Male + female: who to neuter, who to spay

Question

I have an unfixed male dog 4 years old, and we recently acquired a female puppy. We don't want them to have puppies.

My question is if I need to fix both of them, or if I can get away with fixing one or the other, and if so, which is better. I understand that the procedure is simpler for the male. I'm more looking for information about how the animals will deal socially. E.g., will the unfixed male drive a fixed female insane (or possibly even hurt her)?

I don't want to start a discussion about why the male is un-neutered. My answer boils down to not feeling great about removing his family jewels. Let's just leave it at that.

Answer 1

Fix them both. It will mean less stress for both of them:

The male: Even if the female dog is spayed, often un-neutered dogs are "strictly chickly". Sometimes they try to mate with spayed female dogs, are aggressive against other males or are highly territorially. That does not have to be so, some un-neutered males are very calm, but it can be.

The female: Being in heat is kind of stress to a dog. Not too bad, but there are other reasons why it is good to spay your female dog. E.g. your female dog can't get breast tumor any more and you don't have to deal with other problems which appear during the time of heat.

I personally always would fix my dog, regardless of the gender. I don't want to have problems, because other dog owner do not fix their dogs, too. It always can happen that my dog or another dog sneaks out and I don't want to produce unwanted puppies.