I have a male chocolate lab that is almost two years old. Any pros or con in neutering him now or should I just leave it?

I buy pups off of proven dogs and good pedigree, neutering ends a good bloodline. If you have no desire to breed/stud your dog and don't mind a fat dog neuter away.

Ive always left my dogs as they were

Not all neutered labs get fat. That depends on you. You will have less risk of testicular and prostate cancer.

In my experience it will not affect his performance in the field.

Just my two cents.

Pete

Have you considered a vasectomy for him? Friends don't neuter friends.

Vasectomy only removes the possibility to breed, neutering is primary about behavior and long term health. Behavior is a personal preference, but there are a lot of terminal illnesses that come up with intact dogs.

if you neuter, you can't breed him.

at 2 years, shouldnt be an issue and may settle him down a bit - my dog was snipped about 18 to 24 months, no ill effects, he'll be 7 in June

All males should be neutered.

LOL

I would never have a dog neutered or spayed.

Then there would be no more females

(And I thought this was going to be a political thread)!

man,what'd he ever do to you.

If hes not for breeding I would. I never had a choice when i bought my lab it was part of the contract.

Every contract I've seen that stated you couldn't breed the dog required proof of neutering, your contract doesn't?

I would not have bought the dog.I looked around until I could find a lab puppy that came with full breeding rights.

He's not you. And I don't think he asked your opinion. Not to be rude, but you keep telling everyone your opinion with no reasons to back them up.

Only the married ones. Make it part of the licensing agreement.

I'm with Cathryn . . . all males (assuming she just meant dogs) should be neutered. My views are probably going to sound really harsh but I've raised, bred, trained, hunted and competed with Labs at the highest levels.

Labs are the most over bred dogs out there and in my view, there is an extremely tiny percentage of dogs that should breed. Dogs that (1) come from championship pedigrees, and (2) have proven that they have passed on those talents to the next generation. The rest of the Labs in this world, in my humble opinion, are just the products of puppy mills. If you don't expect much from your dog and you're happy with a couch potato, and you want to fill the world with similar couch potatoes, then I guess you should breed him. If you really want to enhance the breed and contribute to its success, then neuter the dog yesterday. If you just want to "breed the dog," you can easily find 100 dogs readily available that will hunt circles around whatever dog you've got and would be better candidates for breeding to produce a better hunting dog. Breeding is FAR MUCH MORE than just pairing a willing male with an in-heat female.

Setting aside the "breed or not to breed" argument, what you will usually find from a neutered dog is that it cuts his leg lifting down about 75%. He's much more likely to actually pay attention to you and he will usually be more obedient and more interested in hunting, rather than chasing every female he thinks he's found.

Don't like my posts then don't read them.I have just as much right to my opinion as everybody else.To me there is no reason to turn a $1,000 dog into a$1 dog and all the dogs I have seen around here that were neutered got fat and lazy.On top of that why pay the money to have a registered dog if there are no breeding rights.To me that kind of defeats the purpose of having a registered dog.