I’m not sure dogs can make New Year resolutions and the one I have in mind for Ralphie this year probably won’t go down too well. It goes without saying that he’ll get more walkies as hubby and I – and the rest of the planet no doubt – aim to slim down in 2012. But the real resolution I have in mind is “the snip”.

We always planned on having Ralhie neutered, as all the doggy literature we read when we first got him said it was probably the right thing to do. And we pledged that we’d get it done when he turned one, which was back in May. But we moved house in May and just never got around to it and as Ralphie isn’t overly sexual or aggressive we didn’t think it mattered.

Over the summer Ralphie had a grass seed stuck in his paw and had to have a minor op to try and remove it. And during the tooing and froing I asked the vet if we should get Ralphie “done”. What were the pros and cons, I asked.

The information I got back was something along the lines of… the best time to have it done is when a dog is between one and five years old and it can calm dogs down who are overly aggressive or sexual. Which Ralphie isn’t. The vet said it does prevent against some kinds of cancer, I can’t remember which, and can lead to a small weight gain post operation, not a problem for Ralphie as he’s a tad on the skinny side.

Apart from the cancer scares, he said there was no major reason why you should get your dog castrated. So confusion reigned, still. I’d always been under the impression that dogs should absoloutely be neutered for health and behavioural reasons, we’d just not got around to doing it for Ralphie yet, but certainly would. So now the vet was saying there was no real reason. And I recalled a conversation I had with a breeder some six months before we got Ralphie who said castration drastically changed a dog’s coat, it lost its shine. And Ralphie is so fluffy and shiny and soft and I’d hate for him to lose that.

So I’m still confused. In our heads, we still have plans to get Ralphie castrated, but I wonder whether we’ll ever really get around to it. And when is the best time?

Have your dogs had the snip? Did it change their behaviour or appearance? And would you recommend it?