When did you "fix" your large breed pup?

I'd never wait longer than 6 months. I say this because most people are ill-equipped to manage sexually mature dogs, especially large breed unneutered male dogs. The risks and downsides to living with an unaltered dog outweigh any possible increase in incidence of joint conditions IMO.   

I got my dog when he was 3 and at that point had him neutered.

We fixed our at 11 1/2 ish months our vet was extremely against waiting but the person we bought him from wanted them to be full grown first as it affects thier growth plates.

In hind sight I’d never have agreed to wait. The vet was right what are a few inches in growth compared to the behavior we could have been stuck with. Once they start ‘boy’ behavior ( marking and stuff ) it won’t dissapear after they are fixed. I now realize we were extremely lucky as mine never started marking things or humping things. And a friends dog was fixed later and he still has all that annoying behavior. I would trust your vet.

Mine only got territorial and marked this one little square at my old house that the neighbors 3 boy dogs also peed on. Between the 4 of them ( my 1 & her 3 ) they made the area dead with all thier peeing. THAT 4x4 square between our houses by the street with *the* fire hydrant was apparently the *IT* square of territory to be claimed. My dog couldn’t walk past there without peeing where ever the neighbor dogs peed. I can not imagine if he had gotten totally territorial and marked everywhere!

We waited until 12 months old for our golden retrievers.

He’s so pretty!

I’ve only had lab females and we spayed at 6 months.

There are some theories about large breeds and hips. We opted for a smaller dog and less risk of hip problems and stopped feeding puppy chow at 6 months. Their growth will slow, but that’s supposed to help with hips. Our current dog was bred, so we know there isn’t hip problems in her family, but we were still cautious. Labs grow until 18-20 months.

Honestly? I’d choose a well behaved dog with hip problems for the average owner over no hip issues. And it’s just a chance of hip problems-not a guarantee.

As early as the Vet said it was OK to.  My first dog at 6 months, the 2nd one at 4 months.

I totally agree with this for highly experienced pet owners and obviously for performance/show owners. But for less experienced pet owners, I'm very leery about altering later, and not just oops litters. Behavioral issues, etc. that could fairly easily result in choices to re-home dogs, ending up with out of control dogs, etc.

We fixed our German Shepherd at 9 months. Ideally we would have waited the 18 months, but he was getting big, and rougher. At the time we had 2 small cats and 2 small dogs also. It wasn’t fair to those pets, so we clipped him. We also were needing the ability to kennel him a few months later and needed him clipped and healed then.

He just turned 2 last week, and is doing great. ❤️

This is the first dog I’ve ever trained My knowledge is self taught, I was really embarrassed recently when an obedience person asked who I train with   

I love to help educate newbies because we were all newbies once. Well most of us I really regret neutering our first Samoyed early and we never repeated that mistake again.

Our girl is a mixture of giant breeds so we’re holding off until st least a year, but with a lab I would personally go ahead and have him neutered at his age

My breeder says 1 year. Vet says 6 mos. I did my research. I'd choose one year. (My vet wasn't adamantly opposed either).

Do what you think is right.

I'm wondering why?  Not trying to argue, but just to educate myself!

last large pitmix boy was 9 weeks; our border collie/lab was 4 months; my other border collie mix girl was spayed at 9 weeks also.

Shelter and rescues won't let you adopt unless they're fixed.
This is the 2nd time in as many days as I'm hearing to wait ... of course the problem is then unexpected litters as dogs tend to get together and do their thang.

My vet ran a low cost spay/neuter clinic and also tried to get most of the feral cats in our county fixed - birthrates were slowed big time and then it took one season and the population soared.

Girlie is a Lab-mix. We had her spayed whenever the vet recommended. Had zero clue that one should wait with larger breeds.

We weren’t looking for any specific breed, other than not purebred. Fell in love with her wrinkly puppy face. And, she was a free puppy. The most expensive free puppy in the history of puppies. LOL!