corvus

I have one of the dvds, and it's really good. Made all the difference to see how Linda did it. I use it on my dogs, particularly Erik who sometimes needs help lowering his arousal. Just yesterday we finished up a wild game of tug with some TTouch and he went from very high arousal to collapsed on his side in under a minute. We also had success with it helping to relax my other dog before car rides when he used to get car sick. Helped a lot.

Reflex, eh? That makes sense. OH wants to know why he seems to have a positive need to lick something, preferably our skin, when he's having a cuddle. He's been postulating that skin tastes good. ;) :D

I've heard tongue flicking described as an appeasement gesture or calming signal, and I also know that in one scientific study at least it was used as an indication of stress. I guess that these interpretations are correct in the right context, but I have a different context I'm seeing this in. Erik tongue flicks when he is getting a massage or a rub. OH keeps asking me if that means he's stressed. I think that highly unlikely because he obviously loves the attention and seeks it out. To me it looks like it goes along with him calming himself down. He often yawns before he goes to the tongue flicking. I've seen a lot of calming signals used in similar situations that look like they mean much the same thing to me. Kind of like when we take a deep breath to slow our breathing down and relax. How do you interpret tongue flicking?

That is a great question. ;) I've wondered the same thing a few times. I've done two puppies in the last 2 years, and quite honestly I found this "fear period" to be impossible to predict. It doesn't just fall right in the same two weeks for every dog or something. It comes out of nowhere and IME you just carry on as normal. I pile so many good experiences on my dogs anyway that I find they are usually pretty resilient. Regardless of whether they are in a fear period or not, I try to make sure they have good experiences and if something frightens them I make sure they have whatever they need from me to cope with it. Mostly that's just being there to give them a reassuring rub and make some jolly noises so they know I'm not worried at all. My boys are both inherently confident dogs, though.

Sorry huski, must have misunderstood the above. Somehow. Erik isn't real easy, but I wasn't really recommending Valls. Just pointing out that he's anything but aloof and disinterested in human company and cuddles. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most giants I've met have been lovely, but I did run into a guy one time who rescues giants. He had a stunning Berner that was just barely under control on leash. He was telling me the joys of what happens when giant breeds don't get any training or socialisation. That gave me a lot of respect for big dogs. And for this fellow who would take in giants with habits that are outright dangerous in such a large dog and give them a better life. I remember being scared about bloat when I was looking into Akitas. I think doing lots of research on it helped me to understand it better and feel like I would know what to look for and what to do. Mind you, I don't think it's as common in Akitas as it is in Danes. Oo, short-haired St Bernard?

I think that can't possibly be stressed enough.

Awww, your poor little guy. I'm amazed at the resilience of some dogs. It's great that he discovered some dogs aren't so bad! I have a big, gentle dog and a little boisterous dog. I find that often small dogs like the little guy at first and are scared of the big guy, but then the little guy charges around like an idiot and they check out the big guy and find that he's not doing anything scary and they soon gather the courage to get closer, and closer, and pretty soon they are loving on him. He ignores them until they are comfy, and he's really good about making no sudden moves and letting them come to him. Sometimes I think I should hire him out. Maybe the Pap was just the right size and sending out the right signals?

Actually, there are many spitz breeds that have been working closely with people for thousands of years and make very good companion dogs. I have two spitzy herders - a medium one and a small one - and neither are particularly independent, difficult to train, or aloof. The Lapphund doesn't need much exercise at all as he's a lazy sod, and the Vallhund gets by on one 20 minute walk/run a day and lots of free play with the Lappie. Mental stimulation is more important than exercise for him. He can cope with just a short walk as long as I'm prepared to give him lots of things to do later. He can miss a day without going mad. He's also outrageously cuddly. It's thoroughly ridiculous how snuggly that dog is. I've never seen anything like it. My first dog was a corgi, which is also a spitz breed, and she was not too much dog for a kid to raise and train. Anyway, you haven't really picked many breeds I think of when I think "easy". Aren't they all a bit more active than a 20 minute walk a day and some play in the yard? Except maybe Mastiffs and Danes. Have you thought about some of the giant breeds like Leonbergers? They are big and relatively quiet and laid back and don't need loads of exercise. Leos have a lot of hair, though. Sounds to me like the Boston would have been pretty good for you. Staffies are nice and fun and seem adaptable. We see a lot at the dog park and they are usually friendly dogs, although rarely do what they are told. Then again, most dogs at the dog park rarely do what they are told. I've met some nice Boxers as well, that don't seem too hard, but I've also met some Boxers that have a lot of energy. In short, I dunno! I think you need to narrow it down a bit more. Really think about what activities you want to do together and what would be deal breakers. Maybe we can narrow it down by thinking about what you don't want?

I tend to think puppies are fine unless they cry. They cry so readily. In support of PF and just keeping an eye on them, my mother has a small dog that was injured when a large puppy jumped on him. His back was hurt, and he ended up with severe early arthritis in that area that the vet thinks may be the result of an old injury. He was about 2 when it happened. I have a large dog and a small dog that is younger, but as it happens the big one is naturally gentle and the little one is the one that makes the big one squeal.

Whoa, hold your horses. AFAIK that is actually not true. Before I went raw I spent some time researching the meat industry and the requirements for carcasses bound for pet consumption in NSW. Unless things have changed dramatically in the last few years, carcasses with parasites are wholly condemned, as in thrown out. You can't even use the parts that aren't affected, which is perfectly safe. They also can't sell discoloured meat as pet food, regardless of the reason for the discolouration. And they can't use anything that wasn't slaughtered at at the abbatior by the staff there. From what I could gather, the standard for meat for pet food consumption is still quite high. It is not safe for humans to eat and is processed at separate abbatoirs and stored in separate compounds and transported in separate trucks etc, but IMO the only dodgy thing about it is it sometimes hasn't been bled as thoroughly. Sometimes. Depending who you get it from. I get wings from Cliff at Just Food 4 Dogs and I honestly think the only thing wrong with them is that they are often broken or undersized. Mince for pets is different to human grade mince in that it can contain all sorts of bits and pieces from the animal. That's all. If you buy it from the shops, it may have been treated with preservatives, and they are often a kind that is banned for use in human grade food. That's the only thing you have to be careful of to my knowledge. By all means correct me if I'm wrong. Sorry I can't be of further help to the OP. I sent emails to a few game meat providers around Sydney a while ago and no one ever got back to me. I've only seen goat in Woolworths occasionally. It wasn't terribly expensive for forequarter pieces, but my dogs didn't like it anyway. It's easier to get game meats at Woolworths stores in the city. What about fish? ETA I remember seeing goat at a butcher in Hurstville, now that I think about it.

And perhaps I've been a bit too busy to do that, just yet, Corvus? Are you saying that anyone who hasn't read the blog entry yet is not to post here, even if the post does appear to have some relevance? Gah! See that's exactly the problem! It's so frustrating. It's not relevant if you're not on the same page. This is exactly WHY McConnell wrote it and published it. It's kind of like a slap in the face to post it and have someone come on and go off on a dominance tangent, suggest to them a couple of times that they read the blog under discussion because their arguments don't really relate to what is on the blog, then have someone finally have to quote part of the blog for them so they can go "Great! I agree!" and then apparently I'm the rude one for suggesting again that they read the blog. And you wonder why I sometimes come off a bit short and arrogant?? I thought I was actually being quite restrained and polite. And this is me being frustrated. If you find that rude and arrogant, please consider my point of view. Is it so unreasonable to ask you to read the blog we are discussing? Please? It's really good! I promise it's worth it. *deep breath* As for consistently dominant behaviour related to personality, I think you describe the personality aspects relevant to what you're trying to say. How often do you need to boil down a dog's personality to one word? Erik is alternatively "enthusiastic", "very motivated", "pushy", "an obnoxious twat", "outspoken", "enterprising", "far too clever" or "overly confident" depending on what exactly I'm trying to describe. When people meet him and think he looks fun and ask me what he's like to live with I usually say "He's a firecracker", which sums up nicely all that energy and enthusiasm as well as the attitude. I wouldn't say he's dominant because we have it managed pretty well and it doesn't really feature in life with Erik. If given the opportunity, he would take whatever he wanted whenever he wants, but he doesn't have that opportunity, so the word isn't really a good description of his personality. That's the way I see it, anyway. McConnell has added a third entry to her blog that talks a bit about the problems of finding words to describe dogs we used to describe as dominant. The message I took home from it was that it's not something we really have words for at the moment. I figure, considering different people interpret "dominant" as incorporating different traits anyway, it's probably not that useful.

I've "heard" a few things about NDTF and NDTF trainers, too. But I don't repeat 'em on public forums because it's hearsay and I don't have the facts.

Her opinion is clear in the blog entries under discussion. Maybe you should read it seeing as you are participating in the discussion. Okay, fair enough. Anecdotal evidence is worth exploring. My friend was telling me recently that mother dogs will bring crying pups back to the den in the first few weeks of their life, but stop doing it quite suddenly. I think there are windows in which things like killing and eating puppies occurs if there is something wrong with the puppy. What was wrong with it is pure speculation, though. That kind of thing is seen quite often in nature. For example, birds will abandon a nest in the first few days of building if they are disturbed much, but after that it's not nearly so likely. There's a lot of threshold stuff in animal behaviour. They were talking about it on Catalyst last Thursday with group decisions. Cool stuff.

I knew someone on another forum that had a Shiba and a Shikoku. The Shikoku sure seemed like a handful. A dog for the dedicated owner. I seem to remember it was extremely big on praise, though.

My sister has a rescue Greyhound... and 10 or 11 cats. I can never keep up. Not long after she got the greyhound she got a very outgoing kitten that loved to snuggle up in the greyhound's bed. The greyhound was anxious about sharing with such a little thing, and would curl up in a tight ball on the very edge of the bed so the kitten could stretch out. So funny. Reminds me of my last dog ambling into my room one day to discover to her disgust that there was a hare on her bed. She never liked the hare very much. She froze, stared at him for a long moment, then smartly turned around and walked out. She seemed so insulted!

She's not just a supposed expert. She has a PhD in ethology. If I remember correctly her PhD was on human verbal communication with animals. She looked at people all over the world that had been working with animals for generations to see what kinds of noises they made to their animals. She has been taking on aggressive dog cases for a long time. You may have noticed that she didn't by any means deny that there are individuals that tend to get what they want, or individuals that tend to approach with dominant signals, or individuals that seem to be natural leaders. What she was saying about dominant personalities is that it's not what dominance means. It describes a single interaction, not an entire personality. I see what you are saying, because I have been quite happy to describe some dogs as having aggressive personalities, but McConnell's point is that we have to be strict with how we use this word because it seems so easy to misuse it and consequently cause problems for dogs. Some people like having dogs with dominant personalities and look for them. Those people are going to be quite comfortable with calling a dog dominant in general, but most of the rest of the world has been taught to believe that a dominant dog is big trouble. I think it is for this problem that McConnell (and others) have been trying to get across that describing a dog as dominant is not the correct use of the word. McConnell's latest blog entry considers the problem of what we should call dogs that we would otherwise call dominant.

It's a good point and a conundrum I have recently had to sort out for myself. In the past I've been quite adamant that my dogs wear collars with ID at all times because you don't know when someone is going to leave a door or gate open. They wore breakaway collars. When I got Erik I got him a breakaway collar as well, but it was coming off ALL the time. It came off at home quite regularly when the boys were playing, and it came off when we were out and about quite regularly too. In the end I decided to abandon the collars. They wear impossible to escape from harnesses when they are out with us, so they have ID tags on their harnesses and they have collars with ID tags for times when they aren't wearing their harness for whatever reason. And at home they now go nakey. I can't say I'm happy with it, but it's the best I feel I can do. If I didn't have dogs that play all the time and frequently bite at each other's necks they would still be wearing some kind of collar.

Really? Do you have a reference for that? There was this fascinating doco on ABC a few months ago following a hyena clan led by a brutal female who would frequently and randomly attack the other clan members. There was something wrong with her. Aside from being a nutcase, she also appeared to be infertile. She was really hurting the group, but I think in the end they just got hungry and fed up and revolted. They didn't kill her or kick her out of the pack, just ganged up on her and drove her away from kills if I remember correctly. She stayed on the periphery. I honestly think they reacted mostly to being starved by her than being relentlessly bullied. Hyena social life can be harrowing. I question if this is significant to dogs, who do not appear to depend on living in groups to survive. Er... kinda? I have to admit I'm a bit confused. They are dominant but accept the leadership of another dog? As long as she's nice to them? And accept other dogs as long as they toe the line? But can't live in harmony with each other? I have problems with the idea of a dominant dog being one that believes in his right to things, for example. Because it doesn't really gel with the definition of dominance being actually getting a contested thing. I whole-heartedly believe that Erik was born believing the world is his oyster and he should have whatever he desires whenever he desires. Thing is, he doesn't always get what he desires. He is the smallest member of the household besides the rabbits, and sometimes no matter how much he wants something he just physically can't get it. To me, he is more outrageously optimistic than dominant. He tries things on just in case. He learns the quickest and easiest way to get what he wants by trying lots of different things. He talks back, he sometimes tries to be controlling, and he is very demanding despite none of it ever really getting him anywhere. He does things that are historically futile just to see if they are still futile. He is enterprising, clever, very aware of his surroundings, and very good at taking advantage of momentary lapses. He is highly motivated for rewards and he's very confident. I don't think that these qualities make him dominant, but they do set him up with advantages in social interactions so that he often wins them despite being small. The other little dog I mentioned before has similar qualities, although he is much lazier and more laid back than Erik, but takes stubborness to dizzying heights. He will keep at something for days before he will give in. I am thinking that just calling a dog dominant because they tend to get what they want is not enough. I am thinking that the reasons why they tend to get what they want are more important. And I think we are talking about a continuum. If we have a dog that has the attitude but not the size or strength to back it up, is it not dominant even if it always wins contests? If we have a dog that has the size and strength and the attitude but not the motivation to do much with it, is that a dominant dog? To me there are no clear answers to those questions. I would like to hear more about your dogs and social harmony, lilli. I have to say your description of them physically throwing another dog off a desired resource shocked me. I can't imagine my dogs ever being that violent. My mother's Vallhund who I keep mentioning will force other dogs off food regardless of their size, but he would never just dive in with full contact. He doesn't need to. Just makes some noise and charges and the other dogs scatter, despite them all being bigger than him. If they don't move he bites them, but he doesn't throw them around or hurt them. He's mostly noise, but he is respected because the other dogs know he's not bluffing.

Plenty of research out there showing that the emotional state of a mother will impact on the emotional state (or personality) of the newborn. Emotional states lead to behavioural responses ie possibility of "dominance" I don't understand your label of "true dominant"? Please explain further. Dominant lineage - could not this be because of learnt experiences from another animal that behaves dominant? I'm not saying genetics has no role, but there are a lot of other possibilities, so I "try" not to assume. They were telling us at school the other day about some research they'd done on dairy cattle, where keeping pregnant dairy heifers hungry can not only decrease their unborn daughters ability to produce milk over their entire lifetime - it also appears to affect their daughter's daughters' lifetime ability to produce milk! Different to emotions and temperament, I know, but there's a lot that goes on that we don't know about in the big new world of epigenetics. I came across that paper yesterday, actually. It was unsurprising in light of the Dutch famine case (and similar research on rats and pigs) that was mentioned on the stress doco last night. They didn't say half the interesting things about that one on the show! Sapolsky relates in his book how a stressed mother results in the fetus actually being programmed to have a thrifty metabolism, storing away every little nutrient, and this metabolism later makes that person more prone to obesity, hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. If that person gets pregnant and eats a normal amount of food, their body continues to snatch up all the nutrients, thus starving the fetus and creating the same environment the mother had as a fetus and that fetus develops thrifty metabolism as well. Fortunately the effect dilutes over time. I don't think there's any doubt of that. I also think it is not a simple matter of all puppies in a litter being affected the same way by a stressed dam during gestation. We know that some individuals are remarkably resilient to stress, and that is most likely genetic. There's no reason why all puppies in a litter should be affected equally. We're talking about subtle interactions. I'm just going to throw this out there... Lilli, what if what you see as dominant behaviour is signs of dogs that don't care much for social harmony? I'm not saying those truly dominant dogs are not dominant, but suggesting that there could be more to it than brute force and assertiveness. Should we also be considering the sociality of the individual dog in question? I know a small dog like those you describe as dominant, and he is one of the least social dogs I have ever met. In contrast, my Kivi is the most social dog I have ever met. When I watch Kivi approach a dog pouring appeasement signals all over them and then proceeding to do basically what he likes, I think he's got the right idea. He is quite disarming. He doesn't get into fights, yet he usually gets what he wants. I would never call him dominant and I'm getting away from the accepted use of the word, here, but what I'm suggesting is that perhaps this definition of a dominant personality depends on a particular style of interacting that may belong more to less social dogs. In which case I wonder if it is applicable to more typically social dogs... Mind you, I think just a week ago I was using this same dog mentioned above as evidence for social status in that he seemed to me to be defending his right to whatever he pleased whenever he pleased. But this is a game that he plays alone. The other dogs in his life just avoid him. What I'm suddenly thinking is he's a smart dog that makes intuitive leaps a lot of other dogs can't make. Maybe he knows he's defending his social freedom rather than a particular resource, kind of like my little dog (same breed) figured out which human controlled the resources at my parents' house when he stayed there over Christmas and then sought to control that human. A smart tactic for a strange and unfamiliar place (although it didn't work). He doesn't bother with those sorts of things here at home, though. The uncertainty doesn't exist here.

Ooo, NaturallyWild, you're touching on a lot of really interesting stuff, there. Anyone watch the show on stress on ABC1 last night?

I don't and didn't say I did. But I have been at a seminar or two where the same person/s "debunking the dominance myth" (title is pretty clear in its description to tell you what the seminar was about) mentioned she was now hesitant to use the term "leadership" inference being for the same reason these people don't like to use the "dominance" word. Sorry, I misunderstood. Is it one person or two? Or more? I have to say I've seen a fair bit of people trying to make it clear what "dominance" actually is. I have several dog books that use the word with the intended definition and have defined it quite clearly beforehand, I have participated in several very detailed discussions about it with trainers in other parts of the world where the proper definition has been stressed, and here's Trish McConnell trying to make it clear as well. The speakers at the NDTF conference were also very clear on what it actually meant. As far as I can see, it IS being shouted from the rooftops. It took years for it to work its way into every aspect of dog ownership, and I expect even with the shouting it will take a lot longer to be put back in its place, if it ever is. As was suggested several times on the blog, it's self-reinforcing for people to lean so heavily on it. To me, it's got to the point where it is so badly and widely mis-used that I doubt it is recoverable, at least not until we have a more descriptive and useful paradigm take over for a while. Maybe one day we can say dominance again without all the connotations, but I imagine not for a good long while. It is extremely annoying and insulting to have people misinterpret you and link your words to ideas and practices you find abhorent. I don't blame people for running from that prospect. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

If it makes you feel any better, Kivi Tarro was just like that until he was about 8 months old, and it wasn't until he was over a year old that he started to act glad to see us when we went to pick him up from my parents' place after leaving him there for holidays. I remember one time I took him and Erik to work when Erik was still a baby. I left Kivi in the yard to get something for Erik and while I was gone Kivi tried to find me and I wasn't in the office where he thought I was. He was running all over the place getting more and more frantic until I came out and called him. He was so relieved he barked joyously and came galloping up to me so fast he actually nearly fell over. That's the kind of thing Erik does all the time and always has, but Kivi is not the type for that kind of thing and I don't think he ever would have in the first year of his life. I often say he would go home with anyone, and I think it's good that he's like that because I never worry about him missing me when I'm away, but over time he became just that little bit more fond of us than anyone else. It took a long time, though. He still gets depressed when we take him home from my parents' house (he loves busy households with lots of animals and people, it seems), but these days he's at least excited enough to bark when we go to pick him up.

I think it's interesting that you consider "leadership" to be a substitute for "dominance". I don't. Because if we use the definition of dominance the way that it is used in other areas of animal behaviour and the way McConnell so carefully describes, they are not necessarily related at all. Are you considering "dominance" to be analogous to "social status"? To be brutally honest and put myself in the firing line, I hate using the word "leadership" even more than I dislike "dominance". This is not because people do mean things to dogs in the name of leadership, now (although no doubt they do), but chiefly because it's an abstract and wishy-washy term and most people aren't actually born with leadership qualities. So when told to be a leader, what are they to do? They don't know how to be a leader. What does that even mean? I'm sure we've all found ourselves working under the supervision of someone with crap all leadership skills. It can be pretty horrifying. Dogs like structure and predictability and confident individuals. IMO that's a far more useful thing to tell people than that they need to display more leadership, for example. Have you read McConnell's blog yet, Erny? 'Cause really, that is certainly not what she is saying by any stretch of the imagination. In general, I think you have made a fair call, but I can understand why there is this push to use different words or concepts and I support it for the same reason I think it's a good idea to introduce a new recall cue and start training it from scratch if you've accidentally poisoned your original one. I'm not sure exactly which alternative theories you are talking about as I really only know of Semyonova's Non-linear dogs, the resource-holding potential idea, and the behaviourist approach (dogs do what they have learnt works). I agree that there are common threads through it all, but I don't think they are in essence dominance theory. Was there a specific idea you were thinking of?

Erny, maybe if you read McConnell's blog entries about it you would see that it's not the D word itself that is the problem, but the way it's been interpreted. And the way it's been interpreted is not the fault of the humans doing the interpreting, really, because in our society it has a different meaning to that intended when it was first applied to canine society. As far as I know there are no stats describing or inferring how many dogs in the world are mistreated as a result of the misinterpretation of the dominance hierarchy concept (or a lack of structure, for that matter). It would be a little hard, considering we haven't figured out how applicable the dominance hierarchy concept is to dogs in the first place. You only have to look around on dog forums and email lists to see how commonly dominance is used (or misused), though. Jeanne provided a classic example. Shrugging that off as "not the concept but the interpretation of it" doesn't do anything to help dogs that are suffering due to the common interpretation of what "dominance" means in canine society. Like Jeanne, I think that one dog suffering needlessly is too many. Sometimes it's just not enough to stubbornly stick to the correct use of a term in a sea of people using it to mean something else. That's kind of trivialising the suffering of the dogs that are subjected to aversive practices designed to address the misinterpretation of the dominance hierarchy concept, don't you think?

I don't think it's so much "the jury is out" as "it's not what everyone seems to think it is but nor is it nothing". That is the message I get from McConnell's writing on this topic. To me she's saying it's not a matter of whether it occurs or not, but rather understanding the complexity and subtlety of it. And the sheer flexibility of sociality in dogs, as well. To say that it does or does not exist is far too broad.