Probably not. You're going to remove one drive, which if you have an intact male dog and there's a female in heat down the street, your dog may want to go pay a visit. But for most dogs, if they want to get out and run and play, they're probably bored and you need to take them on a walk. Get some energy out. It's not going to help with that.

There are effects of hormones on personality. The main ones we're going to lose are testosterone on a male dog. Generally, testosterone is what leads to aggressive behavior. So dogs tend to be more compliant and easier to handle. If they have learned behaviors, then that doesn't change. It doesn't take away their drive to play and have fun. There are a few dogs where we would not recommend castration on a male dog. These would be active, working police dogs, or any high-performance dog. The lack of testosterone could remove that drive. But for the average pet that lives in a house, they're going to be easier to manage. They're going to mark fewer things and be less likely to run off. In female dogs, we really don't see any changes in the behavior. Some people believe they need to have one litter to get a nice personality, but we've never seen that. There are many nice dogs that have never had puppies.