Wow really? This was not a conversation on horses, it was on dogs. I took a great deal of time to discuss that I am considering not castrating my next dog. In the spin off thread I discuss in great detail how I came to this understanding.
Hypocritical? Seriously?
Wow.
Here’s what I wrote in the spay/neuter thread,
[I]I came up the same way as everybody else. I did not think twice about spay or castration. It was the responsible thing, as far as I was concerned. I had no problem with early speuter either.
- I started reading Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (Tribe of Tiger, Hidden Life of Dogs, Social Life of Dogs). She is essentially an animal ethnographer. Her observations made me think. She speculated that intact dogs had fewer issues with dog-aggression than castrated dogs because castrated dogs just didn’t seem right to other dogs. They didn’t smell right, they didn’t look right, their signals were ambiguous and lent themselves to misunderstandings.
Mind you these were observations of an ethnographic type. This was not a scientific experiment by any stretch of the imagination, but she made me think of things I had not considered before. I started reading more and more about speuter and its consequences. I read about the consequences of early speuter and found they were different from late speuter, and different from no speuter at all.
- Some years ago I fostered an intact (I think he was 3) male Rhodesian Ridgeback. He came into my home where I think I had 2 castrated Rhodesian Ridgebacks (I at least had Milo) and cats. Not a whisper, not an issue, no marking, no aggression, nothing. He was my first experience with an intact ridgie. Of course this is a sample size of one. But he was calm, settled, and handsome as heck. He had cheeks, neck, muscles. He looked different from any male dog I’d ever had, fostered, or transported. He added to my confusion (challenging my preconceived notions about speuter). He walked on leash, he didn’t need to pee on more things than my other dogs.
My other experience with intact ridgies was more brief. I was the Pennsylvania leg of moving a bunch of ridgebacks from a MO puppy mill to New England rescue. I had 4 bitches and 1 stud dog. None of them had any training, but none of them were aggressive or had any issues. I only had them a day (the male was picked up at my house, the females overnighted before I drove them north).
- A few years ago I was in Tobago on vacation. Tobago is rural (as opposed to Trinidad which is more urban). Here dogs are owned but run loose. They are not speutered generally speaking. So dogs pack. I noticed (the science geek in me) interesting differences between our dogs and their dogs.
- They were smart (they had to be to avoid being hit by cars, forage for food, etc).
- The males were strong (the females were not as sturdy likely because they were probably whelping).
-They were not people aggressive. More than likely the evolutionary pressure would select against people aggression in this environment because people-aggressive dogs would likely be killed.
-They were not dog aggressive.
These dogs were intact. There was a pack at the small hotel (a hotel that I loved BTW) that were very interesting. From memory there were maybe 5 dogs, mostly males, 1 female I think. I remember the female because pack behavior seemed to indicate she was coming into estrus. Anyway, the alpha was pretty obvious. He was the dog that made time with her while the other males hung on the periphery.
One day down at the beach one of the periphery males started trying to make inroads with the female. I could see it coming. I was mesmerized. He came in, the alpha confronted him and they fought…for about a second. Snarling, fur flying, and then nothing. No injuries. He was rebuffed, and the pack resumed its dynamic.
Of course here again; pure observation, speculation, and interpretation on my part. I found it illuminating! It challenged alot of my preconceptions about aggression and the intact dog, as opposed to the castrated dogs. Where I’d expected that castrated dogs would be more peaceable because they lacked hormones, and intact dogs being more aggressive, experience showed the other way. I’ve seen dog fights among our castrated dogs and they’re belligerent, long, and messy.
All these experiences challenged alot of what I took for granted as responsible management of pet dogs. My preference is for males. I’ve fostered females and kept one (that was karma). I had to spay one female and I thought it was a horrible experience! I guess up to that point I hadn’t thought of how spay is serious abdominal surgery! [/I]
Does coming to a new understanding make me a hypocrite? How does having a gelding make me a hypocrite?
Paula
