Copyright (c) 2000 by Michael Finley

In Beauregard's eyes, the bad thing I had done wasn't ordering the neutering. It was leaving him overnight with strangers, who did all these things to him, including the clown collar. He wasn't mad at me. He was delirious to see me. I hadn't left him in these people's hands forever.

Hell wasn't being chopped, creamed and diced by men in white coats. Hell was me being away.

The surgery and aftercare for his bites wound up costing about $150. The neutering itself was very cheap, under $100. The price is kept low to encourage the practice and keep the dog population down. The attitude about the procedure itself is blase. The vet summed it up for me thus: "He won't know about it, it won't hurt, and he won't care."

In plain sight of the staff, I unhooked the collar and gave it back. When Beau made to lick his wound, I told him No. He looked up at me with a trusting expression and turned away from the wound. In the week he would wear the bandage, and during the two weeks afterward that it healed without the bandage, I didn't see him lick it once. This was an unprecedented feat of cooperativeness.

The vet was right. Though his recovery from the bites was gradual, his castration seemed a matter of indifference to him. Where he once sported two hairy black walnuts, now all he had below his penis was a soft wrinkled seam. He continued to give himself the usual licks in this area, but I never got any sense from him that he was curious about what became of his testicles.

Since his neutering, Beau has followed one loopy phase after another. The first phase was recovery, in which he laid low while he got himself back together. He was very calm and very patient through this period, which was very reassuring to me.

In the next phase, he was feeling absurdly fine. He would tear around inside the house, scratching our wood floors with his toenails. Outside, everything was a game. He would bound out the door and run across the street to meet passersby, just as he had as a new puppy. He was willing to fetch sticks -- not the usual one and a half fetches, but for a half hour or longer -- eternity for a poodle. When he saw another dog, instead of growling, his face broke into a giant dog smile, and his tail stood at unmistakable full-mast wag.

It was a second puppyhood, and we found this by turns encouraging (the operation must have been a success) and perplexing (what were we going to do with this giant child?).

Within a month that second puppyhood stage tailed off and Beau began to seem more like his usual aloof self. Fearing another attack, we recused him from the company of all dogs but those he already knew. But of course he would pass strangers on the sidewalk, and occasionally his old self would assert itself and he would growl nastily at these dogs, baring his teeth.

Beau has been a modestly better-behaved dog since his neutering. But neutering did not neuter his disposition. Eight weeks later, healed and on the prowl again, he was nearly the same dog as he was before. He never again started a fight, but he never backed down from one, either.

There are definite changes. He seems to appreciate me more. He waits docilely while I clasp the leash on him. He knows I am on his side, and I will protect him if I can.

So the operation was a qualified success. The immediate removal of new testosterone from his system, plus the disorientation of surgery, resulted in his ultra-frisky period. But it did not eliminate the testosterone still in his system. Brigitte had predicted that it would take until three months after the neutering to discover what he would be like. What he was like was a dog only 25% as dominant as he had been -- still capable of asserting himself, and definitely inclined to defend himself, but having other options as well.

As a result he became a playmate again to dogs like Britt, the older female Doberman he had alienated with his earlier hostilities. Once again they were able to paw the air in Britt's back yard. Beau even did the unthinkable: he abased himself in her presence, rolling onto his back in a display of mock submissiveness. And he developed a new addition to his mock-fighting skills -- the butt slap. When Britt would encounter him from the side, Beau would shimmy his hind end against her and thwack her like a croquet ball. It was very supple and very funny to watch.

It was as if he had added submissiveness to his repertoire, as an occasional option. But he remained his essential dominant self, and I must still exercise caution when we meet other dogs.