Quote Originally Posted by rabernet View Post
You basically said what was my concern about the growth plates. We have a Golden Retriever puppy - and another thing that we are doing with him is slow growth, for healthier joint growth, keeping him lean (most people allow their dogs to be overweight, even just slightly overweight can cause issues). We plan to keep Noah lean with a visible tuck in his waist. And slow growth as a puppy will NOT affect their adult weight - that is genetically determined.

Also - once you decide on a breed, look for some breed specific forums for breed specific health issues for you to be aware of. Sixty percent of goldens die of lymphoma or hemangio sarcoma for example. There is currently a study being done by the Morris Animal Foundation of 3000 goldens nationwide, that they are followiing from 6 months old until they die. Noah was born a few months too late to be part of the study, or he would have been enrolled in the study.

The Morris Animal Foundation has said that adding veggies to the dogs' diets may actually help reduce the incidence or significantly delay the onset of these cancers, as well as delayed neuter/spay, or keeping the animal intact. I've always been a spay/neuter advocate, but the more I learned about the health BENEFITS of delayed neuter, the more my thinking on that has changed. It also allows healthier joint growth - golden retrievers neutered by 6 months are taller than breed standard and double their chances of devoloping hip and/or elboy dysplasia than those that are delayed until 18 months to 2 years old. Also, the shorter goldens (delayed neuter) are living on average 2 years loinger than their early neutered counterparts. My vet gave me a high 5 when I told him that we were choosing delayed neuter, and may not neuter at all when Noah gets to 2 years old. He said it was so refreshing to have a client that didn't drink the spay/neuter kool-aid, and was concerned for the long term health implications for their animal instead.

In any case, I now advocate that if you feel you will spend the time training your dog, and managing him, that delayed spay and neuter are absolutely essential in large breed dogs for healthy joint development and not accelerating bone growth when hormones are removed, and in some cases, for delaying the onset of pre-dispositioned cancers. You can google "delayed neuter" to read more about UC Davis' findings on delayed neuter.

I know I'm rambling, but this has become so important to me in how we're chosing to raise OUR golden retriever boy. And in a sense too, I'm angry that the spay/neuter mantra may be compromising our pets' health. It's rare to spay/neuter in Europe, and they also don't have the stray problem that we have here in the States, because the owners there MANAGE their pets better than we do.
Woah woah woah. Im not sure where in Europe you went to, but from what I have seen and read, Europe is drowning in feral/stray cats and dogs. Paris is one big maze for cats chasing rodents. Also, owning dogs and cats as domestic pets is far less frequent in Europe than it is in the US. The level of medical education for vets, quality, access and care in the US vastly outweighs that of any European country.