Less Than Six Weeks after Neutering
The neutering procedure removes the organs that are responsible for producing the male dog’s hormones. Once those organs are removed, no new hormones will be produced inside your dog’s body.
Crucially, the hormones that were already in your dog’s body prior to neutering will stay there for a while. You can expect those hormones to linger for about a month. Some may hang around for as long as six weeks.
During that time, you should still keep your neutered dog away from female dogs in heat if you want to keep your pet from getting fixated or over-excited.
How do male dogs react to females in heat?
If an intact male dog catches the scent of a nearby female in heat, she will become his entire focus. Male dogs may stop eating, increase their marking, become increasingly aggressive and obsess over tracking down the female dog in heat throughout the duration of her cycle.
More Than Six Weeks after Neutering
What happens if you bring your fixed dog around females in heat after enough time has passed? In all likelihood, your dog will not offer much of a reaction.
Your pet may sniff the female dog to check if he knows her, but that’s about it. After that, your dog will remain calm and composed. It’s a nice change of pace if you previously had plenty of trouble trying to rein your dog in.
The saying old habits die hard can apply to neutered dogs too. Because your dog got so used to being excited whenever he was around a female in heat, he may continue to act that way long after getting neutered.
He isn’t according to his hormones at that point. Instead, he’s just continuing to display behavior that has become ingrained in him.
That kind of thing tends to happen more in dogs that were only neutered when they were older.