Three Things To Know About Spay And Neuter And Your Pet's Behavior
As a pet owner, you may have some misconceptions about spay and neuter. Misconceptions might lead pet owners to avoid spaying or neutering. Or, pet owners might start spaying and neutering for the wrong reasons in an attempt to change their pet's behavior. Here are three things you need to know about spay and neuter and how it affects your pet's behavior.
It Won't Change Your Pet's Personality
If your pet is hyper, overactive, or loud, spaying or neutering is not going to change this. In fact, spaying and neutering should be done for the simple reason that it prevents pet overpopulation, which is a real problem. Keeping pets out of shelters is the ultimate goal, especially high-kill shelters. If you are unhappy with your pet's hyper behavior, professional pet training is more effective than spaying or neutering.
It Can Cause a Change in Hormonal Behaviors
The one thing that is going to change, most likely, is hormonal behavior. This means your pet might not participate in aggressive territorial behavior, like marking or spraying. Your female pet also won't go into heat during times when she feels the need to reproduce. On top of this, your female pet won't have to deal with a monthly cycle.
It Won't Necessarily Change Learned Hormonal Behaviors
Once your pet does learn a hormonal behavior such as marking or spraying, it's difficult to break that habit, even after they have been spayed or neutered. This is why it's important to get your pet spayed or neutered as soon as possible. This is going to prevent your pet from learning these behaviors.
Keep in mind that your pet can still learn these behaviors from other pets, though, even after getting spayed or neutered. It's best to keep cats indoors and try your best to only allow you dog to play with other neutered and spayed dogs.
If your pet has developed any hormonal behaviors even after getting spayed or neutered, you can seek out pet training for help. This specialized pet training is often done in your home with the use of certain products that help soothe and repress your pet's urge to participate in these hormonal behaviors. Since your pet is already spayed or neutered, the pet training is what you need to get rid of these learned hormonal behaviors over time.
When you know these three things about how spaying and neutering affects your pet's behaviors, you can be sure that you know how to deal with it in a positive way.