corvus

Yes No. No one is designing data collection to prove anything, because they CAN'T prove anything with stats, even if it isn't skewed. They can only produce evidence that supports an hypothesis. I highly doubt whoever collects this data is trying to prove that dog aggression is on the rise. Someone has just interpreted it that way, and therein lies the problem with stats. The devil can quote the bible for his purposes and all that. Doesn't mean no one should ever listen to a clergyman.

Statistics is far and away the best tool we have for detecting and characterising relationships between variables. It needn't be all or nothing, though. We just need to acknowledge both what the data are and what they are not. It's damn hard to get a dataset that is 100% representative of the population. This is not the big problem it seems to be on the surface. It just means that to interpret the data correctly we should note where it comes from and what subsets of the population may be over or under represented in the data. Where we can, we should find ways to account for skews in the data, which is often as simple as collecting data on possible confounding variables and plugging it into a model along with everything you really care about. The model will tell you when variables have a significant effect on whatever you are investigating. If you collect data specifically to support your hypothesis and nothing else, someone (many someones) is going to see right through it and dismiss the work because it is biased. As they should. The art of science is working out prior to data collection what variables you should be collecting data on and designing experiments to filter out as much noise as possible, and to narrow possible interpretations of the data down to as few as possible. Simple statistics such as number of bites reported over time can be pretty useless or quite revealing depending on where the data came from and how consistently it was collected. Don't go throwing the baby out with the bath water. If the data were collected inconsistently (e.g. reporting policies changed partway through), the data from before the change and after are not really comparable and should be treated as two separate datasets IMO. But that's not to say all statistics is suspect.

Aww, such cute Z-doggies. It's so great to hear of everyone's progress. I can't believe how far you have come with Jake in such a short period, hankdog. And everyone else is clearly making headway. I'm lucky both my dogs are very well socialised. Other dogs running up to us hardly ever causes us any trouble. One time a small dog charged us roaring, crossing about 30m of ground at full speed and direct to get to us. Kivi and Erik were incredible. They turned as one and just stood there, facing down this dog quietly and calmly. The dog pulled up about 2m short of us, growled, sized the boys up, then turned and left. It was only when it left that the boys showed how tense they had been. Kivi shook himself off and looked at me like "Phew! That was intense!" and Erik barked once and shook himself off as well. They are better at reading other dogs than I am, so generally I let them tell me when I should be worried, but I think they didn't know what that dog was going to do any better than I did. And when they tell me they really are scared of an oncoming dog there's not much I can do but brace and get ready to haul the dogs out of the way if it comes to that. Last time it was a brown bully mix of some sort. The owner literally crash tackled it before it reached us, which scared me more than the dog itself did!

Theorectically speaking, isn't that how we all learned our languages? T. No. :) Language was what undid Behaviorism in the end. Skinner couldn't explain how children learned language using learning theory alone. My 2 1/2 year old niece is learning language at the moment. It's very cool. She puts words together spontaneously to try them out. "Holi...house?"

I know Svartberg's work intimately. It is well done IMO, although James Serpell might not say so. It's actually pretty correct to leave the traits in quotation marks. They were derived from factor analysis, which means they were given a name by the author that the author felt best described the factors involved. It doesn't mean that he was trying to identify those traits with particular behavioural measures. He took the measures and then did a data reduction thing where he was looking for behaviours that occur in clusters and then he named the clusters, basically. Aggressiveness gets splashed around in animal personality studies a bit, but it doesn't generally come with the emotional baggage when used in the popular media. Also sometimes called assertiveness or extraversion. Incidentally, he's the only one I know of that has data to suggest breeding for the show ring essentially homogenises personality across groups. It may be something specific to Sweden.

Are you sure that really matters to them? My parents have a dog from a registered breeder that is suspect. The dog's papers were promised, but never seen. They didn't chase it up. I've had people say things to me like "She's a labrador. But we think she's not 100% labrador. Her face is a little longer, like a golden retriever." And I've heard "He's a pomeranian. They both are. They just don't really look like it." I know people who get a random mix and arbitrarily assign it a breed. Unknown parentage doesn't seem to be meaningful to them?

Hardly anyone looking for a dog knows what to do with a pedigree, and of those that do, I would bet a lot of them just can't be bothered. I certainly can't, and I'm a research fiend. My partner wanted a bulldog a while back. I said fine, but you have to do the research and find some healthy lines. Big surprise, we don't have a bulldog. Whenever anyone says they think they want a particular breed but want x, y and z traits, people here tell them to research their lines, because there's a fair bit of variation within breeds.

They can learn to put verbs and nouns together. For example, my Erik knows "where" means "go find" and then the noun (kong, bone, Grant, Kivi...) tells him what to find. I can also tell him where to take them, but I don't think he's generalised that one as I haven't done much with it. This Border Collie knows over 1000 words and can follow directions that involve several nouns and verbs. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/23/worlds-smartest-dog-knows-words/ Dogs can also learn concepts like left and right, up and down, over and under, big and small, and even "do as I do". There is now a dvd out that shows you how to teach them the latter. It is intense! The dogs can learn completely novel behaviours in one go just by watching a person do it. Supposedly ground squirrels have language. They can tell each other a person is coming and that they are wearing a blue shirt and once went past with a gun. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/21/science-prairie-dog-language-decoded.html

Actually, in theory desexing DOES affect temperament. I can verify there appears to be a significant effect with my own data, much of it that came directly from DOL and members from other online dog-centric groups. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090023313002335

Yes. I think we are at two different places, here. I don't think I am alone in my reasons for buying purebred dogs. I often ask people why they get the dogs they do and their reasons are much the same as mine. I was trying to get at why people buy purebred dogs currently and building from there, but I'm being told that it's not important. So if it's not, what is? Specifically, I mean? What is good about purebred dogs apart from quality?

I'm looking at purebred dogs and what's good about them. Why do people buy them? I know why I bought them. The reasons were small in number, but big in importance. You can call that narrow if you like.

No, I was just trying to make a point and didn't manage to. When I bought my two pedigree dogs it was all about seeking quality. Same as it is when my partner finds new places to eat out. Same as it is when we decide what car to buy, what brand of computer or phone we want, who to get in when we need a plumber and so on and so on. We often look for the highest quality we can afford, and we learn about quality through looking at the materials used, the attention paid to design and manufacture, and whether the company understands what we value so that they make an effort to provide it. We look at reviews, because no one knows how good something is like the people with direct experience. They can tell us what problems they have had and we may learn of risks we need to consider before we make a commitment to buy. This is why we don't go to McDonalds very often! I say things to my partner like "I want to try that new McDonalds Crunchie McFlurry, but I'm sure they will have managed to screw it up. They screw nearly everything up." Their marketing is successful in that I want one, but in the long run it's not enough because I have been disappointed so many times. We're only talking about something that costs a few dollars and will be consumed in a matter of minutes, but still I won't commit to buy one. Getting back to the breeding practices, I think this is an integral component of quality. You can market all you like and very well, but if there is a sense that there is a quality issue you will lose people just like McDonalds does, especially given we are talking about a large investment in money and time. I know a few people who have bought from registered breeders specifically because they believed they were investing in quality. They believed they were taking the safe option and were burned when their dog ended up with some kind of health problem or temperament problem. It doesn't really matter whether the problem was a fault of breeding practices or the new owner's management practices or if it was a freak accident or whatever. Because the owners had justified their decision with the conviction they would get a better quality dog, they are left more sour if something goes wrong than they would if they had made their decision based on something else. Dashed expectations are a really unpleasant experience. They tell everyone they know and anyone who will listen. I'm just saying this because I'm on the outside looking in. I don't need to argue the point or have people listen. If you don't want to market purebred dogs as being of superior quality then you may as well ignore me. But I don't know what else is so great about them that I should buy one over any other dog from anywhere else.

Sure, but to whom? Is one customer as good as any other? Do those people think they are buying good produce from McDonalds? Are you the junk food of dog breeding or the gourmet kitchen?

Some dogs have a pretty strong paw preference. They won't use the non-preferred paw much naturally. I was kinda mean. I would gently squish the other paw or tap it to bring his attention to it, then mark when he lifted it. If you have a dog that shifts around a bit, you can try shaping it starting with a shift in weight to the other side and things like that. Anything that is closer to lifting his left paw than sitting or standing square. You also might have more luck with dog in a down. That way they don't need to shift much of their weight at all. I haven't had any problems cuing left and right. I use a verbal cue for my particularly left-pawed dog ("Paw", "Other one"). Erik picked up putting his right paw on my left foot and left on my right foot super fast once he realised there were two paw options. I take the target away as soon the dog lifts the wrong paw, before they can put it on the target. They picked it up fast.

It's okay, I think I've found it. Do you want to explain, with results of proper scientific research, what is the problem with line breeding? My answer is no, I don't want to. Because I can't imagine how I could produce anything that would change minds that are already made up and I have no interest in entering into a discussion about it here. There IS scientific evidence that shows effective population size for some breeds at least is alarmingly low compared to the census number. Seeing as that is something I can and should verify, you can find a paper on it here: http://www.genetics.org/content/179/1/593.full Table 3 is particularly interesting. However, there is nothing to verify in what I said originally. It was obviously an opinion, which I am not obliged to explain to you or the rest of the forum. Nor am I obliged to refrain from sharing opinions if I don't wish to explain why I hold them. If you want to know why I hold them you may ask politely and I reserve the right to abstain from answering if that is what I want to do. I hope this is understood and respected. And I hope for everyone's sake that it is understood that just because someone may not want to share with a particular audience why they hold an opinion it won't be automatically assumed that they DON'T KNOW WHY THEY HOLD IT and therefore have no business sharing it publicly?? Seriously? That is a fair distance from fair in my world. I said you don't have to be a geneticist to be uneasy about line breeding, and you don't. I know plenty of people who are not, yet consider this a BIG concern. What I said stands. If, as I believe, there is concern about line breeding in potential pedigree dog owners, then whether you believe it is a problem or not doesn't enter into it, really. That is all I was saying, and it's my opinion. Take it or leave it. Doesn't bother me either way.

It's not black and white IMO, because 'ethical' is interpreted differently by different people. What you consider ethical is not the same as what someone else considers ethical. Who is right? How can you tell? Jed, I have no idea what you are talking about, sorry. I don't have acres of time to check back on threads. If you wish me to verify something you will have to be more explicit. Thanks.

Big win for Erik this week. He has earned off leash privileges around our cleaners. This is something I never thought we would achieve. Major milestone, and he has far exceeded all my expectations. :) I was so chuffed with him. And a couple of weeks ago Kivi walked past the dogs he hates most on our walking routes in a heel without barking back at them or lunging at their fence even though they were going off at him. This is the dogs that used to have him beside himself and almost hysterical when we were still a good 70m from their yard and they weren't even in the yard half the time. Very proud of him. He only really had one thing that got him so wound up and that was it. Walking past them calm and in control was a pretty special moment.

Choosing a 'side' simplifies the issue. Ethical vs unethical? It's not black and white IMO. Not by any means. When you make it black and white, people are going to find other people have put them on the wrong side of the fence. No wonder they are wary of letting others know of their activities.

Erik ate a baited fish hook. $1200 and 2 days later he came home stitched up and the hook in a little plastic container we have kept to remind of us of the horror of abandoned fish hooks. If it hadn't been Erik it could have been a wild animal that doesn't have a loving owner to rush them to hospital. A little while ago I had the joy of cleaning up maggoty vomit. Goodness knows what Kivi had found in the minute he was out of sight, but apparently his stomach rejected it. It was the single most revolting thing I have ever had to clean up. Vomit is disgusting enough without consisting entirely of dead maggots floating in stomach juices. Kivi was pretty sorry for himself for about an hour there until he had brought up the last of it. I hope it gave him a conditioned aversion to maggoty things.

I think I hit a nerve or something. I didn't know very much about her at the time and she knew nothing about me. I know I get short-tempered sometimes when people are critical of science for whatever reason, and get on the defensive before I bother to find out if they are an armchair expert blowing steam or actually do have something useful to say. I probably sounded like an armchair expert blowing steam to her. She's not keen on teaching dogs to tug with food. I would do it again exactly the same way in a heartbeat. I loved the results and still love them. I learnt it from Ken Ramirez. He knows a thing or two about learning theory and secondary reinforcements, let me tell you! I also used it to recover Erik's tugging after I'd managed to poison it pretty badly. It took less than a week, which is pretty phenomenal considering I'd already spent months on it without the food and progress had been slow. Erik is a Swedish Vallhund. They fill the same niche as a corgi, really, but are Scandinavian and a bit older, I think. Corgis are pretty awesome, but Valls are better. ;) You should have seen some of those Valls at the herding day. The quietest, sweetest Vall I know got in with those sheep and became a little monster, chasing and bailing them up against the fence and getting right in underneath them, utterly fearless. Valls and corgis are of the same ilk, but Valls are IMO smarter and more agile and a bit more independent. And possibly have a bit more attitude! I have come across Amy Cook in my travels. She seems pretty sensible and knowledgeable. Good luck with your surgery. We'll be thinking of you.

I think the two are inexorably linked. You don't need to be a population geneticist to be uneasy about the pedigree dog world's love affair with line breeding and popular sires. How are you going to market purebred dogs without justifying common breeding practices?

Yeah, it was a shame I couldn't go. No doubt I would have got plenty out of it. Probably would have resolved the vague twitchiness I have about Fenzi. Some time ago I was slightly (only slightly, I swear!) critical on someone's FB of a blog post of hers because I felt it put too much mysticism into play. There's a lot of mysticism in dog-human play in the training world that doesn't need to be there and IMO doesn't help anyone play with their dog, but maybe that's just how I think. I didn't know Denise was watching. She came down on me kinda hard for claiming to teach Kivi to tug using food. It was probably warranted seeing as someone asked for a video of what he was like before that and the only one I had Denise thought was a terrible example of me tugging, whereas what I had for the 'after' was great human tugging and all I'd done was use food to train an out. I couldn't say she was wrong, 'cause I don't know, but I don't think she was entirely right, either. I think we managed to iron everything out, but I can't say I am as open to her as I was before that exchange. I wasn't especially prepared for having my early tugging brutally critiqued by her! At any rate, we had fun in Victoria this weekend trying herding and tracking. We learnt about nose work, but didn't get a chance to try it as we had to head back to Sydney. The boys were for the most part great.

Kivi and Erik both learned to target with their heads. It was hard going, particularly for Erik who has a natural aversion to movement over his head (short cattle dog thing?). I filmed it, but didn't have time to make a video out of it. It wasn't very nice clicker training. I pushed them because I can and they'll get over it, but I wish I had taught it at the same time as I taught a nose target, because then it would have been easier to shape. After years of nose targeting I didn't have much to work with. I also got Erik lifting his hind leg higher and holding it for a moment by introducing a raised target. Now I can click the act of him lifting his leg high rather than the step back. Making progress.

Actually, there is evidence it may alter temperament. I think all the studies have been retrospective, but there is enough data there to raise the possibility IMO.

The dynamics can be tricky to interpret. Some dogs when they are socially conflicted and have been told off default to play behaviour, and if the other dog runs they may well follow and the situation can deteriorate quite quickly. It's hard to call a dog off chasing something. It takes a lot of practice, even if they are just playing. Some large dogs learn that they don't have to listen to small dogs. They can do whatever they like because the small dog is too small to stop them. I often find myself very wary around large breed adolescents. I've seen a fair few at the dog park that are bullies just because they can do what they like and the consequences are not significant. Then there is the possibility that the dog is just doing a routine greeting, gets told off, and snarks back. It is entirely possible to teach a dog to do something else instead of snarking back, but maybe it would be easiest to just not let him greet small dogs. Unless they come right up to him. Many probably don't like it and I doubt he likes getting snarked at. It's only going to teach him to snark at them first, and then you will have a much more frustrating and difficult problem.