> I've never had a need to flip any of my dogs. I never even heard of it until now. I guess there are some in this group that strongly believe on it. I guess it makes them feel in control?
> Pete
One of the things man has accomplished in thousands of years of selective breeding of the sons and daughters of wolves is selecting out different behavioral traits in different breeds.
In Pointers, the hunt-chase-kill-eat pattern has been interrupted way back even before the chase, so they *find* prey, and point it out to the handler, but stop there.
In Retrievers, the same original "hunt repertoire" extends further, but still stops before kill and eat.
In Herders, the chase and hunt only goes as far as nipping the heels of the herd animal.
In herd-protective breeds (Komondor, for example) the puppies are separated from mom and raised BY the sheep (try that with wolves!) so that they become integrated in the herd and live with them, and are hostile to, and protective from, any "prey animal", including its own siblings, or other dogs.
But in some breeds, the full range of hunt-chase-kill-eat behaviors are intact, notably the sight-hounds (which is what I've been breeding, raising, living with, and observing for 35+ years. With Borzoi, and other large dogs whose bite and attack have not been inhibited by centuries of selection, the job of training them to NOT bite people has to be trained, starting very early.
I have scars to prove it.
We do racing sports with them, where they are trained to be fanatics to chase, and catch, and tear into tiny little shreds, white plastic garbage bags (lure coursing). The best ones at this are sometimes quite hard to separate from the lure at the end. Pick up the 60-pound animal and drag it 20 feet from where it was, and the lure is still in its mouth. Stick your fingers in the gap behind the canines, and say a loud OUCH and they drop the lure and look at you apologetically.
My wife and I (she is a zoologist/paleontologist, and does canine behavioral consulting and training) have seen many dogs who have been shown by their owners that they (the dog) are in charge. While it may seem cute in a little hairball the size of your 2 hands together, even that leads to problems. We have a boarding kennel which is designed to allow us to take care of dangerous dogs, so we see a lot. Most are training failures, and mostly these are the owner's fault.
If you choose to live with a dog that has the physical capability of killing you, you have to "safe" it first.
> I guess it makes them feel in control?
Damn straight!
If *I* am not in control, then the *dog* is in control, and I have to do what IT wants.
| Reply via web post | Reply to sender | Reply to group | Start a New Topic | Messages in this topic (4) |
