they are fighting for dominance and they are now both the same status. Too late for you, but in cases like this people often make the mistake of castrating both whereas just castrating the less dominant dog is more likely to work because that reduces his status even more and the uncastrated dog is less likely to see him as a threat. There is no easy or quick solution and it would probably be better to get a trainer (a real, experienced. knowledgeable trainer!) in to observe them and see what the trigger point is for them starting to fight. It may be that one or both are possessive/jealous of you/your daughter, over food or territory (eg, the kitchen which is a source of food) etc. If you both regularly walk the dogs together on lead, that often helps reduce tension and gets them accustomed to being together without fighting. If there's any posturing/growling/eyeballing you need to show that you are the boss and won't tolerate fighting. At the same time, you need to reinforce that Charlie is the dominant male and Bobby is the underdog- not easy - it goes against the human instinct to stick up for the "underdog". Only consolation is that it's much more likely that you can get 2 dogs to live peacably than it is with 2 b1tches who have decided they don't like each other.

Answer 3

Definitely get him neutered right away. That will at least prevent the cat fights - he can pick up very serious cat diseases from bites gotten in playing the mating game.

Your children have just got to understand that he must stay inside the house - at the very least never to be let out at night when the dangers are highest.

It will take several weeks after neutering for all his hormones to leave his system so he will be wanting to go out. You just say "No!" as you would with your children who wanted to roam at inappropriate times.

Answer 4

Your boy needs to be neutered as soon as possible. The differences in his personality will be seen immediately. He will stay home and become a sweet little fellow.