It is not guaranteed that neutering your dog will help with aggression, but it can. Neutering does eliminate issues linked directly to hormones, but anxiety or food guarding behaviors are not guaranteed to disappear due to neutering.
The only behaviors that change when you neuter your pup are the ones associated with male hormones. Your dog’s personality, training, and temperament directly result from their upbringing and genetics, not their hormones.
This means that neutering your dog will not calm him down if he is a naturally excited pup, but behaviors driven by his hormones will gradually reduce over time.
Does Neutering a Dog Help With Aggression?
Neutering your dog will not help with his aggression if he is aggressive due to his environment or genetics. However, neutering will help reduce any behavior issues due to hormones.
If your dog is naturally pretty calm and suddenly displays aggressive behaviors, like growling, snapping, barking, snarling, or biting, it might be due to another factor.
Aggressive behavior is not typically associated with hormones in a dog, but hormones like oxytocin and vasopressin can influence aggression. If your dog has an injury, is fearful, or is in discomfort, you might notice sudden aggressive behavior.
While neutering is not guaranteed to change aggression in your pup, it can lower hormone levels that might influence hormonal aggression. There are a few reasons your dog might be aggressive other than hormonal reasons.
Fear
Your dog might act aggressively due to being fearful. When dogs are afraid, they aggressively prepare themselves to run away or fight. He might even fear certain people, loud noises, or smells. He could also pick up on your fear and act out because he senses you are afraid.
Trauma
Your pup may have experienced trauma as a puppy, which can cause aggression later in life. This could be especially true if your dog were a shelter dog at some point.
Your pup probably did not learn how to control its feelings due to the trauma and act out aggressively as an adult dog. If your dog experiences past trauma, he can be trained to reduce aggression.
Territorial
Many dogs are territorial of their owner, family, and home. If your dog is overly territorial, he might display aggressive behaviors like barking, snarling, growling, standing stiff, stiff ears, and lunging. You can train your dog to be less territorial and learn to share their space, which can help with their behavior.
Some dogs are also territorial about their food due to past experiences with other dogs and a potential lack of food. Keeping food in the same place and feeding your dog at the same time each day is a way to resolve this issue.
Final Thoughts
Does neutering a dog help with aggression? No, it is not guaranteed to help with your pup’s aggression. Your dog can naturally be aggressive because of its environment or genetics. However, neutering your dog can lessen certain hormones that contribute to hormonal aggression.
