Hoping that some of you wise Welshie owners can help me? I know that spaying a Welshie bitch can seriously affect their coat, does the same apply to neutering males??

Thanks all!

It doesn't always effect the coats of bitches either
and it certainly hasn't effected Ruf's or Ollie's coat and Rufus was neutered at 12 months of age and he's now 5 and Ollie was neutered just 12 months ago at the grand age of 11, it's a pot luck thing I think.
Clipping is more likely to affect the coat of a welshie, clipping is a huge no no.

This is the one neutered Welshie I know. He certainly is a lot shaggier than Rhian, the hair is longer and not as silkily sleek as Rhian's. There is also much more underwool.

Thanks both. Just wondered if it might be a female specific thing which would have made our decision a bit easier but never mind!

Oooh it's so tricky, male or female pup and neuter or don't neuter!!

About male or female I agree, might also depend on what sort of dogs live in your neighbourhood.

As to the castration issue, why not wait and see if it becomes neccessary for medical or serious behavioural issues? With our male dogs, neutering never was an issue as none of them was hypersexual. And if you don't live in an area where people let their intact dogs roam at will, having an intact bitch is not a problem either - after all, it's only a few days or weeks a year that are critical, and there are ways to keep even a springer busy on a (long) lead.

If the bitch happens to have problems with marked phantoms or the dog turns out to be hypersexual after the adolescent discovery season, there is still time to get the knife in!

It seems to be those that are neutered early in life that go wooly. I had to spay a bitch of mine at 7 due to pymetra and her coat was fine. A friend has a 2 year old that was spayed after her 1sr season and she has a very fluffy coat. Apart from Rhian, all of my dogs (and bitches) are / have been entire - in fact I have four in season here atm.

Never had any real problems, apart from having to keep the girls away from Oliver, which isn't too hard when he lives 20 mins away:). When they are not in season, he understands that they are family and so behaves himself. However at shows there are a few bitches that he takes a shine to and so we have to keep an eye on him. But apart from that he is no problem at all.

For the girls, we have life as normal during most of the season. Yes, I am much more careful when I walk them. If we go to the Forest, we go to places where I can see for miles. If we see a dog, they go straight on leads and I shout to the other owner to find out if they are dogs or bitches. During the worst few days, we tend to take them into town to walk them. They get loads of mental exercise from seeing different things and at least there there are no loose dogs.

Basically, if you are organised, there is usually no problem what so ever having an entire Welshie.

I got Fipps spayed 10 months ago when she was good two years old, after two seasons. I worried about coat changes, but so far she looks absolutely fine. There is a little undercoat pushing through at the legs, but I can deal with that easily. When you go to shows you see lots of different Welshies there, some are so hairy and wooly, wavy coat and so on, really makes me wonder how they made it to Crufts for example. But I'm a bit naive there and totally inexperienced. And I agree with Selina, clipping is the worst you can do. But if Fipps' coat should explode I probably would clip her. But once you start clipping you have to carry on on a reg bases.

This is a neutered few year old male Welshie (and he gets clipped too because he looks like that after a while, or maybe he looks like that because he got clipped . Though his owner said that six months after neutering his coat exploded and she started clipping him)


But Fippy looks like that (photo is three weeks old)...so far so good



Have you seen this thread ? This thread is a half year ago and Fipps hasn't got any fluffier since at her legs and her coat at the back hasn't changed either since.

I know several people who clip the older welshies that they own to keep them comfortable but these are ex show dogs so needed a un fluffy long feathered coat for showing, now that they are older and don't 'need' the coat the owners are happier to see them comfy in they're old age.