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Adolescent Dog
By peace | June 26, 2007
In late puppyhood, during the adolescent phase, a young male may experience an upsurge of hormones making him indulge in excessive sexual behaviour. If the dog is suitably discouraged, this behaviour will often prove only transient.
A survey carried out in 1977 among dog owners visiting veterinary surgeries for any reason revealed that 52% of dogs under 1 year of age and 65% of older dogs had annoying hypersexual traits. The fact that such behaviour is tolerated is even more remarkable as many of the dogs showed two or more hypersexual traits and one dog displayed no less than six!
But what are the behaviour traits? These are the three main signs:
- Mounting people and inanimate objects
- Aggression, particularly towards other dogs
- Urination about the house (territory marking)
These are the three minor signs:
- wandering
- excitability
- destructiveness
All of these are obviously both worrying and potentially embarrassing. What makes some dogs hypersexed? Fundamentally, sex drive in male animals is controlled by the male sex hormone, testosterone, and the cerebral cortex in the brain. In some dogs, the hormones are more important and in others the animal is motivated principally by its brain. Furthermore, it is always worth noting that the hypersexual traits noted above can be learned behaviour and that they can be perpetuated by inappropriate training.
Quite obviously treatment and prevention must be aimed at reducing the production of testosterone, at calming the cerebral cortex and applying corrective training or at least not reinforcing the behaviour by any sort of reward. Often, all that can be achieved by castration and the use of synthetic hormones, coupled with a determination by the owner to teach the dog that such behaviour does not pay off.
A number of scientific publications have been written on this subject and veterinary surgeons in practice are familiar with what can be done. If your dog is a problem in this respect, it is well worth talking to your vet since a course of tablets, a series of injections or possibly a relatively simple operation may be all that is required to give you some peace and save your dog from frustration too.
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