Celeste nurturing Maximus. He’s a dog because of his nature. He’s a Border Collie because of his nature. He herds things, chases things, is highly attentive to humans and stock because of his nature. What makes him behave like a BC is not different from what makes him look like one.
One of the most pernicious mantras in the dog world is “It’s all in how you train them!”
Let’s pretend for a moment that this statement is true. What other closely held dog beliefs and behaviors would we have to question? Pretty much all of dogdom, frankly.
If “it’s all in how you train them” is true, then…
… pedigree dog breeding is false. Parents can not pass down behaviors with all the other traits they pass to their offspring. Looking at a pedigree can’t tell you anything because only training will make your dog act like a dog, your pointer act like a pointer, puppies act like their parents.
… selective dog breeding is false. What distinguishes dog breeds is just aesthetics and the mass delusion that it matters what breeding choices we make. Despite breed standards that mostly focus on aesthetics and without any established and published guides on how to train a blank slate into a terrier or lurcher or shepherd–not merely shape their instincts and extant behaviors–we’ve all been doing things horribly wrong. We keep track of ancestry when that doesn’t matter. We issue papers on breed when that doesn’t matter. We get DNA tests done but those can’t matter.
… there is no genetic component to dog behavior. Herding dogs have no propensity to herd, guard dogs have no instinct to guard, coursing dogs have no desire to hunt, terriers only dig because they are instructed to, pointers only point through training. We have to rebuild everything that makes a dog, a dog, every single generation with every single dog.
… you have to give up on the entire concept of dogs. If nurture and not nature dominates behavior (and our hypothesis here leaves zero room for nature) then a “dog” should be no different from a “wolf” or a “coyote” or a “jackal” or a “cat” or a “bear” or a “pig.” Or a snake or an ant or tree or a virus. The entire concept of domestication is a fraud.
… you have to give up genetics. Train your dog to be a snake. Not just ACT like a snake, to BE a snake. That is not only possible, it’s demanded by the statement “It’s all in how they’re trained.” Why should we limit the scope of this statement to mere behavior and not everything else that makes a dog a dog? Train your dog to be purple. Train your dog to fly. Train your dog to breathe fire.
… you have to give up evolution. Science has built up an immense body of evidence explaining morphology and behavior through the lens of competitive fitness. Life looks the way it does and behaves the way it does because those structures and actions are highly heritable and in the right combinations lend competitive advantage to survival and procreation. Our entire understanding of life and its history falls apart if we have to predicate the supremacy of training.
It’s generous to phrase this “it’s all in how they’re trained.” Many people who broadcast spread this nonsense as profound knowledge phrase it: “It’s all in how they’re raised.” This is a subtle difference that highlights both the fact that most dogs don’t get much _training_ at all, and the pervasive fur-baby quasi-parental sentiment that exists in dogdom. It’s precious, paternalistic, and emotionally toxic. It pushes objectivity even further from the debate in the same way people put their parenting and their children on a pedestal and can’t abide criticism because it’s personal.
As much as there are holy wars in training circles, exemplified currently by the posi-nazis goose stepping to the mantra of “purely positive” (which is a gross misunderstanding of the operant conditioning matrix of positive/negative x reinforcement/punishment), the politics are even worse in the mommy-wars, where there are no accountable authorities just ayatollahs with persecution complexes and a desire for converts or at least a modicum of fame.
But being an actual mother is difficult. It requires almost incalculable time, money, and sacrifice. At a minimum you need to socially bond with another human, have sex, be pregnant for the better part of a year while your body is destroyed in numerous unpleasant ways, and the anti-climactic squeezing of that melon out just to realize that you’re not going to sleep well ever again and what your child just did to your body they are going to do to your life for at least two decades. And everyone is going to be all up in your business on how you raise your spawn, not the least of which is the state.
So when you get preachy about woo nonsense like vaccines causing autism, at least you have to pay a hefty entrance fee for that self-righteous denial. And you just might find someone else who will call you on that bullshit. A school, a camp, a daycare that will tell you no, stupid is genetic, but measles is infectious so take your stupid child with your stupid self out of here.
No such luck with dogs.
You can head down to the shelter right now with a credit card and buy yourself a karma magnet pit bull mix that you can instantly call a “rescue” and get a free “who saved who?” bumper sticker to advertise your pitiful mental state such that paying for a used dog redeemed your self-worth, and proudly do nothing much more than feed it and post about how wonderful you are on Facebook with stories of “was probably a bait dog!” and “must have been abused by men because she’s so reactive and unruly with strangers” and the like.
When your Beverly Hills Chihuahua RESCUE shits on your carpet, you might proclaim that those careless Paris Hilton types who bought and dumped it before you _rescued_ it must not have TRAINED it right. But of course after a half-assed attempt at house breaking yourself met with only failure you will declare poor Señor Sharkñado too damaged in his previous life of hell to accept your brilliant and dedicated training.
You won’t come to the actual right conclusion that Sharky can’t hold his bladder and bowels because his brain is too large for his cute little skull and that it’s not nurture that failed him, but nature.
And when your second chance Terrier decides it wants to dig up your yard and kill anything that dare invade its domain that resembles a rodent, it will be a folly to conclude that his previous owners must have spent countless hours teaching him to dig and exterminate vermin but failed to teach him much more than his name and sit, otherwise. It’s not magic or an incredibly diabolical training scheme, it’s nature. Little Horkheimer wasn’t raised to be a terrier, he was born that way.
Which is just something you’re going to have to deal with when you are sipping your racially conscious soy latte listening to Lady Gaga tell you that the highly complex behavioral complexes that are homosexuality and transsexuality and transgenderism and the like are NATURE but your pit bull mix going pit bull mix and attacking another dog is still NURTURE in your mind. Because reasons.
Really stupid and factually unsupportable reasons.
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Anton
Christopher
Lawrence Dillard
Lech
Stephanie
Essere
Been a long time since I read one of your posts and was very happy with the latest I see here. This happens to be the mantra I probably hate the most! I’ve had it up to my ears with “It’s all how you raise them.”
My dog is innately very sensitive. He has a strong sense of personal space, his own former farmer/owner called him a “wuss.” She felt he would adapt to the urban life. He did, at least in the sense that I’ve seen dogs come from rural to urban areas and do far, far worse. He’s been resilient, has many friends, and there’s some things he’s never had an issue with that other generally braver dogs have; he never feared the elevator, or the big staircase, or traffic, or helicopters, and some other things. He DOES have a fear of children despite my being told he loves all kids, all ages ( turns out it was just the kids next door from his old home he liked – one family, that he knew forever). He likes quite, bookwormy type kids but cannot handle bouncing, screaming mimis! I can’t blame him in a way but the fragile constitution he has around them discounts him as a “kids’ dog.”
He also isn’t the best meter-greeter of new dogs. He started out okay, ran up to the wrong pit bull (owner said he was shocked and his animal never went after a dog before and I was new so also did not stop to ask if it was okay they meet – so this was very likely to happen on the day and time no matter what), and since then, he has been snappish at all new dogs until they learn to leave them alone. After that, we can walk together in peace.
He’s not out for blood though and he lets up in short time, so it could be worse. I manage meetings now and hope to work out some sort of desensitization training to ease things a bit.
But I don’t expect to ever just “cure” it in a BS Cesar Millan fashion. 😛
And yet, that’s exactly what some people think should be possible.
Because training is everything, don’t’cha know.
I was walking with two people at our park that I’ve known a long time. One of them saw me put Tucker in a sit, then a down. Easy breezy. “You can teach him that?! Why can’t you teach him to stop snapping at other dogs?”
I said “This is easy. Retraining an entire mindset, that’s more complicated.”
This left my questioner entirely confused. His idea was that I should reprimand my dog for snapping.
There are times for punishments, positive or negative. But yelling at a dog for something based at least partially in distrust or fear, probably isn’t the best way to go. The truth is, there have been moments when I HAVE done that. It does nothing. At a distance, it MIGHT stop one or two things from happening, but it does nothing to stop the attitude. Because adding a negative when an animal is already feeling pretty, well, negative, all equals more negativity about the situation. Plus, my dog would have to fear me more than the new, strange dog, no? And is that such a good idea when you are trying to maintain a good relationship with a wussy? Probably not.
Time after time I’ve encountered people who ask if my dog was abused. No, he was never abused. My dog, a kelpie, stares at me when he knows I have a ball? “Oh, look at how he LOVES you!” “You must be a great trainer!” I say no, it’s genetics. “Oh no! You need to give yourself more credit!”
Uh, no, I really don’t NEED to do ANYTHING.
I do wish my boy were a little braver innately. I’ve learned from him. I’ll try to make sure my next dog is a little less sensitive, even though I love the herding dogs so that can be a challenge at times. We’ll see. But I do appreciate two things. One, that he’s still rather resilient in some ways. He hasn’t had a meltdown, is no bloody savage with other animals ( would rather avoid them, and just snaps if they get too close, but no blood or gore comes from it), and by and large is a happy, playful guy who loves to see his friends and schmooze.
The other, is that, he’s taught me of the variability of dogs, and the realities of dogs. Had I ended up with a total loves-everybody-person-cat-dog-hamster type that also forgave all other creatures, I might have been one of those smug people that considers all dogs not just like mine, to be abused animals, complete mental cases or not fit to walk this planet. I might have been scratching my head whenever someone requested my dog not just run up to meet their dog or child, thinking the problem was theirs and not mine. I might have been completely obnoxious.
I should note my criticizer, Mr. “If you taught him to sit, why …”, is a pit bull apologist. He has totally bought “It’s all how you raise/train them.” He donates monthly to the ASPCA ( they have tons of money folks, if anything give to your tiny local rescue/shelter), and lord forbid anyone mention the possibility of pit bulls having any genetic tendencies for dog aggression and he gets livid, shutting out all such words labeling them ignorant.
People in his world are only in two camps. If you think it’s how you raise them, you are open minded and loving. If you mention genetics, you think all pit bulls are monsters ready to tear everyone limb from limb.
So I must fall into the latter, even though there are pit bulls and mixes in my walking groups of Tucker-accepted dogs; including this guy’s OWN dog.
Animals and people are being done a disservice with all this denial. Sometimes a dangerous one. I’m not a pit bull hater. I think most of them are fine, with PEOPLE, but I do think a number of them are over the top, and that there are plenty that still can do real damage to other dogs. Aggression is so often equated with people aggression that the tendency seems to be to overlook DOG aggression. Who wants to have to worry about their animals ending up in the ER in this day and age over a dogfight? Really, it’s so avoidable if people take the time and own up to things.
Yeah I’m going to go one further and say I hate pit bulls in more or less the same way I hate bulldogs, corgis, chihuahuas etc. They’ve been mutated by artificial selection and in a bad way. For the corgis, chihuahuas and bulldogs its physical mutations that cause health defects. In the pit it’s a mental / behavioral mutation to be aggressive and impulsive – two behaviors that are bad enough alone and are a disaster when together.
It doesn’t make a difference whether they are dog aggressive or people aggressive. Pit bulls are so “out of it” when they attack they don’t hesitate to redirect onto anyone coming to break up the fight (whereas most non-fighting breeds will stop fighting when their owners come and get a hand on their collar) – so many human maulings and deaths have occurred because someone’s pet got attacked and they tried to save it (and of course you would try to help if it was your pet being mauled).
Why are we still allowing a breed bred for killing and mauling to be owned by Joe public? If it is kept around at all it should be specially licensed in the way that wild animals are specially licensed.
Personally I would prefer they go extinct.
This is an interesting and heartfelt post – I think I understand what you are saying, I feel quite strongly about it too but powerless about changing the status quo.
There is a complete lack of scientific understanding of behaviour amongst the general dog owning public IMHO. The biggest concern for me is the lack of understanding between predatory behaviour and aggressive behaviour. Neurologically they are quite different. Their outward behaviour is quite different too if you understand canine communication signals.
You can do a lot of good work with aggression in dogs, providing you know how to treat it effectively (DS and CC) and there are loads of training tools developed that are based on these principles that can be very successful, IF you are willing to put the work in and commit to micro managing your dog.
However, you can’t train the prey drive out of a dog, that has been genetically selected over many generations, for its hard wired motor pattern sequence to stalk, chase, grab, bite, kill consume etc. Various stages of this motor pattern sequence have been arrested depending on the breed of the dog. Important to point out that not all BCs want to herd. Not all Pit bulls want to grab onto dogs for grim death. Not all JRTs want to kill cats – Stereotyping is useful in dog breeds (it’s why we created breeds in the first place) but there will be exceptions according to the lottery of genetics, so important to treat every dog as an individual. But for the high drive dogs that DO want to fulfil their prey instincts to get the ultimate reward – the dopamine hit – there isn’t really any other reinforcement or motivation that you could offer to replace that. The reward for BCs IS the sheep. For the high drive Pittie bred to fight, it’s to hang on to the dog…
There are some behaviourists who do offer prey drive sessions, but it’s a tricky and highly skilled area for an average owner to be successful in who isn’t really interested in understanding about the neurobiology of behaviour in dogs.
Working dogs have a job to do and we are now breeding dogs for a whole variety of different jobs, unlike the traditional hunting, retrieving and herding dogs – scent detection, therapy, assistance, wildlife detection etc. etc. These breeding programmes focus on health and temperament and the latter is so, so important for us to understand. It’s genetic. SO much is hard wired. There is only so much you can do when it comes to aspects of behaviour. When are we going to start breeding pet dogs that are fit for their purpose too? Their job is to be sociable and non reactive companions on the whole who are genetically hard wired to make choices that we think are more appropriate. They have to be bred with health and function as the priority. Their temperament suited to cope with our demands that we make of them in the 21st century that they really are not genetically prepared for. That includes selecting dogs who can cope with being left alone; dogs who don’t want to kill other dogs; chase any small, furry mammal and dogs who don’t have ‘aloof and loyal’ written in their pedigree breed standards. These are really euphemisms for ‘difficult to socialise’. Set them up for success.
Jean Donaldson has a nice anecdote about the behaviour profile of a dog bred in an assistance dog breeding programme. It was adopted as a pup into a pet home and when assessed at about 18 months, hadn’t been socialised outside of her home environment in the countryside. The conclusion was that she was only ‘mildly reactive’ to novel stimuli….To me that illustrated just how important genetics is.
We need more education on dogs at a grass root level; including understanding the limits of a dogs brain. Dogs do not have the hardware to make a choice based on rationality. They are irrational, amoral beings. Simply adopting, loving and training a dog who is hard wired for behaviour that we think is ‘inappropriate’ will not change anything. It’s a huge welfare issue.
” Simply adopting, loving and training a dog who is hard wired for behaviour that we think is ‘inappropriate’ will not change anything. It’s a huge welfare issue.”
Yes I agree. I also feel there is so much complete hogwash said on breeder sites about breeds that people truly don’t know the reality.
For example “the breed needs training” when its a JRT or a large highly reactive guardian breed if its not to become a menace to society and itself.
Its true some breeds dont “train” easily and need to be “managed” not to be a menace to society and themselves. But you can’t train a dog not to be a JRT or a Tosa, or even train a dog to be trainable. You can’t recommend the breeds inherent traits sometimes consolidated over hundreds of years to be somehow trained out to make it a successful pet. Even if you could what’s the point, these are its characteristics and the starting point on deciding if you can accept them.
I knew a person who had always adored Borzois, she got one eventually and it not only killed one of her mares new born foals it dragged it all over the lawn while she was entertaining clients in the garden. She was completely and understandably distraught. The foal was a life time of careful planning. It was a very nice dog and also a very handsome dog, completely red big and strong. I took it over when she decided that was the last straw and wanted to have it destroyed even though she adored it.
There is also definitely a danger in thinking and extolling such that all pedigree showing dogs have lost their prey drive. My own borzoi would regularly take down hares on our long rides through the savannah grasslands. They weren’t from working strains. But they lived in kennels and where managed.
It is the case I believe that you can intentionally, most often unintentionally breed drive out of them but there is always the chance it can or will switch on again. Many working pedigree showing dog breeds have lost more than just prey drive or simply drive which renders them less than suitable for working purposes true but as far Im concerned many haven’t lost much at all no matter how dysfunctional or “pretty” and soft they may have now become or look. They remain hardwired, a lot of the hounds and terriers just for example and often even more so when they haven’t been tempered with outcrosses as is often the case in field working dogs to fine tune their ability or retractibility. They become inbred and mad often seen as neurotic or aggressive or shy. A showing grey hound might not run as fast as a pure working line but it certainly can run and letting one loose in park you run the real risk of having someone’s Maltese mistaken for a rabbit.
I think its the same with the pitbull and crosses, why shouldn’t it be. They have even more hard wired drive and dog aggression than most breeds, just there are perhaps more of them especially crosses as pets than other breeds in situations, conditions which are maybe more conducive to them eventually ending up biting someone. It doesn’t mean if you take one home with you and and introduce it to middle class mores and take it to obedience training its going to necessarily behave any differently.
I really like both Borderwars’ post and UrbanCollieChick’s comments but I would like to add some comments about modiflying predatory behaviors since my breed experience is with hunting hounds and I have had a lot of experience with them since the 1970’s. The are comments about initial training to focus hunting behaviors where you want them pointed in puppies through adolescents – a time when you can somewhat modify behaviors in dogs (but not eliminate innate behaviors or create behaviors that are not in the genetic make up of dogs). Sighthounds pretty much have all the behavior set of a wolf except that they are domesticated. They interact with people the way domesticated dogs do, not the way a coyote or wolf will (this is an entirly different article so I will leave this part with the “they are domesticated” statement.
They hunt, they dig, many will bark an alarm, the hunting behaviors are the same as herding but of course they do not have the block that keeps them from the final taking of the prey.
Actually you can do a lot with prey drive, at least in sighthounds but much of it has to do with focusing it in young dogs on something that is acceptable as prey and avoiding allowing the puppy and adolescent dog having the experience of actually killing something that squeals and bleeds. I have been breeding Borzoi for lure coursing since 1982 or so and I have top lure coursing dogs that are safe around cats and small dogs. We do a number of things to focus the developing prey taking behaviors on white flexible stuff, paper towels, strips of fake fleece bedding and white plastic bags. When they are 8 weeks old we will throw a whole roll of paper towels in with the pups to shred and run around with. Then we take a horse whip and put the strips of fake fleece on it and lead the pups in chasing and grabbing games. Then we finally at 8 months or so hook up plastic bags to the lure machine and let the pups chase the plastic bags around at a full gallop.
Researchers who have raised wolves without letting them learn to kill prey and attempting to return them to the wild at 2 years of age have found that often the wolves have no interest in hunting, my conclusion is that the instinct for blood lust (the kill of live game) is there but it has to be actuated by a certain age or the window may pass. I had a competitor at lure coursing who used to also do live game hunting and he would show up at lure field trials with raw skins and get the field committee to put them on the lure line instead of the plastic bags. My best coursing bitch at that time would spit the skin out in apparent disgust when she grabbed it at the end of the run.
I had one of my lure coursing Borzoi who was with me in my fenced veggie garden and a rabbit hopped up, she grabbed it quickly and brought it back the way she would bring the lure back and dropped it unharmed at my feet. she was really amazed when it leaped up and ran off. Lure’s do not do that.
We had one of our dogs with us out in our 8 acre fenced pasture when a young deer jumped in. The Borzoi caught the deer by the nose but had no idea what to do with it afterwards. I got her to let it go and it escaped without kicking the dog or me.
Once a dog has learned to hunt and kill, however they are very dedicated to the idea of squeak and bleed “toys”. I do believe that they do need to have experience to put all the genetic behaviors together into a complete package.
However if the adolescent dogs are allowed to hunt and kill then they become very keen on it and it is not easy to make them give up the behaviors.
In training I have found that I have had some success at supressing “innate tendency behaviors” IF there is a series of behaviors that ramp up to the full set and if you can do behavioral substitution early in the series. Redirecting the hunting sequence to the artificial lures being an example.
However some behaviors such as the explosive sudden aggressive behavior seen in some dangerous dogs and in people who “loose their tempers” (called episodic discontrol” in old psychology books) are very difficult to manage because when the episode occurs the individual is already in a reactive, hysterical mode and someone or something who is in the midst of a episode of hysteria does not learn anything at that time so correction or offering a food treat does nothing. all you can do is restrain and wait for the episode to pass, and then like a seizure the individual may have little memory of it – so how do you modify it?
Good points all. Hunting, herding, many behaviors do need fine tuning and guidance. Genetics is not 100% of the deal. I think the point of the article is to counter the notion that it’s ALL of the deal.
I think genetics is really more of the deal than not though. A dog may have base instincts that need guidance but it’s easier to work with what’s there than to force it to come into existence.
Your work with sighthounds sounds commendable. You clearly put a lot of work into them. I wonder how much of their ability to resist cats is training and how much is the level of prey drive they have to work with to start with?
I’ve met dogs with such prey drive that no amount of training would make them safe around cats.
Conversely, if a dog really doesn’t have it in him to chase anything, be it cat or plastic bag, you can train all you want but at most, the chase will be poor without the internal motivator present.
There are many, and I mean no offense when I say this, who would say the trainability of your Borzoi is due to the lack of prey drive. For some people in this world with very serious dogs, and whose livelihoods still depend at least partially on hunting, a dog that easy to call off of a cat, and who dropped a rabbit live, would be considered useless. I’m thinking of people who would never even remotely consider focusing a dog on anything NOT prey ( paper towels, etc), and thus have no selectivity for this level of restraint to work with. If you are breeding Borzois as companions, I’m betting your selectivity has a lot to do with this, as well as training.
How much would this change if you selected your Borzoi for die hard prey drive and sighthound hunting skills as a priority? What if you took them hunting for jackrabbits if you could, and bred them for generation after generation based on the most successful hunters, and then, decades later after many successes, used the same guidance and training on those pups to guide them onto plastic bags and away from cats? Would you have the same results?
Genetics isn’t just about an instinct to do something, it’s about levels of that instinct.
As to wolves, I can believe the window with respect to learning. Wolves have a considerable cognitive learning curve, and their success in learning chiefly depends on a group dynamic. But I’d like to know more about what made the people conclude they had no desire to kill. How long did they wait? Did the wolves allow themselves to starve to death before at least attempting to chase something? Would anyone recommend giving these wolves to a family? Would the researchers give them to a farmer and tell them not to worry about the chickens?
Chick I agree what level of instinct? https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animals-and-us/201312/why-do-small-dogs-have-so-many-psychological-problems.
I agree Dalzell breed sites are full of what I call fractured fairytales. If you were ignornant one would believe for example a collie based on Lassie imagine and breed club information would never chase a cat or kill a rabbit. or a chicken. Correct? Regardless of the hype …some collie bloodlines most certainly went back to sighthound crosses for one example of genetic behavior holding on in some bloodline. Phenotype first is obvious with top line and filled in muzzle that certainly appears to reveal some crosses with the Borzoi, while other bloodlines reveal Collie/Greyhound. Certainly, how one of my Collies years ago was clocked at 40 miles an hour. A Collie puppy returned that would not stop chasing the cat 24/7.
Like the Wolf for example there can be a pecking order –Alpha female and male. However, I have found with domestication ..a good Alpha female far more important to peace and tranquility in one’s family of Collies
Certainly Chick the biggest concern of breeding a huge pitbull future is not health but the dog of choice draws the most irresponsible ignornant breeders and owners.
“my conclusion is that the instinct for blood lust (the kill of live game) is there but it has to be actuated by a certain age or the window may pass”
“Actually you can do a lot with prey drive, at least in sighthounds but much of it has to do with focusing it in young dogs on something that is acceptable as prey and avoiding allowing the puppy and adolescent dog having the experience of actually killing something that squeals and bleeds.”
That was a very interesting post on how to train a Borzoi from puppy to adult into lure coursing.
Ya unlike perhaps sight hounds preventing the average good pitbul from getting aggressive with another dog from tiny puppy to adult is almost an impossible task. They seem to grow into it anyway. Its called the switch, the moment the dog reaches a certain age when the dog aggression suddenly switches on. I expect this is some primitive guarantee it wont be killed in a fight as a wee little pup. Females growing up with males or the other way around do seem to get on for the longest time, but if there is ever a tiff the chances of the pitbull going into overdrive are still very high.
In my experience Borzoi also do a very good job of learning to chase and kill all on their own. Ours did, notably even dogs we got as adults. They also of course learn from each other. We never had lure coursing but ours were used to kill jackals and feral dogs when farmers got a bit antsy just before lambing season.
I can’t be so sure then that if they have never learnt this on their own or by management practises preventing them doing so that they are still safe to let loose in a park for example (unlikely for any Borzoi owner but still) with small dogs running around. They could do some serious damage with those jaws even if they don’t bite to kill, a few hard shakes of a small fluffy doggie and it would be tickets.
IMO if those Borzoi you have/had who get on so well with cats were in a chase and the cat was doing the escaping I think the cat might be tickets too. However in a well managed setting this is different, you would have to simply prevent any chase or the possibility of it happening in that area for it to be a success but this doesn’t mean the minute a chase is up the cats life wouldn’t necessarily be in peril.
I must disagree that prey drive cannot be controlled and redirected in appropriate dog breeds. I think it can be very difficult to impossible to deal with in many Terriers because of the mixture of drives that have been bred into them.
Actually you can do a lot with training and innate prey drive in other breeds of dogs. You see this with people who breed/own Hounds, which are one of the few groups of dogs that are selectively bred to acquire prey. The other group is Terriers. The difference is that hounds are not selected in general for enhanced protective behaviors and traditionally hounds are kept as pack dogs so they have been selected to retain a lot of the interactive social behaviors seen in wolves which includes honoring the “ownership” tof the prey by the individual who has captured the prey.
I raise Borzoi, a large prey taking hound from Russia and I have had them since the mid 1960’s and I have a good number of them. I also have some of the best field trial Borzoi in the last 30 years. We do not select against the chase and grab behavior. Fot people who want to have our dogs with other smaller dogs in the house hold, with cats, with children – we have a protocol that works well as long as the people follow it. I am not going into it in detail her because it is a small booklet on training a hound but I will discuss the basic principles.
The important thing is that hounds can be trained to focus their prey taking behavior on a subset of potential prey items during adolescence. Work that people have done trying to return wolves to the wild has shown that wolves also learn what animals are prey in adolescence.
Since sighthound field trials involve artificial lures (plastic garbage bags for example) we start the pups off at 6 to 8 weeks of age letting them shred and play with rolls of white paper towels. Then we move to a piece of fleece on the end of a whip. During the puppy and teen age years it is important NOT to allow them to chase and kill any actual animal. Dogs that are allowed to successfully hunt and learn how to kill will often ignore the artificial lure.
With a pack of hunting hounds there seems to be an instinct to honor the dog that actually gets the prey (or lure) and not start a fight over possession of it once someone has captured it. This is very different from the behavior of many terriers who will get into a fight once someone has captured something.
Most terriers are used singly in hunting, not as part of a pack so there may have been little selection to retain the wolf social order respect for they prey taker.
I have even seen the following happen in my dog yard. We have 10 Borzoi present and we are turning over dog houses to get the rats out from under them. The dogs love catching the rats but will not eat them. My group of dogs has a strong leader and of course they all know each other.
One of the teen age females catches a rat. Her brother decides to take it from her. The leader male comes in and disciplines the brother, getting him to drop the rat but makes no attempt to take it, leaving it for the bitch who first caught it to retrieve it.
The Borzois treat the rat as limited time squeaky toys, they kill them and toss them around and run around with them but they do not eat them. When I come up to take the rat from them they release it to me.
Now what does predatory behavior look like in a hound? It involves being very quiet and staring at the potential prey. It involves stalking. It involves chasing and catching. It does NOT involve barking and roaring. Because there are initial phases of focusing on the prey and stalking it is not difficult to train a dog NOT to go after inappropriate prey. The lifted ears and fixed stair is a definite clue and you can interrupt the dog at that time and redirect the behavior.
As the dog matures and its prey taking is reinforced on acceptable items (toys, artificial lure, etc) it looses the tendency to think of anything that moves as potential prey. My theory is that dogs are the most in the grip of their instinctive behaviors during youth and adolescence and that for success modification needs to be applied during that time rather than letting the dog fully experience those drives then.
My problem with Pits (and our boarding kennel handles a number of them) is that there is often no gradual work up to getting into a fight other than noticing one dog “eye balling” another. An aggressive one can go from calm to full fledge terratorial aggressive fighting in the blink of an eye and often this behavior does not manifest until maturity. So there are no ramp up to the unexpected fighting that you can interfere with at the beginning of the sequence.
Of course you do not go to a dog park with your Borzoi and leave it loose when someone turns their Pomeranian loose to run around. But you can have a Borzoi that can treat the Pom as a dog to sit next to in the obedience ring during the long sit.
I haven’t had the fortune of hugging a Borzoi and watching it react with that lovely embarrassed yet subtle delight for the longest time. But I love reading everything hound and terrier.
I was interested to read your last post today Bonnie, somehow I seemed to have missed it. Anyway recently last three years or so I’ve been sharing my life with a dog (amongst others of course) of more or less unknown origins. He’s very large, a giant breed type, looks alarmingly like a very dark maned grey wolf on steroids, except his ears have been removed he came like that. Extremely athletic yet big boned lightish frame, tallish all just under about 130pounds or so, huge upswept fluffy tail and can run like lightning, covering ground in an instant. Light bouncy trot. Mastiff very finely tuned with a wolf like hound or wolf hound, maybe even a dash of wolf at some point or other in the distant past, who rightly knows. No one seems to know for sure except that the breed type and these in particular have come from a very valued working dog line. He doesn’t behave much like a wolf at all but does come alive mostly only at night. I hear his black shadow running past my bedroom window in my dreams.
Only thing I know for sure is he came from the Caucasus, somewhere along the Russian border. He and his six litter mates were a gift from a Russian oligarch to a dog fancying Cantonese shipping tycoon who is also by a respectable distance one of my only two immediate neighbours. With much enthusiasm he presented me with two of them a male and female. He considered it a million in once chance of acquiring such splendid dogs apparently. I can never understand a word he says but his driver sometimes can and does quite a lot of creative translating between us. I declined the kind offer at the time. Eventually however I did take on the male at around seven months old when I lost a dog suddenly. I have never done anything with him other than cherish his existance. For fun one afternoon I was bored and did teach him to lay down and roll onto his back on command which he does happily wagging his tail if he’s in play mode. He also sits and does rather heavy high fives all on his own if he wants attention.
It’s been a fascinating experience living with this dog. To my mind he is lacking what would normally be considered high prey drive, except for two things, primates and strange dogs. Pallas’s red bellied squirrel is also on the menu, but these Im convinced he simply thinks are midget primates as he’s never seen one up close as they spend their time sensibly and safely playing in the tree canopy much like the monkeys mostly do. Monkeys however with their big brains make calculated raids on various fruit trees even coming down from the tall tree tops to do so, mostly only at night much to his absolute and utter furry. Yet a tree frog, butterfly or most wild birds even can happily and safely flitter and hop even land on his nose and he wont even twitch, even a cobra is greeted with a cock of the head and a how do you do, if it gets feisty he just moves further away with a frown. So he hasn’t got the prey drive of a pitbull or JRT. He in fact treats the JRT’s like children in his keep as they scurry around his ankles and hang off his thick coat, male or female no problem. So doesn’t have that default pitbull dog aggression either, only reserving his rage for strange dogs which he sees as a dire threat to everyone’s safety. I think this breed type might have been used to look after sheep, definitely a guardian breed in character. Nothing really looks absolutely like him on the internet in my opinion. He bonded instantly to me with my shock of curly blonde hair, nothing is off limits, the easiest dog on the planet. Strange people he will also keenly and loudly keep away, these he smells, hears or sees from a great distance but always relaxes if I calmly interact with them and is then happy for them to enter. Most don’t, for so I’ve learnt he has for some unknown god awful reason got a completely undeserved reputation of biting peoples heads clean off! Think this has indeed got something to do with the internet though its not clear to me how.
I also keep lovebirds. They have I think the biggest brains to body size of most birds and many if not most mammals and stay generaly out of trouble. They come and go from avery to the tree tops. At night I lock them up from intruders like the stealthy leopard cat. The dog doesn’t like them leaving the avery much and will try and prevent them doing so by blocking their flight path. Recently though they have begun to tease him and fly very low right past him, or all leave in a bunch, mobbing him loudly as they speed past his ears. He never snaps just tries to block them. They are happy to land on my head and will often follow me around the garden chatting loudly. If anyone else comes they shriek and head for the hills. The dog thinks they need protecting or so I thought. They really do though because raptors think nothing of swooping suddenly down out of the blue and taking one. I haven’t yet found anything to prevent this exept that it appears marginaly seasonal. The huge sudden black shadow takes everyone by surprise. The birds seem to breed in numbers so its not really a problem.
Well not so long ago a particularly brave young love-bird decided it would zip right across his sleeping nose and without even getting up he snatched it right out the air. Much to my surprise of course. He then simply ate it, bone crunching and all. Three or four munches is all it took and the lovebird was no more! He looked at the avery thoughtfully for a few seconds maybe hoping for another fool hardy bird to try its luck but then closed his eyes again and resumed his nap.
He’s never tasted love-bird before or even killed anything as far as I know. He thinks the JRTs are daft to be chasing mice all day. He’s not even greedy, just eats his food politely and is not even very fussed if someone else decides to take a nibble. So strange, hauntingly lovely and utterly inscrutable. I trust him 100%.
I really do not understand the social disease that has set upon us, the anthropomorphic passion with which people believe that dogs have the same rights in this world that humans do. Trust me, Im an animal lover, especially collies. I have one. But if he ever savaged another animal or human, he would be gone from this earth. Dogs dont pay taxes, vote, own homes (territory), go to college, obey the law, go to church… you get my drift. So why do they get legal representation from the Lexus Project when facing a murder charge? Why do folks run to rescue a dog while leaving a child or the elderly in their rear view mirror? This is not just the US, its Romania, the UK, France….Honestly, I just dont get it and wish I could ask a really really clever social scientist to explain this to me. I guess I will get the answers when I die.
> people believe that dogs have the same rights in this world that humans do
Consider this in the light of the knowledge we all have that no animal can ever testify for itself in court, no animal can KNOW and UNDERSTAND that it has something as abstract as a “right” and thus these people who believe in some sort of animal = human vis-a-vis rights realize full well that this case will always then require for humans to play the role of care-taker and intermediary. It fits right into the Munchausen-by-proxy / White Knight Syndrome. Drum up sympathy, get some money or attention, claim the moral outrage/care for your own ego. The animals can become just a pawn in this game.
Unlike all the other civil rights movements, the “victims” here can’t ever be left to their own devices to act as independent agents within our legal system or society. Dogs will never knowingly own property or bring cause on their own behalf to our courts. So really when we start demanding “rights” for animals, what happens in effect is rights for people to use against other people.
The bully people are so misunderstood! Some think that they care more about bully dogs than they do about humans. Wrong! They care about neither.
They do not care about dog welfare, human welfare, not even pit/bully dog welfare.
When they do get all huffy over a particular dog such as Mickey , that’s not because they are compassionate, it’s because like the bully dogs, they love a fight, even when no good comes from that fight.
Look at the bully dog crisis:. preventable suffering and death both caused by pits and also suffered by pets is completely acceptable to bully people. Proof is their refusal to offer or accept any ways to reduce this disproportionate disaster.
Look to the bully people, no matter their words, their behavior tells us that they care about self, and ego and their ability to breed own and monger the dog of their choice. They say, “I care about me, I’m fine, don’t change a thing!”
Why does the pit propaganda machine shout “racism” and speak nonsensically of “condemning a breed for the actions of a few” when that’s not the issue at all? At issue here is our ability to recognize that specific breeds were created with specific purposes. We deny reality at our peril – a quick look at the statistics for serious and fatal injuries from dog attacks over the past 30 years makes it clear that breed, more than anything else, is the most relevant factor, not the owner and not the upbringing.
Bottom line: It’s absurd to pretend that breed specific characteristics which were deliberately created by humans don’t exist. And to call those who recognize these breed specific characteristics “racist” reveals a profound ignorance on the part of the accuser.
A final thought: When someone speaks of the unfairness of “killing off a breed” what they are actually talking about is eliminating a specific set of characteristics which have proven to be a problem. The fact that sadistic humans created a “breed” to torture animals is no mandate to continue the existence of said breed. Nobody has suggested killing off the domestic dog – only those man-made expressions of temperament and behaviors which have proven to be harmful and cruel.
Great post! Thank you.
Thank you Christopher. I always love your blogs about pit bull genetics. They are such a refreshing blast of reality in the pit nutter world of Pollyanna disinformation.
Have you seen the most recent attack from Colorado? (Maybe it inspired it.) It perfectly illustrates this blog post. The idiot proclaims that his vicious mauler “never had a chance” after he put 50 staples in an 11 yr old girl’s head. That’s right. Stephen Luersen claims that Bandit was a victim of his early abusive upbringing. Luersen “rescued” Bandit from what he describes as fighting bloodlines at the age of THREE MONTHS and STILL could not undo the nurture. Luersen then goes on to accept his hero award for his sacrifice.
“He is my best friend,” Luersen said. “As much as I say I rescued him, he rescued me, man.”
I hate these people.
http://www.greeleytribune.com/news/15606859-113/evans-girl-requires-50-staples-4-stitches-after-pit-bull
I will link to this blog post when I post a guest writer’s piece on canine discrimination. Thank you again for your willingness to stick your neck out on this issue. I know that you are not in the minority of those who hold this opinion but sadly, you are in the minority of those willing to openly express it.
craven desires recently posted..Famous Pit Bull: Popsicle
Be prepared for more of it.
This isn’t about the dogs, or liking dogs, or owning/working dogs — it’s about people stroking their egos and being “the cool kids”.
And knowing human nature, they won’t care if there is a mountain of skulls to be had, they’re going to do it if it makes them “cool”.
And some of the heads that they will collect are naturally the grown ups in the room who remind them that “cool” is really kind of childish.
We live in a society of 40 year old toddlers who have no problem with screaming “of with his/her head!”.
Also worth noting is the flip side of thie rescue coin. The people who buy adorable little 8-week-olds Pits and Rotties and so forth so they can “bond with them from the start and raise them right.” Then when the dog matures and is suddenly really really dog aggressive, or won’t let strangers walk past the yard, these owners have an absolute meltdown. I’ve counseled many an owner who believed they had personally, irreversibly fucked their dog up doing something horrible and abusive because after all, EVERYONE says that’s the ONLY way this could possibly happen!
It kind of surprises me how many people fall into that, rather than thinking “gosh, maybe it’s NOT all how they’re raised…” But I suppose this just goes to show how ingrained this belief is.
…Of course the other path taken by owners in this scenario tends to be complete and utter denial. Because they did so raise him right and besides, he doesn’t do that at home!
I have to laugh at the people who say it’s the training. Most dogs in the USA receive NO formal training . . . just the habituation they acquire by hit and miss from the environment they’re raised in.
As for “it’s how they are raised”. That is the catch phrase of pit bull owners in denial. I don’t think most dog owners believe it.
There is solid research evidence for differences in behavior by breed. My fav. is Svartberg, K. (2006). Applied Animal Behavior Science 96:293-313. Svartberg looked at results of a systematic behavioral assessment of some 13 thousand pedigree dogs covering most of the dogs registered in the Swedish kennel club. He found strong differences by breed, and significant differences between show and working lines in some breeds. He didn’t find that the “groups” hold together. Eg, Labs, goldies and springers are very different when it comes to playfullness and sociability. The Malinois and Tervuenen , likewise, are behaviorally distinct.
Yah equally ranking are the breeders who try to convince us “its all how you bring them up” when the dog is dragging both hind legs across the floor ruptured cruciates, no hip sockets, stage IV cancer, eye entropion and a prolapsed vagina. Age – 6.
They will respond sweetly while blinking rapidly “did you feed them mince when they were a puppy ?” Well just the once. “High protein is your problem”.. raised eyebrow, “did you let her run unattended outside her crate for longer than five minutes a month? “……..”you have to realise its a large slow maturing breed blah blah and blah”.
The catchphrase “It’s all how you raise them”, is now the mantra of the Flat Earthers of the New “Humane” Movement, whose main goal is soliciting donations and reinventing their brand. What’s best for dogs and society is no longer even on the radar of most humane organizations. Most of the sane, dog-savvy, knowledgeable, emotionally healthy people have been driven out of the dog rescue and sheltering world. Those who remain are quite often well-meaning idiots, but many are just fringy types with psychological/emotional problems. Add to this the hoarders, grifters and “celebrity” dog rescuers (which are all of the above), and you have the face of modern dog rescue.
The obvious contradiction between the humane groups shouting “Don’t shop, adopt”, then telling people that a dangerous dog can only become that way because of how he was treated by a previous owner, actually DISCOURAGES people from going to a shelter to adopt a pet. The pit bull lobby, in their zeal to justify and protect the low-lifes who are over-breeding pit bulls and flooding our communities with unstable, unwanted dogs, have dealt a terrible blow to shelter adoption by convincing the public that it’s risky to get an adult dog from a shelter because “you don’t know it’s background”.
The reality is, as shelters are flooded with dogs that lack the qualities that make successful pets, they have simply redefined what is “normal” dog behavior. I recall walking into a shelter 30 years ago, and it was a heart wrenching experience….I remember cramped cages, and paws reaching through the bars, dogs offering all sorts of social gestures and desperately trying to get attention from any human who walked by. My trip to a large No-Kill shelter last year was totally different…bright, clean, beautiful, with spacious kennels, soft beds and toys. I got hard stares from the dogs, no interest in interacting, no social gestures or low wagging tails, no soft eyes, just disinterest and, in some cases, an obvious dislike of people. This included about 24 different dogs, including some pit mixes.
Until more dog trainers, rescue groups, and shelters are willing to admit that you cannot fundamentally change a dog’s genetic temperament with love or training, this madness will continue. I had the good fortune to attend a seminar on dog aggression with the wonderful Sue Sternberg last year, who explained that temperament is knowable, if you know what to look for. She also admitted that she no longer walks her own dogs in her neighborhood because of the dangers posed to them by aggressive off leash dogs.
Chris you point is well taken but we have a very popular dog trainer on TV supporting this canine racism. http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-cesar-milan-pit-bull-lawsuit-20150204-story.html
Micro managing a tiny French Poodle that growls, and snap biting for a couple with no children
Racism where?
“Dog Trainer” I’d take that with a bit of salt. The man mostly just bullies the dogs into doing what he wants until they shut down and just gives up.
All that alpha crap that have already been debunked half a dozen places.
True dogs needs a leader, but not a tyrant.
We get this cognitive dissonance a great deal from a progressivism that insists (probably rightly) that homosexuality is genetic and thus immutable in individuals (it is, but I have my suspicions that there is a fair amount of variability there) but cannot comprehend and even denies the notion that a broad spectrum of male behavior is genetic also. The reflexive vituperation evolutionary biology gets among feminists is really astonishing.
Rob McMillin recently posted..Winning The Victimhood Lottery
“homosexuality is genetic and thus immutable in individuals (it is, but I have my suspicions that there is a fair amount of variability there)”
I don’t think so. There is bisexuality, but most men who love men are pretty straight in their preferences as far as I know, as are most men who love woman. If you mean variation as something rather more practical such as active or passive or variation in the sex act or preferences other than gender within the parameters of men loving men as a whole, then yes I agree.
What I mean by that is it is pretty well established, at least among gay males, that usually around the time that boys start noticing girls, they notice other boys instead. This is innate and fixed, generally. But I think for women, sexuality is a lot more fluid. This is what animates the gender studies rants about gender being a choice or a cultural construct. It seems likely that there are tiny populations for whom sexual identity is a choice, and most of them are women.
Rob McMillin recently posted..Winning The Victimhood Lottery
Rob McMillin recently posted..Winning The Victimhood Lottery
You obviously never went to an all male boarding school?
Rob behavoral genetics remains controversial it seems. However, can we actually as rational human beings understand placing or receiving a canine graduate of Cesar Millian’s “Dog Psychology Center” ? This all makes about as much common sense that an article I read of Margo Kaplan, “Pedophilia is a Disorder not a Crime”.
This is like Jack the Ripper’s Mother saying, “Oh Jack is just a little cut up”.
I got the decided impression that all Cesar Millan is doing is taking the dog around the corner beating it up and presenting it as cured.
This realisation by apparently only a small 20/20 sighted minority (almost exclusively the entire population of the British isles with the aid of specs or not) was so vexing that some decided to simply declare him dead once and for all. I briefly sighed relief on hearing this news, heart attack or something only to have my hopes dashed by none other than his “loving dog” Junior himself.
“Junior, Cesar’s loving dog confirmed on Facebook (sick) that his master is still alive.” “Reports of my Pack Leader’s untimely demise are greatly exaggerated. I can happily report he is safe, happy and healthy. I can also tell you he kept me up all night snoring, my breakfast was a little late but I did get a great morning walk. As Cesar keeps telling me: Exercise, Discipline and Affection are the key to a long, balanced, and healthy life!”
Thanks Junior for ruining my breakfast, p.s. you spelt “Discipline” wrong it’s spelt “B r u t a l i t y”. I forgive you it must be hard knowing which is which.
As one of the commentators said when the news was debunked by “Junior” on Facebook, “I was very upset when I read that. Such sickos out there that starts these horrible rumors”.
I couldn’t agree more.
Millan is more useful as a shibboleth over training practices than as an actual trainer. The man may well (and I think actually does) have remarkable felicity with dogs, but always, always he falls prisoner to his base instincts as a carnie. That got worse in the last years of his show, and also increasingly polluted his books.
Rob McMillin recently posted..Winning The Victimhood Lottery
I agree Rob that I took it upon myself to catch Millian on three different television shows to form an individual opinion of this dog trainer methods. As the video link provided states Millian claim to adapting from Lassie Trainer and Rin Tin Tin trainers? Oh Really ..The Weatherwax Training Method? Collies being my breed for over 50 years —I say not! Best of Knowledge and Experience alone in the Collie Breed the Weatherwax breeding program was based on not only the coat color pattern of a sable and white Collie but the genetic ability to perform in Lassie Legacy behavior. One can certainly note the difference of the Weatherwax Collie training, and the last Lassie Movie where another Trainer was utilized and reject of the Weatherwax Collie training program. Viewing the difference even with new modern filming technology the Weatherwax breeding and training program out shines this last attempt to continue the Lassie story.
What I meant to say is… Aaaaaaah that minimus Maximus is the cutest little thing on four feet. You can see and almost feel the blissful nurturing in Celeste’s eyes too, a lovely photo. Did she just have the one? He asks not knowing hundred percent if he should be worried or not?
They say “cute rots the brain”, or maybe they don’t and its just a certain person I sometimes hang out with who tries in vain to steer me away from doomed alliances. However when it’s cute and intelligent I call it irresistible and this is one such time.
There is a programme we get on TV called “Too Cute”, no doubt part of a cheap job lot it’s so bad. We are in season six or something so you can imagine how poor our TV station is. Anyway it’s in English and subtitled so for me at least something of a sad treat amongst all the Canto costume dramas.
The usual just of the programme is the intense anthropomorphising of animals, puppies and kittens and their parents. Most often they are pedigree breeds with the odd shelter litter thrown in for good measure. You can imagine my surprise when in the middle of the usual and repetitive insanity a few golden lines of potentially unimaginable sense were spoken.
They had three litters of kitties on the show last night one was a litter of strays at a local shelter and the other two litters were “Bengals” and “Norwegian forest cats”. We were assured the litter of strays where “American domestic long hairs” and as such were “magnificent”. Apparently also the most popular “breed” of cat in America today?
Also and this was the surprise bit we were told they suffer less genetic disorders than “pedigree” cats as they aren’t registered with any particular cat registry.
It was left like that. Although still slightly demented, something of a triumph at least, I would say.
This photo is about 8 years old now, but she had 6 in that litter. The other five are just further south filling up on milk.
Aaaaaah! A whole lot of cuteness.
Celeste is a grand old dam now I imagine.
American Domestic Short Hair is a catch all “breed name” for most mixed bred, unpedigreed often stray/feral bred cats. When they have long fur they’re called Domestic Long Hairs.
Because of their random genetics and the survival of the fittest among street cats, I suppose they are healthier than purebreds.
More people own random bred cats than purebreds I suppose so that would make them the most popular “breed”… But they are no more a breed of cat than a mongrel is a breed of dog.
I really love your post and all the comments. The cognitive dissonance around me is deafening. The same people who will literally scream that it is all in how you raise them will happily discuss the traits bred into any type of dog other than a pit bull. I can tell any of my local dog crowd that my Border Collie’s genetics lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of a herd of cattle grazing next to the agility facility and get an automatic “of course” but the claws come out over suggesting that a backyard bred shelter-bull has genes too. One friend who constantly throws out this mantra will not only discuss the traits of the GSD, but will tell you the inherited traits her dog has from his specific ancestral line!
In our current world, one dog type is presented as the ideal cuddle buddie while other dogs have “traits” to keep in mind. I have seen some of those PB rescue shows where they get an adopter interested then “train” that dog for a few days to get him ready for his new home. Laughable, makes me so grateful to have done the work to train our dog.
Mary like you grateful for Christopher’s insight in this post to bring to the forefront the alarming and dangerous practice of Pit Bull cross breeding into our herding breeds. Seemingly backyard Pit bull breeders believe this will improve dangerous nature of decades of breeding to a more bidable breeds as Herding Group. It is unconsciouable in my opinion how Dog Rescuers and Vets support the placement in homes as you say, ” I have seen some of those PB rescue shows where they get an adopter interested then “train” that dog for a few days to get him ready for his new home” However, I see nothing laughable about this current trend of a cash crop of canines.
Read more: http://www.border-wars.com/2015/03/its-all-in-how-you-train-them-not-really.html#ixzz3VQ0l2uib
I can see the concern with crossing pits with herding dogs or any other high performance dog. The result could still be some sort of over-the-top dog not meant for the average family. I certainly wouldn’t cross a known dog aggressive pit bull with a nervebag border collie if I were going to, say, create the border staffy of my dreams for flyball ( which is truly just an example….I hate flyball…noisest sport ever!).
Herding dogs can be the worst things to add. I love herding breeds overall but they do contain a number of over-edgy nutjobs.
OTOH if you have a proven, long-years, never hurt another dog pit bull and a stable border collie, you COULD make something really wonderful.
Mix or purebred, a litter is dependent on the thought put into it. If it’s a good cross, great. Genetic diversity!
Just be sure you have the right outlet. Take these little guys. I’d at least have to get to know the seller and the parents. Built as hopeful catch dogs? Could be. Or maybe not. Not intended strictly as pets though. Working dog ad.
I’m not against crossing in general. Just know what you’re crossing.
http://www.ranchworldads.com/classified.php?listing=43005
American Pit Bull Terriers were created as fighting dogs by crossbreeding bulldogs, mastiffs and terriers. They are descendants of English dogs used to bait bulls and bears for cruel pit fights.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2945927/Hulk-bulk-Possibly-world-s-biggest-pitbull-174lbs.html#ixzz3VSAdr7as
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Yes Kathy, I’m well aware.
And that “Hulk” dog is an abomination. When people talk about bad breeding from “Backyard breeders” who are looking for cash, these people are often what I think about. It’s really about the cash for them, and a little hubris because they’re clearly proud of these monstrosities they’ve created and are seeking like-minded folks who are only impressed with having the biggest baddest dogs on the block and are willing to pay for it.
The stud fees alone are ridiculous. I wonder how long it will be before these giants have size-related health problems too?
Hulk isn’t even a real pit bull, his faked papers not withstanding. He is inbred off a dog named Wanna be a Whopper who was an English Mastiff cross bred that was given ADBA papers in order for him to compete in the new ADBA weight pulling events and lure people from the IWPA.
The other dog is Chevy Red Dog who is supposed to be a son of Whopper, but looked remarkably like a douge de bourdeaux.
His bottom side is well known American Bully lines which in the extra large size category (whatever they call it) are known to be crossed with Cane Corsos, Presas, Filas and Neos.
Which of these directly contributed to his breeding I don’t know. But I know that Hulk is a mixed bred dog with fake papers based on his top sid alone. This isn’t even dogs far back in his pedigree which I would be willing to look away from, being a supporter of open stud books to a degree.. But right up close, his 4th generation is half Chevy Red Dog or right off of Chevy Red Dog on the top side.
There was a petition for Whopper’s registration to be revoked, In response the ADBA has opened their stud books to reregister Am Bullies and Am Staffs into their own stud books separate from the APBT.
As for size related health problems.. ALL of their dogs are grossly overweight. I expect Hulk when trimmed to a normal weight would be about a 130-150 lb dog. With their very poor conformation, I expect most of not all of their dogs will have degenerative arthritic conditions as they age to a greater degree than dogs kept at a correct weight for their size.
There is no real “pit bull” anymore thanks to the rescue organizations and other folks that I guess were never associated with APBTs back before they gained a new streak of popularity and sheer numbers as they have now.
A long time ago when I heard “pit bull” most people thought of that phrase as slang for purebred/purposely bred animals. One day I used the nickname as I always did and got a backlash of arguments from rescuers and animal lovers – the types who don’t really look at behavior honestly but are very soft hearted and loves da fuzzies – that “pit bull” is a nickname applied to any dog that remotely resembles a bull and terrier type, even if it’s a pit mix or any dog that phenotypically resembles an APBT but is genotypically of other breeds. I tried to correct them and say they were using the misnomer but wow, was I shouted down. Turns out they had turned the tide succeeded, along with the courts I guess, of turning “pit bull” into slang for mixes in the general public.
Believe me I know. I have seen undocked cane corsos being called “pit bulls” I have seen boxweillers being called “pit bulls”…
I saw a pure bred dutch shepherd labeled as a pit shepherd mix. I TOLD the owners their dog was there, just mislabeled and sure enough, he was there. (I lived a few blocks from the shelter and went to go look for the owners who lived across town to save them a trip).
This has been going one for at least 20 years that I know. This is why I used to make the distinction of registered and non registered, but then the blue staff phenomenon started with Watch Dog and Land of the Giants that evolved into the Am Bully.. with the known fake pedigreed dogs (the addition of english bull dog and cane corso as just two of the breeds that were mixed in), I have started asking if a dog is pet bred, show bred, or gamebred.
Show people as a whole will not deal with non show bred dogs, because the conformation goes off in one generation and takes too many to get back right. You have wide chest, out at the elbow, easty westy, down in the withers, high set tails, extreme cow hocks, not to mention too much lip, too short a muzzle.. No one serious about winning is going to put that in their lines, it’s too hard to breed out. If you look at Hulk, his dam had the low front end of the english bulldog among other things.
So show people are a source of “pure” dogs and gamedog people.. If you don’t mind the inbreeding, the poor conformation caused by inbreeding, and the extreme dog aggression present in many bloodlines, are another source of “pure” dogs with papers.
But weight pulling is suspect, and if they do nothing with their dogs, or they breed pet bull with papers, they are really suspect.
I have also started being very specific and saying APBT instead of pit bull when I am referring to a “real” pit bull.. It’s a new affect of mine, and one not set in stone.
I guess when a pitbull can be any thing that somewhat resembles an APBT or Am Staff, it’s really easy to get those bite stats really high.
And of course only “pit bulls” are the ones this happens to.
Interesting I never new this was happening, the introduction of pitbull into herding dogs to up their performance for flyball.
The pit has a lot to offer with its almost primitive functionality, health, endurance, drive, addictiveness, almost manic single mindedness to everything fun plus of course musculature. I think a straight cross first generation would be more of a problem, maybe something like three quarters BC or more….. might be better?
That video you posted reminded me of the incredible cuteness of being with a pitbull puppy. Truly they are one of the most adorable playful wonderful puppies on the planet. Almost indistinguishable from a JRT puppy, fine smooth soft short hair, little dark shiny questioning intense beady eyes, loving, outrageously active, athletic, just insanely adorable. Particularly lovely in repose. Its like someone has switched them off when they fall asleep, taken the batteries out, they just fall over making you sigh in relief and want to drop off yourself.
Without a doubt pitbulls are gorgeous no argument from me. Their only fault is that deep seated hardwired dog aggression nature and how that ends up permanently managed. I must admit as much as I wanted to hug that “monster” I did flinch when I saw the baby on the bed sleeping with it. It wasn’t so much the dog but the tattooed arms and general circumstances surrounding the dog. Of course unfair of me but sometimes we need to pay homage to our abilities to stereotype to remain alive. It’s part of survival.
I wonder what went into the that dog, definately boerboel or some other very well built and functional mastiff. It could honestly be a sweetie as it looks quite far removed from a pitbull but I wouldn’t like to find out the hard way.
Kathy, I had no clue PBs were intentionally being crossed with herding breeds. I know that I’ve seen a lot of black and white PB-looking dogs being called “Border Collie mixes” on various rescue sites linked to Petfinder.
Terrible idea. As the poster below says, mix an over the top BC with a fighting machine is a very bad idea.
Mary the presence of PB mixes was originally a shock to me as well. Strange the same appearance of double dilute Border Collies likewise began to reveal those PB mixes with the breed. Looks like heads up for everyone…a Pit bull/ Doxie cross http://mashable.com/2015/01/29/pitbull-dachshund-puppy/
Where is breeding intregrity?
Not really. I mean, it probably DOES happen, but most of the Flyball mixes use Staffordshire Bull Terriers, not pit bulls. They are trying to get smaller dogs with these mixes, and pits aren’t smaller than Border Collies mostly. Border Staffies are also popular Agility dogs.
Looking to speed up BIGGER dogs, Border x Whippet is popular. The fastest Flyball dogs I have ever seen are 100% whippet, though.
Actually, pit types bred to herding dogs (farm collies) is a pretty old phenomenon. Cur dogs, with a lot of “mix” to them used to be all over the place in rural areas. I think it should be at this point noted that 1) pits come in a lot of different landraces and many are a far cry from the dogs seen today; 2) farm collies/shepherd dogs were also not quite the same as the highly bred herding breeds we see today either.
Many of both were not so “high performance”, although they were expected to be hard working.
Cognitive dissonance is rife in Dogdom. The Pedigree show people are a breed all to themselves.
Cesar Millan got his butt kicked over his ‘exercise, brutality, affection’ methodology in the UK a few years ago. We basically kicked him and his show out of the country.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/0I6JavkIaUE?autoplay=1
Yah you bet people are more difficult, you can’t go around punching them in the throat for one thing.
Double dilute Border Collies indicates PB mixes? No. Merle is a color that Border Collies DO come in, and not a color that Pit Bulls come in.
Lets us realize the Border Collie has the merle gene. Likewise the pitbull has the ability to be a double piebald. Double piebald is a type of blindness as well and deafness. So if one crosses a double piebald pitbull with double or even a single dosage merle ..? Now what would be one’s guess the hearing, sight, and neurological health issues?
So refreshing to read this timely piece. Ughhhhh….. I am soooo frustrated with this topic!! I actively avoid associating with people that own bully mixes or purebreds or promote them in any way because of this. Occasionally there is someone who acknowledges the genetic component of behavior and physiology present in all creatures. However typically they just want to talk about how sweet their pibble baby is and how their kids can ride it and take food out of its mouth because the dog is now loved. Their eyes gloss over as they recall their heroic rescue of said dog and tell me how ” it’s all how they are raised.”
Then they become flustered and irritable if I press them by asking if the dog came from such a horrible background how can they feel comfortable trusting it with kids if it’s all how they are raised?? Then they backslide the the love the dog is required to feel in order to be a successful pet. So what is it?
Discussing anything with these folks is absolutely pointless. They have been so engrossed with this whole pro pit rescue garbage that they are completely unable to consider any other way. These people actively deny and blame every single attack and death that occurs by these type of dogs. Then they “blame the owner not the breed” and the owner is another pit advocate who has pics of their dog being ridden by the child it mauled to death a few weeks later.
I really don’t hate these dogs. I admire many of their characteristics and strength. I like many of them I have met. But. I wish far fewer people owned them! I wish they weren’t so available! I wish they were more like the belgian malinois in that there were few in just pet homes and mostly purchased from breeders who promote them as working dogs not suitable for the average pet. I realize this is a silly daydream but we. Would all be in a much better position if their genetic tendencies were considered more realistically.
Some Border Collies are also white-factored, and I have certainly seen a number of blue merle Border Collies that appear to have gotten a double dose of white factoring as well.
People truly do not realize how much dog behavior is genetic, probably because they haven’t been exposed to enough types in environments that show their instinctive behaviors.
I favor the “canalization” argument– that certain behaviors are amplified because competing behaviors are dampened. However, a good working dog is stable, intelligent, and often has an OFF switch. Extreme canalization can lead to compulsive or neurotic behavior.
While I get what you mean about people attributing every misbehavior (or indeed instinctive behavior) to “abuse,” these nuts do it to any dog they see, not just their own dogs.
There are indeed good dogs available in rescue, they’re not all neurotic messes.
I’ve trained a very fine hearing dog who was a herding-bird dog cross. He was indeed previously neglected (forced surrender.) but he had a great temperament, friendly, bright, and eager to work. He just wanted to herd me to everybody walking in the same direction as me, at first (That took years to dampen), and he would flush birds and beat like a cocker spaniel.
I could tell what mix he must be long before I got a DNA test.
My second dog is only 1/4 shepherd and is a breed puree of different spitzes (one very rare breed, too) His behavioral mix is very difficult to puzzle out.
He has faulty herding behavior– he likes running straight way too much to naturally circle to keep even distances. He will backtrack and drove though. He loves running with other dogs. I am going with “sled dog genes” on that one, so is in how he doesn’t get sidetracked by everything he sees around him.
He does love playing fetch, though, and he will arrange and herd his toys very much like a flock. Who the heck knows why?
Mongrels are great, but “it’s how you train them” does them a disservice, too– too often people have no idea that sometimes different genetic predispositions can stack and create new behavioral potentials rather than cancel each other out, or even what their true mix is.
J Phillips love your post with experience and insight to nature of mix breeds. Many years ago I rescued a German Shepard/Collie cross likewise for example. She looked like a Collie with the coat texture of a German Shepard. ..maybe actually phenotype Collie/Border Collie in temperament. Her behavior for the first two years swung between the two breeds. The collie temperament won. Great use of vocubulary …Kudos
Canalisation (or canalization) is a measure of the ability of a population to produce the same phenotype regardless of variability of its environment or genotype.
Just like with our Muffin….collie/German Shepard Cross how many of the general public of pet owners will take the two years of training necessary for acceptable pet?
This is my objection as well to the cary/carnie dog training methods be sold to public today through television and dog training books. I am married to a man with the same connection to animals and likewise is wonderful and amazing to witness. However, would I approach a frighten full grown bull, or a panic Stallion as he can do? I am not soft in head…hell NO!
Seems to me it boils down to how responsible and knowledgeable the owner is. Every dog, breed regardless, is an individual, and will react to some extent- differently to each situation. Just one example- some pit bulls are dog friendly. Many are not. But that doesn’t make the breed “bad”. LOTS of dogs of all breeds are not dog friendly. What bothers me is ignorant owners who think their perfect “well raised” baby would never harm another persons dog- or child- without any understanding of breed behavior and not taking appropriate caution or responsibility for what MIGHT happen! I have an adorable small dog that I love. I also have small nephews. Having observed my dog and nephews under very close supervision, I know that even with a great deal of socialization, my pup can only tolerate so much abuse from a toddler. I remove her from the situation BEFORE anything can happen. Not after it happens and say “whoops”. An understanding of breed behavior and tendencies is a valuable tool for responsible ownership. However, dogs of any breed should not be left unsupervised/unleashed at ANY time with any children or with strange people and animals! It is ALL about responsible ownership!!
> Seems to me it boils down to how responsible and knowledgeable the owner is.
Urm what? What boils down to that? Certainly not the behavior of the dog. You can know everything there is to know about a scorpion, its sting is still poisonous. You can know everything there is to know about a snake, but you can’t stop them from shedding their skin. Your knowledge and responsibility has nothing to do with what the animal’s genetics, instinct, and behavior will be.
Locking up your vicious pit mix is responsible, but that doesn’t CHANGE or alter their behavior, it simply prevents attacks. “Management” is not behavior modification and it’s certainly not capable of fundamentally altering the animal and the traits they will pass on should they breed.
>some pit bulls are dog friendly. Many are not. But that doesn’t make the breed “bad”.
Well, good or bad are value choices and highly situational. Any dog being dog aggressive is decidedly bad if it is around other dogs! But if your goal is to breed a gladiatorial fighting dog, you’d need aggression.
So in this observation I think we’re in agreement when you note people who think that their love for their pet trumps the pet’s genetics and their training. Which, frankly, is usually the bare minimum.
The larger issue, which you’re moving toward which isn’t really the narrow focus of this post is what’s going on in the community. I see a lot of pit bull types that are not being bred for pet qualities that are being dumped in massive numbers in shelters and well meaning but heart-over-brains people adopting them for the wrong reasons and thinking that love will cure all, and then they inflict their status pits (a different sort of status than the thugs who fight them, but still a status symbol dog they want to be seen with, and thus bring near other people and dogs) on other people.
The dog is not really a dog to these people as much as it is some sort of statement to attest to their good taste in causes and savior complex fulfillment.
The point is not to make some bland tautology that “every dog is an individual” (yes and no) or “any dog can ___ ” (where blank is bite or snap or bark or whatever). Those are rather meaningless. The useful observation is that dogs are not the same and breeds are not the same and your risk profile is entirely different. An owner of a Chihuahua will never have to worry about the dog tugging on the leash so hard going after a squirrel at the park that it rips their arm out of their shoulder socket and plants them on their face.
Get a beagle and leave it in your yard all day and you’ll have neighbors complaining about the barking. Other breeds are nearly silent and will likely never drive the neighbors mad with baying or barking.
Your _knowledge_ and management aren’t the issue so much as acknowledging that the breeds are different, they have unique challenges, and that no amount of nurture makes those go away.
All too often in pit bull apologia we have attempts to make statements that are just not true and are dangerous because these people have an agenda to whitewash the breed. They think the issue is that if more yuppie hipster white folk would just run to the shelter and adopt the cast off pit bull types there it would be better and to make that happen they need to market the dogs as “just like any other dog” or what not. But pit bulls still bite and kill more people than all other breeds combined. And that’s a combination of their popularity and genetics and the bullshit people spread about them.
So no, it’s not all about responsible ownership. It’s about a network of breeds that were selected for vicious aggression, some of which still are others which are in various stages of pet-ification and outcross, and two very toxic advocacy groups… the thugs and the heart bleeders.
Emily I am deeply sorry but believing that one can NOT be in control of an aggressive dog 24/7 ….365 is just not rational thinking in my experience and opinion. Sorry Emily have experienced Pit Bulls that were dog friendly for months. It is almost like they have a seizure or a juvenile temper fit. When the Rage Seizure is over you witness what could only be determined a split personality.
Second, Children should never be allowed to abuse a puppy or adult canine of any breed at any time.
I have always judged responsible pet homes by observing the ability of the parents to discipline and teach their respect of animals to their children. Puppies are not the living toy they can leave in the yard or toy box when they tire of it.
Indeed anyone with common sense in animal husbandry does not leave a puppy to entertain toddler or infant.
I have refused to sell a puppy or even an adult to more than one family with children. I recently refused a family a Collie when quite by mistake it slipped out they had a pit bull mix already at home. I have just added a clause to our Sales Contract …Do you realize most families both parents work…Now how do they micro manage aggressive behavior flare ups. Please these goody two shoes might believe they can control …I say NOT.
o way either of these families were getting another puppy from us. How can people who do not know how to raise well behaved children to respect animals …raise children?
Chris you might think your focus on the mases of pit bull and mixes being bred and dump, and rescued is narrow. I say that I am seeing this identical situation from Maryland to Florida. You world view is not so small.
The pit type dogs being found in the shelters today are not the same as the pit mixes from 20-30 years ago. Those dogs were closer to being “real” pit bulls, and were less mixed, more predictable for lack of a better word.
Those dogs were more stable, they were not as hot. They could be rehabbed safely and with little fear of what they might do to the public.
I do not believe this is true of most of the pit mixes being found in the shelter today. For one, the pit mixes of yesterday had a strong influence from their pure pit side with the human bite inhibition bred into the dogs. The dogs of today have been bred, from my personal observation, out of generation after generation of dogs being bred for human aggressive tendencies.
This alone makes them potentially more dangerous than not only their pure bred counterparts (even the game bred ones for the most part are still bred with the adage that man eaters die), but the average dog.
These dogs seem to have a sharpness of temperament that reminds me of old time dobes, which were labeled treacherous, even by professionals. Probably one of the reasons that people say the dog attacked “out of the blue”. The dog gave warning, you just didn’t see it, because it happened so fast, and you didn’t read it or did the right thing to give the dog an excuse to attack, if the dog didn’t just full bore attack because it was so inclined to in the first place.
The inner city is rife with these dogs and I can’t help but to wonder why.. It cannot be that all of these people want a pit bull.. I have actually started wondering how much of this is because people want puppies, and because now so few puppies of other breeds are available due to the promotion of sterilization, if a number of these people fell into the breed because it was what was available. If there is not just a supply/demand issue on top of the notoriously lax sterilization practices of the pit bull community in the inner city..
After all how can you measure the size of your balls by the size of your dogs balls if your dog doesn’t have any?
I have a new view of street pit mixes. I don’t trust them. I love pit bulls, by all that is good in this world if I turn into a pibble mommy someone please shoot me.. And I think I have had a pretty pragmatic view about this breed… I think that 90% of the pit mixes in shelters need to be euthanized. Today.
If only for these reasons.. we do not know the background of these dogs, we do not know their history or their breeding, and because of this they are potentially too dangerous for the general public and the pibble mommies that think that how you raised them is the whole story.
I just recently made the point that NATURE is the foundation on which NURTURE is built. If a dog is unstable because of poor genetics, nothing that anyone can do is going to change that.
Is it fair to the dog to be locked away to keep everyone safe from it? Is it fair to the public to have these dogs that potentially have unstable genetic temperaments in their neighborhoods?
I still say that when it comes to well bred pit bulls, it’s how you raise them. This is with the caveat that they will probably become dog aggressive to some degree as they mature whether or not they have been sterilized. But over all a pure bred is going to be safer with people than a mixed bred, especially a mixed bred coming from generations of who knows what added to the mix, selected for human aggression.
And since most people cannot tell a pure bred from a mixed bred, shelters should, instead of warehousing the hundreds of pit bulls that come through their doors until “the right home” comes along, make room for safer more adoptable dogs.
If I, a pit bull lover, former breeder, rescuer, rehabber and current advocate and forever fancier will not adopt one of those dogs from the shelter, who will? Aside from the people that want the “story” that want the moral superiority of having “rescued” that have bought into the lie that it’s all about nurture and not nature, and who think that all these dogs need is love to be safe canine citizens?
Pit bulls have KILLED more people than every other breed COMBINED, every decade since 1851.
Simply put, border collies do not herd sheep because they are raised on sheep farms; rather, they are raised on sheep farms because they herd.
In addition pointers point, retrievers retrieve, and mastiffs guard, all because those traits are part of their breed expectations, meaning strong and continuous selection in the underlying breeding program ”
Pit bulls do not attack because they are raised with dog fighters and drug dealers, dog fighters and drug dealers use pit bulls because they attack!
It is their nature, their genetic truth and reality.!!
It is not how you raise them rather it is simply what they are.!!
Just like sled dogs run and pull, it is just their nature.!
A pit bull type dog is what it is and does what it is.You can no more alter it genetic makeup then you can a collies to herd, a hounds to track, a retriever’s to retrieve, a labs to swim, a pointers to point, a sled dog to run and pull.
They do what they are and a pit bull type dog is a mauling violent killer that has been bred to be a land shark, nothing you do can change that, even if you have them from birth.
No matter if you love them, or how you nurture, train, rehabilitate, raise them optimally as normal dogs from birth, you can not change their Genetic reality to Kill, Maul, Maim, Disfigure, Dismember, cause Life Flights or trips to the Intensive Care Unit.
For over 800 years the current pit bull type dog was brought into being through careful selective genetic breeding to create the most violent murderous fighting dog possible
Fatal Pit Bull Attacks
Stop the Maulings
A growing archive of U.S. fatal pit bull attacks dating back to 1844:
Fatal pit bull attacks – An archive of U.S. fatal pit bull attacks dating back to 1858 by DogsBite.org
http://www.fatalpitbullattacks.com/
Tom McCartney recently posted..Defence of Merritt Clifton and Colleen Lynn: “Pit Bull Hysteria” Is Based on Fact
Benjamin Hart, professor emeritus at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and an animal behaviorist, said he wasn’t surprised by dog behaviorists positive assessment’s of pit bull type dogs after attacks.
“It’s quite common for a pit bull to show no signs of aggression,” Hart said Wednesday. “People will call it a nice dog, a sweet dog, even the neighbors – and then all of a sudden something triggers the dog, and it attacks a human in a characteristic way of biting and hanging on until a lot of damage is done.”
Hart said pit bulls are responsible for about 60 percent of dog attack fatalities each year, which is “way out of proportion” compared with other breeds. Pit bulls make up less than 5 percent of the American dog population.
“It’s very poor policy to allow any child around a pit bull, in my mind, let alone climb on a dog,” Hart said.
*********************************************************************************************************
The pit bull’s unusual breeding history has produced some bizarre behavioral traits, de- scribed by The Economist’s science editor in an article published a few years ago, at the peak of a heated British controversy over dangerous dogs that saw the pit bull banned in England.
First, the pit bull is quicker to anger than most dogs, probably due to the breed’s unusually high level of the neurotransmitter L-tyrosine. Second, pit bulls are frighteningly tenacious; their attacks frequently last for 15 minutes or longer, and nothing—hoses, violent blows or kicks—can easily stop them.
That’s because of the third behavioral anomaly: the breed’s remarkable insensitivity to pain. Most dogs beaten in a fight will submit the next time they see the victor. Not a defeated pit bull, who will tear into his onetime vanquisher. This, too, has to do with brain chemistry.
The body releases endorphins as a natural painkiller. Pit bulls seem extra-sensitive to endorphins and may generate higher levels of the chemical than other dogs. Endorphins are also addictive: “The dogs may be junkies, seeking pain so they can get the endorphin buzz they crave,” The Economist suggests.
Finally, most dogs warn you before they attack, growling or barking to tell you how angry they are—”so they don’t have to fight,” ASPCA advisor and animal geneticist Stephen Zawistowski stresses.
Not the pit bull, which attacks without warning. Most dogs, too, will bow to signal that they want to frolic. Again, not the pit bull, which may follow an apparently playful bow with a lethal assault.
In short, contrary to the writings of Vicki Hearne, a well-known essayist on animals who—in a bizarre but emotionally charged confusion—equates breed-specific laws against pit bulls as a kind of “racist propaganda,” the pit bull is a breed apart
Tom McCartney recently posted..Defence of Merritt Clifton and Colleen Lynn: “Pit Bull Hysteria” Is Based on Fact
Not going to debate you at this time but just wondering which issue of The Economist this was. I have had a subscription to this mag on and off over the years and right now I’m in “off” mode. I’d like to see if I can bring up the article. Thanks.
Not debating you but did Hart say pit bulls make up less than 5% of the total dog population? And wherever it came from, where is the census this is based on. I’d just like to know. Not saying that in a snippy way. I really would like to know if this is written somewhere in an unbiased count.
It is almost certainly from Merritt Clifton. If so, it’s based on looking at classified ads and seeing that pit bulls make up less than 5% of dogs in those ads. I’m not shitting you.
You can find the original 5% claim at https://web.archive.org/web/20140718110025/http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/09/7-8/July-August09.htm
The latest figure used 6%. http://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/dog-attack-deaths-maimings-merritt-clifton-2014.pdf
I think classified ads are a rather clever proxy for breed popularity. The larger point, however doesn’t change one bit if you don’t like classified ads as a proxy or think Merritt Clifton is satan…. there are no, and I mean NO reasons to believe that pit bulls are so immensely popular that their popularity alone can account for the rates of bites and deaths.
That’s really the football here. Apologists want to pretend that data which is horribly skewed against pit bulls being “just like all other breeds” by trying to pretend that they are just immensely popular… so far out of normal that no breed can really claim to be that popular, ever.
Well like I said, I’m not debating it at this time. I’d received some other source that I viewed as non-apologetic which seemed to put pit bulls and mixes or what have you at a far higher percentage, but, and it probably seems convenient but it’s the truth, darned if I can find that source right now. Oh well. I’ll try to dig it up.
Ultimately I just want to know the right percentage for myself. Nothing based in sympathy nor vitriol. If it were higher than 5% but really more like, 10-15%, that would still be a lot of fatalities proportionately, and the background of the dogs doesn’t change
They do have serious tenacity and serious strength. A serious “catch” dog. It’s what they catch that one has to be wary of. My personal experience doesn’t change the fatality list, but I’ve run into countless pits and never had one act remotely aggressive towards me, even when I was in Bed Stuy working in an unoccupied lot and found myself next door to about a dozen or so of them , staring at me over a stone wall, with nothing to stop them from coming my way.
Dog aggression however, is common, and this form of aggression is a topic that gets overlooked a lot when the topic comes up. Not to say that it can compare to attacking a human being, but no one wants to have to worry about pits being set loose in dog parks by clueless people when they aren’t suitable. Fearing for your own dog’s safety is a stressful burden.
I recall in the early days, a discussion about pit rottie crosses. That a pit rottie was more likely to attack, and was more likely to press the attack on a person like they would on a dog. That it was the rottie that would bring up the size on pit bulls, and make them more likely to attack, otherwise they were too small to be of much good, even if you could find one that would attack. (Pit sheps were also used, but not as popular, the shep coat tended to pass through, they seemed to be smarter and more discriminating and not as hot as the roittie crosses as well, so too much trouble for the average drug dealer that knew nothing about dogs)
This was the first primary pit bull cross in the early 80s to get drug house guard dogs.
Multiple generations later, and maybe you can accuse me of being a purist.. But the dogs that are attacking people are the mixed bred, non pedigreed, unknown background pit bull. And the people that are breeding these dogs pick as their sires and dams the dogs that no one can touch, except for them.. Dogs that may well be the direct descendants of the crack house watch dogs of the early 80s.
The AKC staffs are not attacking people. REAL UKC and ADBA APBT are not attacking people, and when a “papered” dog does attack, you find out it is a false papered cross bred Am Bully like the dog Niko that killed his 4 year old girl.
Not only was he an American Bully crossbred pit mutt with falsified hung paperwork, but the dogs sire Kimbo was KNOWN to produce human aggressive dogs, one of which mauled it’s owner 4 years before the little girl was killed and after being told, he continued to breed the dog.. Who was highly inbred I might add.
Note, Nike was 130 lbs, AGAIN, NOT the size a pure bred pit bull will attain, coming from a genetic base of dogs that were on average 19-40 lbs. Based on size alone, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that he was a cross bred pit mutt.
How many of these attacks state the dog was 75lbs (very high end of possible for pure pits) to 110lbs (not very likely for pure pits)?
I have admittedly seen some attack reports correct themselves and re-identify the breed as an American Bulldog or a Bull Mastiff or Mastiff cross when talking about these giant sized dogs that kill.
But most of the time the pit bull gets the blame because apparently no other dog bites, and a blocky head and muscular body = pit bull.
I have seen a vicious rottie lab roaming, and said this dog bites someone they are going to call it a pit bull. Sure enough, that’s what happened. The dog literally had a rottie head stuck on a lab body and was all black. Had a lab coat too, and lab tail. Just that rottie head. But again, only pits bite.. so it was a pit..
I hate to make it an us vr them kind of thing. The general public doesn’t care if the pit type dog they’re worried about is a pit bull mix, a pure pit, or a mix of two or more breeds that are not pit type breeds, but produce a phenotype similar to pit types… Especially when one of them mauls someone or kills someone.
But.. I have been to too many dog shows and wandered around literally thousands of pit bulls that I was a stranger to, and have never worried once about my safety. I have gone to yards where they raise their pits on chains, and again, wandered through them never worrying about my safety.
At the same time I have been mauled by a golden retriever (while my gamebred pit bull looked on and did nothing), I almost lost a finger joint to a cocker spaniel, and I had a rottie cross bite a hole through my foot..
I have yet to be bitten by a pit type dog. But why are they saying pits are biting?Something that for some reason people ID as a pit bull is mauling and killing people.
Which reminds me, they stopped showing pictures of the biting dogs.. mostly because you could tell by the picture that the dog was not a pit bull. Which didn’t fit into their vision that the only dogs that bit were pit bulls.
Maybe I am being an apologist. I guess I am not objective enough when I see so many pure bred dogs of perfect temperaments (aside from the expected dog aggression in many cases), and so many dogs of unknown breeding with unstable and uncertain temperaments, including dogs with fake pedigreed papers.
When a 40 lb pit bull is adopted out of the shelter as a “pocket pit” you kind of get the idea that something is happening with the breeding of street pits increasing the size, and that thing is the addition of other breeds that resemble pit bulls, like the cane corso… In some areas, the only difference between the pit bulls and the cane corsos is the docked tail. Even the “pure bred” cane corsos have rottie in them, you can see it in the head, you can see it in the ghost tan points, you can see it in the coat.
In my area we are flooded with Kimberthal rotties.. Not the most stable of bloodlines, IMO. And these are the dogs being crossed with pits in my area… And the average size of pit bulls have gone up from 40 lbs to 90 lbs and more in less than 20 years. The first pit mix on the local shelter site says that 50 lbs this dog is on the SMALL SIDE. Since when is 50 lbs on the SMALL SIDE for pit bulls??? At the same time bites have increased.
Correlation does not equal causation, I know this, but considering the size of the dogs when size is reported, the dogs doing the most biting when size is reported are not pure bred dogs. But all pit bulls get blamed.
So it is a pit bull problem? Or is it a mixed bred dog that looks like a pit bull problem?
It’s not a ‘pit-bull’ problem or a ‘mixed bred dog that looks like a pit problem’. Twenty years ago the UK police force tried training Rotties as police dogs. They soon stopped using these types of dogs as they give no warning when they were about to attack and they had a lot of problems associated with people threatening to sue etc.. Unlike a Shepherd who will be barking 200 yards away, Rotties pre-emptive signals of aggression are really hard to spot. Not until the dog is in your face will you notice. And these types of dogs can bite and grab on in a quarter of a second…..
The breed label has no use here. It’s the size and strength of the animal and potency of predatory behaviour that is the ‘problem.’ Simple physics. A cocker spaniel won’t do as much damage as a dog with size and strength of a cane corso. If JRTs were three times their size, we could be calling it the ‘JRT problem’.
The pit apologists who are in denial about the nature of these types of dogs is as much as part of the problem IMO. We absolutely do not require animals like this as ‘pets’, guard dogs or otherwise. This is the 21st century. We have technology that is far superior than a dog to guard your property. We don’t have to ‘save’ these types of dogs. There almost seems to be some sort of guilt trip you have to ride if you want a dog and you make the choice to NOT go to the shelter and adopt one of these unsuitable types of dogs. Madness….
There is a problem with BSL – it doesn’t work. There will always be a way to breed a yucky dog by selecting for the very ‘worst’ traits in dogs.
So, how on earth you regulate dog breeding and ownership in a country the size of North America?
If the status quo does not change (enforced or otherwise) then there has to be some level of pragmatism realised. Are you going to regulate dog breeding and police it with the appropriate consequences? Are you going to regulate owning, including enforcing and policing education and training and behaviour awareness? No, you’re not?
Then people have to accept that a certain number of people/children/dogs/cats and/or other pets will be mauled to death every year by types of unsuitable dogs, who are large predators, posing as pets.
How many deaths/mauling are too much before any measures are taken? How many are acceptable? It’s a basic risk analysis.
In a world with ever increasing people and dogs, then these stats are tragically going to increase.
That’s pragmatism.
I’ve just logged onto to a training blog where one person is asking for help with their ‘dog reactive cane corso’……
*bangs head against wall*
That’ll be genetics then….
http://time.com/2891180/kfc-and-the-pit-bull-attack-of-a-little-girl/
The problem with PitBulls……
Crikey, even PETA agree they are problematic.
What is the root cause of the ‘problem’?
It’s multifactorial.
In the UK they are a banned breed, however, we still get people mauled to death by terrier/mastiff type dogs. After all, there is no law stopping any BYB crossing some yucky mastiff with a tightly wired American Bulldog….
The Swiss insist on some undergraduate canine behavioural education and a rudimentary examination to be taken by all potential dog owners. However, they have also banned pittie type dogs. I can’t see that level of intervention and regulation flying in the States.
Large, predatory type dogs in the hands of clueless or stupid or naive but well intentioned or ignorant or lazy or feckless or even knowledgable and decent canine owners have the potential to beome a dangerous weapon. Management aways fails. There will always be stupid people. So, what has to change?
Oh please. Do not quote anything that PETA thinks is problematic. They believe you pouring milk in your coffee and that chicken dinner you had is problematic as well as the pets you own and would like nothing more than to see all of that banned.
Newkirk has said she supports the breed being extinct, and supports BSL.
Clearly the irony about PETA was missed…..
Great post.
I think the “it’s all how they are raised!” folks like to hang onto the truth: responsible dog owners train and manage their dogs — and run with it. Run so far with it that they take a truth and distort the bejeezus out of it.
And of course they are also playing around with anthropomorphism like monkeys on crack. (irony intended)
So of course it is difficult to challenge them on the technicalities, and it is at this point that it becomes difficult to even have a debate with them — they will challenge you with “well, don’t you think owners should be responsible and train their dogs?” and “if you think that way about dogs then you probably feel the same way about people, right?”.
But it does not take away from the fact that they are turning truths into lies to fit their own agenda (which at this point I’m not sure what it is — perhaps an incredibly selfish one: they want to see themselves and be seen by others as ‘very good people’, and will do all manner of evil, crass mischief to keep that illusion/delusion up — and it is an illusion/delusion: you cannot be a good person if you sow discord and harm upon others, and they do).
And it’s the same reason why some misguided souls embrace PETA: look what a wonderful person I am! Look how I truly care!
I think this is known as attempting to buy the keys to the kingdom.
Jennifer I do agree that crossing Bull Dogs with Herding dogs apparently was one practiced in early America. It is like the Irish Celtic Word Collie meaning “USEFUL” per say. However, must disagree with the Myth of the Herding PitBull Farm Dog.
Wading through the grossly exaggerated propagada for unbias documentation there is no evidence to support even today a true herding Pitbull Herding dog. The videos making such claims are sadly misrepresenting a true herding dog. One might believe the dog is herding if one had never seen a true herding dog work with its owner some distance away.
I will note that in Laura Ingalls’s books she writes of Jack, The Brindle Bulldog that protected them from wolves. However, also writes the need for containment to prevent killing Indians? There is likewise the story of Babe Ruth in the 20’s living on a farm and having contained pitbulls. This story tells of these pit bulls breaking out of containment –killing their chickens and a neighbors’ cow.
Myths are the enemy of Truth in the pure breed Dog World in my opinion.
“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation pevails at a given time is a function of POWER…NOT TRUTH.
What is your definition of a “true’ herding dog?
http://www.ranchworldads.com/classified.php?listing=44631
Well Chick I certainly can say this is not my idea of a herding dog. This what I have been reading about since reading Chris’ post on Herding bull dogs. I certainly would not want a dog taking a bite out of my stock. I prefer the herding skills of Border Collies for such herding jobs. A good herding dog in my opinion is intelligent, high energy, keeps the stock in a group without injury to themselves or the stock. However, it seems from my reading the crossbreed of Bull Dog and Catahoula was done for specific reasons and needs of likely certainly geographical areas of our country?
It is said by these cross breeders that the Catahoula was not big enough or fast enough to catch hogs for example. The cross made a useful herding, hunting dog that can be use for catching hogs, and bears. Seems to me Chick this gives a whole new meaning to a Herding Dog.
FWIW I was trying to delete my statement but I guess that didn’t happen, even though it said “Delete?”. The reason I wanted to do so was because I re-read your statement and realized you were referring to the pit bull specifically, which in this context I took to mean the purebred APBT, and I would agree, I would not use that as a herding dog in any form.
Oh well Chick shows how much I knew …seems these Bull Dog Catahoula mixes have been going on for 100 years. Strange Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog called “King of the Stock Dogs,” is stated to belong on a farm or ranch,. It is stated because he is a serious worker who goes about his business with tremendous focus and assertiveness. He is a great watch dog and does not normally warm up to strangers. Now we must consider presence of wild boars and bears The Catahoula originally was multipurpose could be used for hunting, and herding. Now add the Bull Dog bigger …hmm
Chick no problem because honestly doing some learning here. I was aware of the Guard Dogs which are numerous worldwide used with more traditional Herding Collie types by tradition. It is believed that livestock protection dog breeds were probably among the first dogs to be domesticated.
They originated in Europe and Asia, where they have been used for centuries to protect livestock from predators of which I was more familiar than our American version of flock or herd protection and herding.
Worse I knew of the Catahoula mix breeding but question of merle gene and containing about 30% double merles in its genepool and approximately 30% of its carriers look like solids. My studies and pesonal knowledge of this mix breed is limited.
Some of the more common breeds used in the U.S. include Great Pyrenees (France), Akbash and Anatolian Shepherd (Turkey), Komondor and Kuvasz (Hungary), Maremma (Italy), Polish Tatra (Poland), and Tibetan Mastiff (Tibet). Many of the breeds are related.
Great Pyrenees (Pyrenean Mountain Dog) I have witnesssed with specifically Border Collies and Collies working together.
The Great Pyrenees is a very old breed and has been used for millennia by the shepherds which includes Basque people, who inhabit parts of the region in and around the Pyrenees Mountains of southern France and northern Spain. They are descended from the Hungarian Kuvasz and Maremmano-Abruzzese and are considered an arisocratic relative of the St. Bernard and Newfoundland.
The Bukovina Sheepdog for example was bred to protect sheep flocks and cattle herds. It is an excellent watchdog. This breed is balanced, calm, very devoted and loves children. The dogs used as flock guardians do not trust strangers. Excellent watchdog for herds, courageous and very combative where potential predators are concerned (bear, wolf, lynx). Has a powerful bark. If strangers or animals come close to its territory, the fact is signaled by a very powerful bark with a low tonality that can be heard from very long distances. During the night it patrols around the property or herds. The objective in training this dog is to achieve pack lead for example.
The ONLY dog owners I have EVER heard say “it’s all in how you raise/train them” are pit bull owners. And anyone reasonably familiar with the world of dogfighting, animal rescue and the “no kill” movement knows why this is.
Yep, genetics matters. Dogs bred to fight are more likely to be aggressive toward humans, dogs, and other animals. Sure, how you raise an intelligent creature does matter. And sure, there are exceptions out there. But as a rule, dogs bred to be aggressive tend to be aggressive.
And stock dogs tend to be biddable. Sight hounds tend to have a high prey drive. Scent hounds like to track things. Terriers are more game. Primitive/spitzes tend to be more independent. And so on. All of these dogs have some inheritance from their wild wolf ancestor, as well as some inheritance specific to their line. I agree that we should not apologize for this; we should understand it and apply the knowledge well, both for our own sake, and for the sake of the dogs.
I am the owner of an American Pit Bull. I have never believed “it’s all in how you raise them” for any dog full blood or mutt. I have been around dogs all of my life and love the animals, doing my best to be a good owner. I have had dogs that seemed to be born bad and nothing, no amount of love or training could change that. The dogs were violent as pups and stayed that way. It’s just nature.
Thank you for your well written blog, very inspirational and informative.
“It’s all how you raise ’em”
Is the first thing that’s said,
When someone is injured
Or someone is dead.
“It’s all how you raise ’em”,
The rose-glass wearers say,
“To carnage and death,
Let us turn away.”
“It’s all how you raise ’em
We believe in redemption,
We’re politically savvy,
And we need attention.”
“It’s all how you raise ’em”,
Let’s print it in Red,
Let’s hose off the streets
Where the last victim bled.
Don’t tell us your story,
Just look at MY pup.
“It’s all how you raise ’em
So shut the f**k up.”
“It’s all how you raise ’em”
With deep piety,
Chant the sanctimonious
With their dog deity.
“It’s all how you raise ’em”
The more that it’s said,
Equates to the increasing numbers
Of injured and dead.
“It’s all how you raise ’em”
Until that grim day,
When you too,
Get caught in a pit bull melee.
“It’s all how you raise ’em”
That’s what you’ll say.
It’s just a freak accident,
Not D.N.A.
“Don’t think bad of pit bulls”
Is what Mom said instead,
Oh how he love both those dogs.”
Now he’s dead.
“It’s all how you raise ’em”,
‘Till the mantra is broken.
It’s one of the bloodiest phrases e’er spoken.
http://pitbullpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2014/12/its-all-how-you-raise-em.html
Our family always had show bred English Springer Spaniels. They are different from their field bred counterparts in that they are more likely to conform to AKC appearance standards and their gun dog instincts are supposedly less pronounced. I can only imagine what it must be like to own a field bred English Springer because our dogs pointed, sprung and flushed birds without ever being taught. The instinct was so pronounced that the dogs seemed to enter into a hyper alert state every time we took them into the woods.
I live in Georgia where many people use pit bulls as catch dogs to hunt feral pigs. These dogs have been bred for generations for hunting and are traded and sold among rural folks. They are taller than most pits and have more of a lazy hound asleep on the front porch personality. But these dogs will track animals in the swamp and woods without much training. If they are not kept in a secure enclosure neighbors’ livestock is in danger.
Spot on and an excellent read. This also covers the reason why the authorities need to euthanize vicious dogs not return them to the same irresponsible, delusional owners that allowed an attack to happen in the first place.
I LOL’d at “Señor Sharkñado”.
Christopher said: “Sharky can’t hold his bladder and bowels because his brain is too large for his cute little skull”.
House breaking really tiny dogs is still a loosing proposition but it is more likely that it is physics and physiology rather than brain compression. There is a physical phenomenon called the square/cube lay that related to the surface area of an object to its volume. It is non-linear. Double a linear dimension on an object and the volume increases as a cubic function while the surface area only increases as a square function. This means large mammals loose heat more slowly than similarly formed small mammals. Really small mammals have to have much more rapid metabolic rates to maintain their intrinsic body heat. To further complicate this, food is absorbed across a surface but what is supplied with energy is a volume. So small animals have to eat more per lb. This means the pass through is more rapid and to available internal storage is less. Smaller animals eat more often and have to eat proportionally more food per pound and thus dispose of the waste more frequently than larger animals.
In a growing mammal the brain pretty much determines the size of the skull, it is only after the brain stops growing that the sutures of the skull close. Part of the reason toy dogs have those proportionally big eyes and bulging skulls is that the central nervous system does not scale down to the same degree as body size does in the miniaturizing process.
Not sure that metabolic rate or thermoregulation have much to do with tiny doggies having a tough time holding their pee. I think the most plausible hypotheses are the following:
A) Developmental: Tiny dogs are more neotenic. So, being perpetually puppy-like, they may never fully develop the denning instinct to hold their bladder.
B) Environmental: To a tiny dog, a house might not feel very den-like, so when they’re indoors they might not really feel the need to keep a tidy den and hold their bladder.
I lean more toward hypothesis A; I think tiny dogs are unfortunately the victims of breeding for an unhealthy adult phenotype, and that includes never fully growing up.
Herding pit bulls? Terriers and hounds are prey taking hunting dogs. Drover’s dogs (flock gathering dogs) are dogs where genetic selection has removed the action of killing at the end of the hunt and where the dog has also been bred to look to the owner for direction as to how to manage this modified hunt, flock gathering performance. Terriers are no more reliable to herd than are Greyhounds/ Borzoi and other prey taking breeds. There is an interesting dog breeding hobby where a drover’s dog (such as a border collie) is crossed with a hound (usually a whippet or greyhound) to produce a Lurcher. This cross still produces a hunting, prey taking dog BUT they are more bidable. You can call them off a chase, for example. I breed Borzoi but I have owned or personally interacted with a number of lurchers (Aussie x Borzoi, German Shepherd x Borzoi, Silken Windhound (Whippet x Borzoi with small contribution of Sheltie). Actually the whippet breed originated as greyhound x terrier mixes. The full prey taking behavior seems to predominate in lurchers but they are much more bidable as long as you are not trying to teach them not to kill what every they are chasing.