Dog Agressivness

Jerry,

I've got a male BMC that also tends to be a little aggressive. I've had two appointments to get him cut and due to scheduling, neither happened. His day is coming though.

Anyhow, I researched the subject and talked to a couple different vets before deciding to go ahead with the procedure. Basically I was told that the earlier in the dogs life you do it, the better your chances for success. Young male-aggressive dogs are purely instinct and testosterone driven, but as the dogs age the aggression can be driven by habit. Once the "habit" of fighting has developed, neutering the dog won't help. It was explained to me that neutering the dog is basically like taking the edge off. If the dog was the type to come out of the box looking for a fight, the results may be dissappointing.

The dog I have doesn't necessarily look for a fight, but he darn sure won't walk away from one either. Usually when he's busy hunting, there are no issues. In the vets opinion, this dog would be a good candidate.

Another thing to consider is this. A dog-aggressive male tends to be an alpha dominant type dog (or one that is rallying for that position in the pecking order). Just as in nature, these are the dogs that set the tone and call the shots of your whole pack. The problem is when this particular dog is not the best hunting dog. By hunting this dog with your pack and allowing him to be the superior, you could very well be hindering the performance of your other dogs. I believe this is something that is often overlooked when people hunt a pack of dogs. When you look at pack-mentality and the way dogs function in nature, the theory that any dog should hunt and perform the same with any other dog is simply not true.

I encourage people to switch their dogs around and hunt them in different combinations. You may find that when hunting dog a, b & d together and leaving c at home they hunt like a completely different set of dogs.

On another subject you and I have been talking about, I sent you a PM.