corvus

It's about who's in charge. The leader determines where you go. If you get to pull your handler whereever you want to go, who do you think is in charge? To some dogs a human is simply a brake that slows their travels. I see dogs like that progress round my suburb every day. They don't care about the other end of the lead because they've never been given motivation to or their drives overpower them. That's my point in bold. If you are just a brake, is the dog even thinking about where they stand in relation to you socially? How can it be considered dominant behaviour if all they are doing is being overpowered by their drives? It seems to me that just because we stand on the other end of the leash somehow a dog should magically want to go where we want to go and if they don't they are dominant? What about if they are in the backyard and you want to sit in the sun but they want to go dig up the garden? Does that mean they are dominant? What if they are off leash and you want to walk down the beach but they want to run into the waves? Are they dominant then? What's the difference between wanting to run when they are on leash and wanting to run when they are off leash? I'm asking because I don't get it. I'm doing my zoologist thing by NOT drawing conclusions but by asking questions and looking for answers that make sense to me when I don't understand something. I grew up with a 30kg dog that pulled like a freight train. She was a hardcore dog and regularly beat up on other dogs if they got in her face, but the fact that she pulled was more about her lack of training and the way she had learnt to treat leashes than being a dominant dog, which I'm sure anyone on this board would have called her. I invite you to challenge me, but challenge me with good arguments, not a demand for more experience, which isn't much help to me. I'm easily persuaded by a good argument, which is how I got myself into being so unpopular around here in the first place.

My mother has trained a pretty good recall on her fetch crazy kelpie/boxer using balls and rope toys. It has also really helped her to keep Jill's attention on her, actually, as when she is asked to do something whilst off leash she thinks there might be a game of fetch in it for her. She would do pretty much anything for a game of fetch. She has even discovered a low key way to use fetch as a reward using those cheap little squeaky animal toys you can pick up in supermarkets for about $2. She tosses the toy as a reward, but does it inside where there isn't a lot of room and just tosses it so Jill can catch it from less than a metre away. With less running involved Jill's excitement stays at a more sensible level.

Aww, what a shame! My breeder knew we were both going to be working all day and she was okay with that. I only took one week off. I agree, if I were getting raked over the coals and being told I didn't deserve a puppy every time I spoke to a breeder I'd be inclined to avoid them as well. It's certainly a breeder's right to decide if they want their puppy to go to someone or not, but I don't think it helps to be intensely critical of someone who is actually trying to do the right thing.

Why? There are a lot of theories as to why the do it. Its a unknown environment so the pack status changes. Or it could simple be that the dog has never been taught what to do on a lead, so pulling is just what they've done all their life. Pack status changes? Why? Pulling because they've done it all their life is not really about dominating, though, right? Well, each to their own. If my dogs pull I stop and we don't go again until the pulling stops. I took it one step further by adding a cue. I don't have to stop much anymore as I just have to say "hold up" and pup slows down. I don't need one of his eyes on me for that to work. Is there a reason why you would need the dog to look at you if they are doing it anyway? Uh huh, I totally agree. But is this dominance? Did it even start because of dominance? That was my question. You answered it yourself in the following paragraph with the answer that it was fear. I agree with you. :rolleyes: Okay, but why should the dog respect the leash? If you were a dog, why would you respect a leash? I wouldn't unless someone taught me it was a good idea to. Case in point, our dog Kivi and his "hold up" suggestion. If he heeds it we keep walking, but if he doesn't we stop. This was easy when he was a puppy, of course. A couple of times he's raced off after something else and doesn't hear the "hold up" or doesn't care, and I don't blame him. Ultimately, he respects the leash because he has learnt that tension on the leash results in him going nowhere. If a dog has learnt that tension on the leash results in them going somewhere, then like you say they will get all superstitious about it and think they have to pull to go somewhere in the first place. I'm not trying to attack anyone or any methods here, I'm just thinking out loud and hoping people will answer my musings and provoke further thought.

That's why I'm asking. Okay, I hear you, but what I'm wondering is why is her disregard of you so surprising and clearly disresptecful to you when she is just trying to go where she wants to go in an exciting place? If I were her, I'd be pulling like a freight train as well, especially if it has a history of working, which it probably did to begin with. And I would be ignoring you because frankly you're boring comapared to the rest of the exciting world. That's not an attack on you in particular, just using it as an example. If you are not as interesting than why would the dog pay any attention to you? But is she aggressive because she wants to dominate these dogs or is she aggressive because she wants them to stay away from her and being aggressive has achieved that in the past? I dunno! I wasn't picking on you because I thought I had a better answer. What you said just provoked another thought. But to address a problem really successfully it helps to know why the dog is behaving the way it is. I've never had to deal with this problem, so I'm not going to suggest a different way.

You know, what I don't understand is why a dog would be trying to dominate you on a walk in the first place. Every dog I've ever walked has been pretty intensely focused on exploring and reading the pee-mail. I talk to them a lot and they listen, but they don't bother looking at me when there's so much else going on. They do whatever I suggest if they think it will get them where they want to go. As for other dogs... well, maybe a dog sees another dog while out walking and gets stroppy, but my question is why? Why worry about dominance when you are in neutral territory for the most part and you may well never even get to meet this dog let alone meet it at another stage. And just what is there to want first dibs on when you are out walking? Sorry, off topic perhaps. I was just struck by this thought suddenly.

I wouldn't even want a Mal and I'm a spitz fanatic and strongly attracted to hard breeds! Just not that kind of hard. See, introduce her to Finnish Lapphunds. Everyone thinks Kivi is a Mal, but he's a much more managable size, he's a hopeless softie, dead easy to train adores other dogs and other people, and Lappies are, IMHO, cuter. Plus they love cuddles. I am totally warming up for a harder dog, but I don't want to dump myself in it, which is why I didn't go from a Corgi to a Basenji or something. Raising Kivi has been so good for telling me where I'm going to have problems if I had a harder dog, but with Kivi the problems are never as bad as they could be because he's not very driven and he's very relaxed and amiable. So I've been able to afford to mess up with Kivi and now I know where I will do things differently with something harder. So don't feel bad. If she ended up with a Lappie instead because of your intervention, she would be eternally grateful to you. ETA Never mind, I'm sure she will be happy with a Cav, although that is a big difference to a Mal!

This is just a wild idea that I'm going to throw out there, but perhaps he's ever so vaguely worried about your size or force of your presence? Wild animals when they are unsure of something like to approach from the side or slightly off-center. I can get a fairly good indication how nervy my hare is feeling today by the angle of his approach. If he is feeling very jumpy and is going to take a bit of time to get the courage up to come over, he often goes to the sides and approaches me from such a wide angle that sometimes he sneaks up almost behind me. When he's feeling relatively relaxed and he will quite happily come around in front of me and approach head on. Not quite head on as he's pretty wild anyway, but near to. Obviously dogs do not suffer the same nervyness as wild animals (usually), but have you tried calling him from a crouched position, or with your body turned slightly away from where your eyes are facing? It would be an interesting experiment even if it isn't the answer. With Natural Dog Training, they say if a dog approaches you slightly to the side then they are feeling somewhat tense about you and suggest you work on pushing exercises with them to get them to relax about your size and whatnot.

Well, I think that this person is correct in that technically it is fear leading to aggression more than it is fearful aggression, but fearful aggression is, IMO, a technically correct way to describe the aggression that fear has led to. It's all very silly, though. Communication is useless if other people don't understand what you are talking about. Perhaps if I were in the business I would insist on calling it fearful aggression or fear that may lead to aggression, but when all is said and done if other people think I'm talking about something different to what they would call fear aggression, then what's the point in me using a different term except to flaunt my different view? If that mean I have to explain exactly what I mean when talking to other people that use the other term, then I'm wasting a lot of time and probably annoying people, so I may as well just say fear aggression.

So Tony, what does this mean to your perception of dogs if Mech is right and wolves don't "pack" so much as hang out in families, and there are no "alphas" as such, but parents? Incidentally, Basenjis only come into season once a year. I don't know what you mean about being in a consistent level of drive. It is my understanding that wolves don't even hunt every day, and are not always hunting when they are moving around. Are we talking about prey drive specifically? I honestly think your example of wolf behaviour is a prime example of how dogs and wolves differ, seeing as a wolf would never team up with strange wolves spontaneously and go hunt. They are extremely wary and distrustful of strange wolves unless there is paternity in the offing. At least, that's the impression I got seeing as wolves will kill a trespassing wolf on their territory.

Doesn't sound like a very good quality collar, Corvus ... and if the contact isn't great, it doesn't sound as though it is fitted properly (this in itself would be human error). In addition, it must be a very old or cheaper quality collar if it is activated by sound rather than by vibration. :rolleyes: I know nothing. All I can say is it works after a fashion, but it's not all that nice for him, especially considering he's such a ridiculously frightened dog all the time. He spends a lot of his time pacing or shivering. It's pretty pathetic. OH's parents are your quintessential average dog owner and as far as they are concerned the collar works perfectly. They feel sad every time they put it on him because they know it hurts him, but that's the whole point to them. They leave him things to do and all that, but he's just an anxious dog and needs to bark a lot, poor thing. He has learnt to be quiet when he has it on, though, at least until something really excites him and he forgets.

If you continue to have troubles with him blowing you off, sometimes it's worthwhile starting from scratch and using a new recall word/sound and conditioning it without giving him the chance to blow you off. We have been conditioning a recall with Kivi for about 6 months or so. The idea is that he has an emergency recall and a regular recall. You work on the regular recall the way other people have suggested, and you work on a conditioned recall by always paying up big when he comes. Every time. You want him to know that it means he's going to get something amazing. Practice it everyday in all sorts of surroundings. Use the long line as a backup and only call once. This is Leslie Nelson's method as explained in Really Reliable Recall. It takes a long time, but training a reliable recall any way tends to take a long time. Despite OH's unwitting sabotage of Kivi's recall training, last week OH was dangling roast chicken in front of his nose and had his full attention when I used the ER and he abandoned the chicken and came running to me. It's not as cool as it sounds, though, as he tends to be listening for that recall when there's food around, just waiting for someone to use it because he knows that means he's getting some. He used to leave off playing with other dogs to come to the ER, but then we hit some snags and are building that one back up again. He will now come away from them as long as he's not totally immersed in a hard core play session. Given playing with dogs is his favourite thing in the world, and he is 11 months old and doesn't even hear us half the time, I am content with our progress. And it's a lot cheaper than an e-collar. And eventually you won't be dependent on anything but your voice if all goes to plan.

OH's parents have an electric anti-bark collar for their MinPin and he does yelp when he sets it off. I have no idea if it's a good one or not. He learnt that the barking is what sets it off, but sometimes the contact isn't great and so he'll bark and get nothing then bark and get a zap and cry. I thought they were illegal in every state but WA, but I guess not. I would be worried that it could be set off by one of the other dogs barking? Anyway, it's a moot point if they can't wear collars. Maybe if you crated them all with something super cool that would keep them busy for hours, like marrow bones or raw lamb breast or something? As you are only gone for a few hours a day, I wouldn't be so worried about crating them. Kivi is the size of a BC and stays in our kitchen for 10 hours at a time. The only difference to his activity level is that he gets antsy later on at night. I'm pretty sure he barely moves all day. You could call the council and ask them what their policy on barking dogs is. It always helps to know exactly where you stand. If it were me I'd be hustling them to the park for a good run before leaving, but I see that is a bit problematic for you too. Can you play a fast-paced game of chase and tug with them in the house before you leave?

I guess it might work for some dogs. I once saw a dog on one of those RSPCA shows that it had apparently encouraged to bark MORE, though. Do you give them a good long walk before going out? Tired dogs sleep most of the day. Also, you could give them Kongs or other treat dispensing treats, although with five dogs it might create more trouble, too.

That's pretty interesting, M-J! Rosella taxonomy has been worked over a bit in recent times. I can't find my bird book to check, but it's about 5 years old and lists Yellows as a race of the Crimson, if I remember correctly. And most white-cheeked rosellas, which the Eastern is, are now considered races as well I think. I could be wrong, though.

The biological definition of a species (subject to much discussion) is that they can't breed and produce fertile offspring. So, horses and donkeys although capable of producing mules are different species as mules are sterile. Same deal with lions and tigers. So in that sense it seems correct that wolves and dogs be the same species. Speciation is a really interesting topic, and often quite hard to figure out in the field. Birds, for example, are full of subspecies, but sometimes it's hard to tell when a subspecies can't produce fertile offspring with another subspecies because they don't even occur in the same area and never meet. There have been some surprising hybrid birds found in the wild and rarely does anyone know if the hybrids are fertile.

True Erny, democracies can and do fail the little people. But if you make a lot of noise you can often seem a lot bigger than you are, and attract people to your cause in the process. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but you have to play the game and embrace the system to have a shot. It's hard to make a very effective democracy.

Kivi being 10 months old and cooped up in a small yard with no friends for 10 hours a day, we are constantly wracking our brains for new things for him to do. The soft drink bottles with treats in them and plugged with peanut butter is pretty popular. We also have Kongs, flying saucer-shaped treat dispensers, and sometimes they get iceblocks of frozen stock with treats in it. We have also tried cardboard parcels with treats inside, and getting strips of cloth and tying them into knots with treats inside. This week we have some marrow bones that should keep him busy when he's in the yard. He now goes to doggy day care twice a week, which sure does work. We have neighbours that don't like barking dogs, so have to be all over it. Kivi was fine with a walk and a Kong right up until 2 weeks ago when he decided he would stand in the yard and bark all day. Peculiar, as at that point he was getting more exercise than he's ever had! I think he will settle down soon and be all right again, but doggy day care is pretty awesome.

Hehe, I'm target training with my hare. I've got him touching my finger wherever I put it as long as it's within the safety bubble of areas he's willing to move to without about 5 minutes of assessing if it is safe or not. Ultimately I want to use it to teach him to go into a crate, but first I need a wand or something similar. I can never find anything like that in his cage at 10pm when I'm normally working with him. In the dark. I am slow sometimes.

Here's a cool little page that basically sums up where dogs and wolves stand in taxonomy at the moment with links to papers and important characters: http://www.fiu.edu/~milesk/Genetics.htm It seems I was right and they did use mtDNA, but it explains why they did. The problem with mtDNA is that it is only passed down on the mother's side, so if an individual has all boys, that's the end of the line. They tried to trace back human ancestry through mtDNA at some point and came up with an answer that was clearly not nearly old enough. I don't remember the exact details as I read it several years ago in a very interesting book about Neanderthals. I believe I have met Rob Wayne when I was in LA (unless there are two Rob Waynes in the biology department of UCLA??). He's a pretty cool chap and full of a lot of interesting tidbits about carnivores and genetics. He is also a good person to have on your Trivial Pursuit team! A bit of research popped up recently about chimps and Bonobos and their ability to co operate. The conclusion was that we must have a fair dash of Bonobo characteristics in us to have come as far as we have, because chimps are so distrustful of one another due to their aggressive tendencies that they could never co operate and share. It was all about force and usually that meant no one won in the end. Bonobos, on the other hand, are perfectly successful at co operating to obtain food and then sharing it, even with a complete stranger. It was a very cool experiment.

I think that downplaying things in general is a pretty Australian thing, although we certainly don't have exclusive rights on it. We are laid back and don't want things to get out of hand when they don't need to. I spent about 4 months in LA and a further 2 months stuck in the Mexican wilderness with some of the most low key and sensible Americans I have ever met personally or online. It seemed to me during that time that everything was a Big Deal to them and to them I appeared to be extremely calm and level-headed. Other Americans I met came across hysterical to me a lot of the time. It seemed to me that Australia is much more concerned about safety than they were in California at least, in that here they make laws to stop people doing stupid things and actually enforce them. I think that in recent times Australian law is getting out of hand and the government is basically trying to make everyone behave in a safe manner. Perhaps if people sued at the same rate as Californian citizens they wouldn't need to be so restrictive! At some point, though, you have to stand back and say people have to look after themselves and make their own decisions. On this very forum I've seen arguments for more legislation, so I am thinking it is the community that is driving this change as much as or more than the governement. People in Australia often seem to forget that we live in a democracy and you can achieve a lot by making a song and dance about something. Everyone who matters gets where they are by being voted in by us. They are there to represent us. It's up to us to make it clear to them what will get them votes and what will lose them votes. To ignore us is polictical suicide.

Ah, but Jigsaw, dogs are now considered to be taxonomically a subspecies of wolves. Wolves are Canis lupus and dogs are Canis lupus familiaris. I can't remember what Dingoes are, as they used to be a subspecies of Canis familiaris. I honestly think this bit of taxonomy may have been off the mark. I also sometimes think humans and chimps ought to share a genus name, but that's just me and I'm not a taxonomist. I haven't read the research that prompted this change, but I thought I heard somewhere that it was based on mitochondrial DNA, which would be interesting because last I heard about mtDNA it was considered second rate to nDNA. Anyway, I'm probably wrong.

An interesting thing I've noticed at the dog park I frequent is that the dogs have different ways of greeting each other and interacting and will adjust their behaviour to suit each other. Usually. Penny gets a hello from some of the dogs she likes, but no one tries to play with her. Kivi gets slammed, barged, tripped and play-mauled, but he likes it and I've seen dogs do it to him that don't do it to other dogs. And I've seen him greet some dogs by roaring up to them and throwing his paws around their neck and other dogs he approaches gently and stops short to let them make the first move. He generally knows what he's doing precisely because we go to the dog park a lot and he has learnt that some dogs don't like things that other dogs do like. It's the ones that take advantage of his sweet nature and spend the time shouldering him to the ground every 5 seconds that I don't like much, but it's only happened to us a couple of times and the owners always come in and take their dog away. They only do it to Kivi, though. The dogs that won't put up with it just walk away and are left in peace. We have a good dog park with nice dogs and owners, though.

Aww, look at them sitting all patient and perfect. Such cuties. Looks like snake country, Midol. Not trying to rain on your parade or anything, but Kivi came to his emergency recall yesterday when OH had a handful of roast beef right in front of his nose. Perhaps we will get there yet. Think I've managed to convince OH to check with me before he goes using that ER. Stays are a whole other matter, though. He is still better than Penny, but we don't practice it much. There's no way he'd be holding a stay for more than 5 seconds outside.

African Hunting Dogs wow me in a big time. 95% success rate in hunting!! Crimony! I think they are considered to be about the most social canid on the planet. Spotted Hyenas also have a matriachal society. Female hyenas are on the top when they mate and have an elongated clitoris that acts very much like a penis. They give birth through it! Presumably all that mascularisation (is that a word??) has something to do with dominance. Bush Dogs are also worth checking out for interesting and very social canids, but I think you are right in that Dingoes and perhaps New Guinnea Singing Dogs are where we should be looking.