[Peggy]

Originally Posted by MyPemCharlie

If I were a breeder, I would likely have the same spay/neuter agreement. The interest there is still to try to ensure that pet-quality dogs don't reproduce, not because there are health benefits to s/n at a young age.

Yes, you're right there. Still I don't recommend things that would be harmful to my dogs. When I place a puppy, I still consider it "my puppy" and am concerned about it's welfare. I would not place a puppy with someone I felt would do something to harm the dog over it's lifetime.

For every responsible pet owner I know, I can point to 3 owners who are not so responsible. Of course of 4 potential pet owners, all 4 will tell you that they will be responsible, and as a breeder (and rescuer), you know that in actuality they may or may not be as responsible as they claim.

Also very true. Which is why I ask so many questions and well, if my "gut feeling" isn't good, they don't get one of my puppies.

As far as health problems, the majority dogs will live their lives without many serious issues until more common older age problems set in (regardless of s/n age). Use bone cancer as an example (but the example could be hip displasia, or hormonal skin disease, or torn ligaments, or any problem with statisically higher risks from early (before one year) spay/neuter.) Let's say that 3% of all dogs will get bone cancer (3% is just a "number" as I couldn't find actually percentage rates of cancer across all breeds, the number in rotties is 12.7% so 3% is probably low). However, say that only 2% of dogs not spayed/neutered until one year get cancer, but 5.5% of dogs who are spayed/neutered before one year get cancer, resulting in the avg of 3% across all dogs. So even with early spay/neuter, your own dog still has a 94.5% chance of being perfectly healthy and not getting cancer. This example goes to support your point of not observing any differences in dogs which have be s/n'd at 4, 5 or 6 months.

So, while I can and do support your point about spay/neuter in general, my support is only because of the large number of people who will let their intact dogs out to roam and add to the overpopulation problem. Better to have a statistically higher increase of health problems in specific dogs due to early neutering, than to have more and more and more unwanted animals every year.

Charlie is under my nose (constantly supervised) almost 24 hours a day. When I do leave to buy groceries or what-not for a few hours a week, he is inside in his kennel. Since the chances of him contributing to the unwanted puppy pool are virtually zero, I do have a strong preference to wait until he is a year to give him the absolute best odds of a long healthy life as possible. I know it sounds hypocritical, but the differences in my own opinion have to do with individual responsibility versus the responsibility taken by the "public-at-large".

I totally understand and said that I would be willing to discuss this with a puppy buyer if it were a concern of theirs. I do have friends that have waited, but for the general pet owner, I think that 6 mos. is the best thing. As you said, many are not as responsible as they say or think they are.

A bit off topic: Looks like the "Animal Advisory Commission" in my city is making some headway with the City Council to pass an ordinance for mandatory spay/neuter of every animal at 6 months of age, so there may not be a choice in the future. Breeders would have to pay a license fee per intact dog and an additional fee per litter produced.

I am on lists where these alerts are posted and people are fighting them all over the country. I do agree with altering pets, but I do not think it should be mandatory.

And they are penelizing the wrong people with the intact fees and litter fees. These laws don't do any thing to touch the puppy mills they always cliaim they want to control. These laws affect the pet owners and responsible breeders mostly.

Remember these laws are usually proposed by animal rights groups and they have an agenda to do away with domestic animals. If you search the archives I think you can find info and links on the AR movement.

Peggy