Should I go against the recommendation of the vet and not castrate my elderly dog?

I(28F) have a beautiful jack russell, Billy (8M), which I have had since birth. He was the only pup that my parents late dog, Cienta had. As my mom only wants female dogs, Billy was not what she have in mind, but I fell instantly in love. My parents have never sterilized any of their dogs.

In my country there is a non-inforced law that all cats and dogs have to be castrated or sterilized at 12 weeks old unless you have a permit to breed them.

I decided not to castrate him for a few reasons, but the main reason is that Billy has a ball out and a ball in his stomache. Which as a side effect has made him very muscular over the years, though he has become more of a potato lately, a very lovely potato.. I also think that it is ridiculous to castrate a dog because of a bit of dominant behaviour(he barely has any).

Now as I still lived with my parents, I had the support of my dad since he really wanted a pup from Billy. But as the years went on, my mom got into hunting dogs, got some pedigree labradors and does contests with them. So they don't want any more jack Russell. And when the labradors are in heat we need to separate Billy from the labradors for about two weeks. Which he is really good about with the exception that he doesn't want to be alone.

Now my mom (SAHM/disabled)has always wanted me to do it, but gave up after some time. I recently went to the vet with him since he is apparently now officially an elderly pupper. This is the third vet that I have visited as my normal vet is highly pregnant. She told me that Billy is in great health but that I should consider castrating him since the balls thing apparently gives him a higher risk of testicular cancer.

Now this is the first time that I have heard of it. None of the other vets have told me about this. So I told my mom about the visit and she tried to convince me again. She called me TA for putting his health at risk and she said that sterilizations are way harder, so he ll be fine.

Now I think she only tries to convince me because she looks after him when I go on vacation and if the labradors are in heat she is still stuck with the same problem. I am also not convinced about the cancer thing, I mean if it were the case, wouldn't the other vets have told me about this? And besides the cancer thing there isn't really a reason to do it imo. Besides any operation on an elderly dog is way harder, let alone an operation that isn't done that often as the ball thingy is very uncommon.

I believe that I might be TA because I might be to stubborn and might put my dogs' health at risk. What should I do?

submitted by /u/TheWellIntended
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/n3l651/should_i_go_against_the_recommendation_of_the_vet/