Humping - We do the humpty, we do the humpty hump

[Kelly]

Maverick is a humper. Males and females. He's just excited. It is embarrassing for us, especially because he is. It neutered, and we do not allow this with other dogs. The only dog he does not hump is our 9 year old Mia. She gave him a nice correction. But she is a marker and humper herself......

Funnily enough, he doesn't hump my other dogs. He usually only humps his acquaintances.

[Snowshoe]

Check around. Here, there are no restrictions on training classes or boarding; there are some on DDC. I know a DDC that takes my Vet's dog and they just make sure no intact males are together and no intact males with in season females. Those of us with intact dogs do pay a higher price for their municipal dog license tags. I think Chili's owner, Voodoo, is somewhere in Texas and he's said the difference in price is a lot but where I live it's only $10 more for me to license Oban as opposed to a neutered dog.

[smartrock]

A lot of dogs get neutered or spayed at 6 months or even earlier and do just fine. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do in order to be able to travel, take obedience classes, etc. Because you got your pup through a friend of a friend, you have less information on his background and the health of his "ancestors", how their hips and elbows are, what the temperament of the parents/grandparents etc were. Many dogs are acquired this way, my first dogs, who were boxers, were the same- some people's dogs had puppies and we loved boxers. They were spayed when they were 6 months old. Because labs experience more issues than other breeds with hip dysplasia, particularly, allowing your pup whatever benefits they derive from holding onto their hormones for as long as possible might be good.

Eventually I started getting pups from breeders who asked that the dogs not be neutered or spayed until they were older, and when I joined this board, I learned a lot about the reasons this might be a good approach. That does not mean that the vets we use are all on the same page as the breeders as to the best age to neuter. Some of the boarding kennels or dog day cares around me require the dogs to be neutered, others do not have the same requirements and we do board our dogs. Our last 5 dogs went through obedience classes before being neutered or spayed. I'd check to see if you can find places that do not have that requirement but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

[Kelly]

Well this will certainly prompt me to search for different boarding, training and play facilities. Thanks everyone for pointing that out! I'll push the neutering out as long as possible.