When to neuter

[ks-man]

We have an almost 5 month old male Doodle.  I haven't seen any recent threads about when is the best time to neuter him.  My vet says 6 months but our breeder was more in favor of waiting until 10-12 months or even later if we wanted.  

The last two days I've noticed him humping his toy pillow and stuffed animal in the evening (his zoomie time).  I haven't seen him doing it to anything else nor does he play very aggressively (just playful).  I'm not sure if any of that matters or should come into the decision.

Anyway please let me know if you have any thoughts.  There seems to be a lot of research on both sides so I'd love to hear people's opinions around here.  

Thanks!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

We've always neutered our puppies at about 6 months which is old-school thinking. I definitely do not agree with the early spay/neutering that some breeders are doing, but if I ever get another puppy, I will have to research the current vet opinions and studies before making a firm decision.

[Connie]

Me too.... over 4 decades with dogs. We usually waited until 6 months too. Though we were always told it could be done sooner. The new research and studies are very interesting and make a lot of sense with "hormone producing organ removal" since goldens were involved we agreed with our vets opinion and will wait until he is at least a year old. I didn't care about the additional licensing fee and I was grateful they accepted her waiver request. Happy to have found her in our new town... she follows our AAHA vaccination protocols too... those gems are hard to find.

[ks-man]

Thanks for all the thoughts.  I want to hear what my vet has to say but from everything I'm reading I think it makes sense to wait until around the 1 year mark. 

He has been humping that pillow again today quite a bit.  Should I discourage this by telling him "NO" or should I allow him to do it.  He goes to daycare 1-2 days a week for socialization and he is pretty small for the group he is in (with the medium dogs) so I'm not too concerned with him humping other dogs but not sure if I should discourage the humping behavior on anything so it doesn't become a problem later on.

Thanks!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I am absolutely not a font of knowledge or an authority on it, but I’d discourage it. It may be normal but it’s often unwelcome and could get the dog - yours - hurt. Charlie has a real problem with trying to hump newly met dogs or excited active children - yes,  I know it’s a dominance thing- but he’s had two unpleasant ocurances that resulted in injuries. I feel that had his ‘greetings’  been discouraged when he was young, perhaps he’d have a better idea of acceptable hellos. We are working on this but with more drastic training than I like. 

I’d take the pillow he humps away for a while, tell him No, Leave It, Off- whatever your command is, and distract him with another toy or activity.