Do I REGRET Neutering My Dog? (How My Dog Changed From Neuter Surgery)

This is MY opinion on how OUR neuter experience changed Mochi, and why i am so happy we did it! This is NOT medical advice, and please do not neuter your dog based on potential changes like this, only go off of medical advice from your vet and researching on your own.

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It has been 10 months since my dog, Mochi was neutered, and now that it’s been basically an entire year, the changes that came from the surgery are entirely clear and settled. After the surgery, Mochi was the exact same dog for about 8 weeks unless his hormones leveled out again, then the changes began to show
if you neuter your dogs too early, there’s severe downsides including inability for your dog to mentally mature but also their growth plates not closing properly and some joint and bone issues down the line.

And without further ado, do I regret the decision? No, absolutely not

I’ll start with the few cons of the surgery then get into why I am so happy I got Mochi neutered at the end of this video, because there really are only a few cons I want to get out the way. One downside of the surgery is Mochi’s extreme dislike of intact male dogs. So this isn’t such a downside because it’s hard to say if this would have been any different if Mochi stayed intact. To put it briefly, it’s super common for male dogs to have fights with intact, because of the high levels of testosterone that they exude, so other dogs view them as a threat. Other intact males view them as a threat because they are like direct competition, and neutered males see them as a threat because they feel threatened.

So, Mochi has always had some little issues with intact males here and there before the surgery, so even though now it’s almost 100% that he’s not going to get along with an intact male, it’s not that big of a difference, and it’s hard to say if its definitely because of the surgery.

The only other downside of neutering Mochi is that I feel like his reactivity has gotten slightly worse. Now this happens often in neutered dogs because again, neutered dogs lose a lot of their natural testosterone. And with hat, they actually lose some confidence. Now this doesn’t happen to every neutered dog, and I know plenty of neutered male dogs who are just as confident and are the exact same dog after the surgery. With Mochi, it was clear to me that the surgery lowered his confidence by a bit because his reactivity got worse, and most of Mochi’s reactivity is fear-driven, so of course confidence is important to solving this.

OK, so let’s talk now about why I am so happy I got Mochi neutered and do not regret it. First of all, even though I mentioned the minor conflicts Mochi has had with intact males, it’s important to keep in mind that most dogs we encounter are also neutered. So before Mochi was neutered, he was basically the only intact male dog around. So, when we would go out on walks, Mochi was a target for a lot of other male dogs we met on the way, because again, intact male dogs are often the target of other male dogs. This was awful, because I was always so worried when we went out because so many off-leash dogs would come for Mochi. Once he’s gotten neutered, we haven’t had any of these occurrences, and it’s definitely because other males don’t see him as a threat anymore.

Going off that point, Mochi gets along so much better with other dogs now that he doesn’t try to mount them! Since Mochi has been neutered, he’s stopped mounting other dogs entirely, and before the surgery, whenever Mochi would mount other dogs either because of dominance or because of reproductive desires, it would always result in a fight because the other dog would get mad at Mochi.

Another plus of having a neutered Mochi for me is that I can more comfortably walk him off-leash. HOWEVER, before he was neutered, one major fear I had for taking Mochi off-leash was that he would smell a female dog in heat. If you’re not aware of this, male intact dogs will often do anything and everything to get to a female dog if they smell a female dog in heat in the distance.

But going off that point, another reason going off-leash with intact dogs is scary is because if your intact dog does find another dog that’s not fixed and they do end up mating by accident, there’s a good chance you end up with an accidental litter.

Lastly, I’m just glad that I don’t have to worry about testicular cancer. When we talked to the vet, they told us that testicular cancer is a super common disease that male dogs encounter down the line in their life, and they end up having to be neutered anyways to get rid of the cancer. And, when you neuter a super old dog, that can come with a whole slew of complications because they have a harder time healing and recovering

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