Male Dogs: Sitting (or owning) Intact Male Dogs

Introduction

Dog sitting or owning an intact male dog has a lot of complications. There are generally three categories of people who have intact male dogs: 1) those who are planning to breed (wether they should or not) 2) those who are too lazy or stupid to get their dog neutered and 3) those who have assessed the pros and cons of having an intact male and have decided not to neuter and modified their lifestyle sufficiently for that. The main audience for this article is individuals in the last category as well as dog sitters and will focus on tips for managing intact males as a sitter or owner:

Same Sex Aggression

Intact male dogs do not like each other. They are biologically programmed not to. There are obviously situations where in a wolf pack where there are multiple intact males – domestic ownership of intact males is very different though and in general people should not own or sit multiple intact male dogs at the same time. The chance of conflict is extremely high. Some exceptions exist where there is a significant age or size difference in the dogs or one has a very submissive temperament but in general intact males just can’t be around each other which is tough to navigate as a sitter.

When I initially started dog sitting, my intact male Doberman was about 1 year old and I was more naive than now about my ability to sit multiple intact males. At 1 year old, he was actually fine with basically all dogs unless they aggressed on him. So I thought I would be able to dog sit multiple intact males and there would need to just be more monitoring. By the time he got to 2 years old other intact males absolutely hated him and he would not put up with any aggression especially at his house. I called one of the top dog trainers in the country just to gauge if this was at all feasible to keep sitting multiple intact males and the short answer was no.

My advice? Don’t sit multiple intact males. It’s much riskier than sitting fixed dogs and there isn’t a price difference on the income side.

Marking

Intact males like to mark – no surprise there. Unfortunately, even if they are house trained completely, they may forget that they’re inside if they are in a new environment and there is a strong chance of marking in the house if they pick up a scent they feel they need to mark over. My dog has tried to mark in the house once but that was because another intact male did earlier. Other than that, he’s perfectly house trained and hasn’t tried to mark in the house. I don’t have a lot of confidence that he can walk into someone else’s house who has dogs and not mark though, especially if they do not clean thoroughly.

My best advice is to clean thoroughly, correct the behavior if you see it happen, and make sure to clean the affected area thoroughly as soon as possible. Dogs hate vinegar and citrus. I recommend cleaning with Angry Orange which you can fine here, and concentrated vinegar which you can find here. Use the concentrated vinegar first (feel free to dilute as needed since the concentrated version is extremely strong) and finish it off with the Angry Orange which has a pleasant scent to us. The dogs will probably briefly sniff the area again but if you cleaned thoroughly, they won’t re offend in the same spot.

Navigating Females

Navigating intact males who are near intact females is problematic for the obvious reason that if the female goes into heat and you aren’t monitoring closely enough, things can happen. The bigger issue in my mind though is the change to the group dynamic of having essentially two viable male and female dogs that can reproduce. This causes the male dog to exhibit aggression towards all of the other dogs including other spayed females and for some reason spayed females don’t seem very keen on intact females so things devolve into a hormonal mess. You can have one intact male or one intact female in a play group but not both.

Conclusion

The tips above are mostly for adult dogs. For dogs under 8 months or who have not reached sexual maturity, the rules are much more lenient. Intact puppies are allowed to be around intact males and females (assuming good temperaments from the adult dogs). Yes, the intact male knows they are intact as well and will smell them heavily but based on size and whatever else it is these dogs use to evaluate each other, intact males are generally fine with puppies until about 8 months old and at that point things can start to get dicey. I love having an intact dog. He has more drive and is more territorial than neutered males generally are but I view those as positives for my lifestyle. He also rarely leaves my side so leaving him intact isn’t “irresponsible” even though there are a plethora of Karens who would disagree. You just have to gauge if an intact male is something you can manage and prefer for your lifestyle.