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Desexing (castrating, ovariectomizing/neutering) and a dog's sex are topics of relevance to many dog owners. We studied the relationship between desexing and three behaviors that are presumed sexually dimorphic, that is, differ in occurrence between the sexes. Urine marking, mounting, and roaming were used as models for studying the effects of desexing on (unwanted) behavior in dogs. We assessed the relationships between the occurrences of the three behaviors and the four factors of the dogs’ sex, sexual status, desexing age, and age in general. A convenience sample of dog owner reports was collected with an online survey and 982 records were analyzed with Chi-square tests. Counts were expressed in cross- tables of the behavior being present or absent and one of the aforementioned four factors. Urine marking occurred most frequently in intact male dogs (78%, N = 188), with significant differences compared with intact females (41%, N = 48; P < 0.001) and desexed males (66%, N = 202; P = 0.002). There was a trend for mounting occurring more frequently in intact males (25%, N = 60) compared with intact females (17%, N = 19; P = 0.085), and a significant difference between intact and desexed males (25%, N = 60 vs. 18%, N = 54; P = 0.043). Roaming occurred similarly in males and females, and in intact and desexed male dogs. For none of the three behaviors, there were differences between intact and desexed female dogs. In intact male dogs, age-related differences were found for the occurrence of mounting (39%, N = 29 of the dogs8 years) and roaming (46%, N = 34 of the dogs8 years). Such differences were not found for females or for urine marking in males. Mounting and roaming occurring less often in older male dogs suggest that these behaviors may decrease with age, naturally or through other factors. Our cross-sectional study shares with many earlier studies that its setup does not establish causal effects of desexing and we recommend large-scale prospective studies as a next step in providing scientific evidence for how behavior is affected by desexing. More knowledge of the influence of sex hormones on behavior in dogs is needed to support decisions on desexing individual dogs for reasons of unwanted behavior, which will benefit both the dogs and their owners.

In-home pet food testing has the benefit of yielding data which is directly applicable to the pet population. Validated and standardised in-home test protocols need to be available, and here we investigated key protocol requirements for an in-home canine food digestibility protocol. Participants were recruited via an online survey. After meeting specific inclusion criteria, sixty dogs of various breeds and ages received, during 14 consecutive days, a relatively low and high digestible complete dry extruded food containing titanium (Ti) dioxide. Both foods were given for 7 d in a cross-over design. Owners collected faeces daily allowing daily faecal Ti concentrations and digestibility of nitrogen (N), dry matter (DM), crude ash, organic matter (OM), crude fat (Cfat), starch and gross energy (GE) to be determined. Faecal Ti and digestibility values for all nutrients were not different (P > 0·05) from the second day onwards after first consumption for both foods. One day of faecal collection yielded reliable digestibility values with additional collection days not reducing the confidence interval around the mean. Depending on the accepted margin of error, the food and the nutrient of interest, the minimal required sample size was between 9 and 43 dogs. Variation in digestibility values could in part be explained by a dog’s neuter status (N, crude ash) and age (crude ash, Cfat) but not sex and body size. Future studies should focus on further identifying and controlling sources of variation to improve the in-home digestibility protocol and reduce the number of dogs required.