Salukifan

It's not about breeding, it's about behaviours of both the desexed and undesexed dog in that situation. You make out like entire animals are monsters. Desexing is not a cure all for aggression or any other form of bad behaviour... training is We went through this when the ACT was establishing its first dog parks. Initial proposal was no entire dogs allowed. After a discussion, the position was changed. If you rescue a dog from the pound, you can place any conditions you like on its rehoming as far as I'm concerned. However when dogs are deprived of good homes due to ignorance or prejudice, that's hardly a good result for the dogs is it? And if the rescue is desexing, where's the breeding risk there? Lots of misunderstanding about breeders, some of it fuelled by the less reputable amongst our ranks. Both breeders and rescues tend to be judged by the worst behaviour of each.

I think the general rule of thumb is to avoid having dogs too similar in age, gender or size. If I wanted a larger, active dog for dog sports, I'd suggest a femaie German Shorthaired Pointer - temperamentally more trainable than most Pointers IMO and I'm confident that they'd handle a Stafford well enough.

To use another example: Why would you want to train your dog never to leave your yard when you can shut the gate? My idiot next door neighbour tried this one. Dog was hit by a car. Training not to do something is always a challenge.

Since we are talking about "ideals", let me express mine. I don't punish my dogs for expressing unwanted natural behavior that I can, with simple management, prevent. My young Whippet would hassle my 15 year old poodle while he ate because that's what dogs do. Pack orders are heirarchies not communes. The only way I'm going to train that young dog NOT to do it is by using aversives. And I think aversives should be a case of last resort. He knows that he's not allowed to do it because I stop it happening if he tries. But if I wasn't there? It would be quite different - dogs are good situational learners. So I avoid conflict around food by feeding the young dog in a crate and supervising the oldest dog so that he doesn't have to worry about being hassled. You want to train your dog "not to do something" while you're distracted. The ONLY chance you have is to make the consequences for the dog so unpleasant, that' he's actually going to avoid the behaviour in ANY circumstances.. what is might happen is that the dog will avoid the aversive, leave his food and the cat will scoff it. Is that the outcome you want? Alternatively, the dog might see that cat approaching, associate the cat's approach with unpleasant consequences anticipate the aversive and attack the cat to prevent its application. Is that an ideal result? You really need to think through the consequences of attemping to extinguish a natural canine behavioural response to competition for food - sometimes the consequences are not what you aimed to achieve.

You got free advice from a well respected professional in the first response in this thread.

AFAIK ..grabbing a front leg is done to overbalance/roll the opponent ...to expose the throat ......so ,a bit more strategy ... It's also a crippling move. Dogs don't fight well on three working legs.

There are always individuals within breeds that don't display characteristics common to that breed. But the whole point of breeds is to increase the likelihood of certain desireable characteristics being inherited. It's entirely possible that your dog is not offended by inappropriate behaviour (in his eyes) by small dogs. You would be unwise to assume that he'll feel the same way about every dog or behave the same way when mature. I know a certain entire male Stafford who didn't bat an eyelid at a certain young male Whippet pup cannoning off his side as they walked along. If he'd had the capacity to roll his eyes, I'm sure he would have. I don't assume for a moment that the Stafford feels the same way about mature dogs doing it and neither does his owner.

An ounce of prevention IS worth a ton of cure. There is a lot of thinking amongst dog trainers that resource guarding is a hard wired behaviour than cannot be "trained out" but only managed. It's already been pointed out to you that correcting for the behaviour and removing the resource can actually exacerbate the problem. Short of allowing your cats to approach his bowl and madly rewarding lack of reaction, I'm at a loss to recommend anything that won't potentially create more harm than good. And of course, what happens when you aren't next to that food bowl will be a whole different set of circumstances anyway. I dont' allow any of my dogs to interfere with each other's meals.. ever. I really don't see what's so "bandaid" about it.

I think you need to consider the 'risk' any dog poses to other dogs in the context of three things: 1. Level ofreactivity – how easy is it to trigger aggression (for whatever reason) in your dog. 2. Bite threshold – how easily will the dog bite if it reacts. 3. Level of bite inhibition – how hard dog will bite if it bites. On top of that we add mental and physcial characteristics such as tenacity, size, power etc to give you the breed standard. And we breed for them. So all these things have been selectively bred for to greater or lesser degrees by man in dog breeds developed for different functions. The biggest error humans make is to forget that all dogs are not alike in these factors. Clearly, prey hunting or dogs of fighting ancestry have been selected to trigger to aggression easily IF the right stimulus is presented. That level is going to be a lot lower in certain circumstances than for breeds where any form of aggression is undesirable and has been selected out. Some dogs have been specifically bred to use their mouths –retrievers, heeling dogs, dogs that catch prey. Some dogs have been bred not to bite hard – you don't want your gundog bringing back your dinner with it chewed to bits anymore than you want a traditional companion breed taking pieces out of you. On the other hand, your sighthound needs to grab that prey and hang on or kill it – a hard bite, when the dog bites is a good thing. Ditto for dogs of fighting ancestry and herding breeds who use their mouths. Now we take all these dogs down to the dog park, turn them lose and wonder why they do exactly what they were bred to do… Knowledge of what your dog was bred to do, understanding of their levels of reactivity, what triggers them, how easily they'll bite and how hard they'll bite is essential for managing your dog in any situation. I find with the Whippets, that they don't bite easily but if they snap, they will mean it and it won't be gentle. So if you take your dog of fighting ancestry down to the dogpark, don't wonder why it will react to behaviour IT perceives an offence and if it finishes, ices and puts the little sprinkles on any dog it perceives to have offended. I find the SBTs are fine with dogs that don't question their behaviour. If they get a negative reaction, that's when the trouble can start. Human ignorance is what causes the problem here. Or human beings thinking that you can fundamentally alter any of those three factors beyond a certain degree. And of course human ignorance extends to mixing breeds that have differing levels of those three factors, creating unpredictable outcomes and selling them to owners who have no idea what they're taking on. Ditto for irresponsible breeders who breed purebred dogs with no thought to allowing characteristics long culled in the breed to creep back in. Hard mouthed gundogs and human aggression in dogs of fighting ancestry are two dangerous cases in point.

Either feed the pup in a crate or lock the cat up when the pup is eating. Far better to prevent this behaviour than deal with any fallout. Dogs shouldn't be expected to understand or comply with human notions about sharing. If the cat isn't heeding your dogs very clear warning signal to back off then a snap is the logical next step. Your dog is not a jerk but following appropriate dog etiquette. Sadly, your cat lives by another, feline, set of rules.

Of course blaming the breeder is an easy to absolve yourself of any responsiblity for your dog's condition. Allowing your puppy to free exercise with bigger dogs for as long as it wanted in a public dog park could potentially lead to ligament problems for a start. Yes, there are definitely congenital hip issues but exercise and nutrition also play a part. However if the breeder blew them off, then I can understand their resentment. With ambassadors like that, no wonder the purebred dog world has a poor PR record.

FHRP wants me to call me next Whippet Lionel :cool:

Have you had any visitors to your property handling your dogs? it could be transmitted on hands.

2 Whippet and one Sighthound Specialties: One first and two seconds in his class for Dodger - very happy with that :)

Yep, just begging for trouble. Speaking of which I'd not give a dog a 'naughty' name.... asking for the dog to live up to it. Agree with this, I have a Mab, and she is exactly like her namesake, a mischievous stirrer of the worst kind. My Artful Dodger IS a thief - that's bad enough

Yep, just begging for trouble. Speaking of which I'd not give a dog a 'naughty' name.... asking for the dog to live up to it.

This. Some names are 'wrong' in Whippets for this reason too.

Didn't someone here have a dog named Roadkill? Sounds dreadful but considering that's what they thought he was when they stopped the car to check, it seemed rather appropriate. And heaven knows the dogs don't care.

If someone told you that there's every chance that Pepper might maim or kill Roxi, how would you feel about rehoming her then? If she's going to live in fear every day of her life of Pepper having a go at her, how is that not cruel. Get someone in to tell you what's going on. I appreciate that you are not getting the advice you seem to be seeking but here's the facts. Many many experienced SBT breeders would not attempt to keep two bitches so close in age together and risk a serious fight. It happens. Dogs die. Yes, I appreciate that you love your pets but you've made a very challenging choice of two dogs to keep together. If you'd asked up front about it, you'd have gotten advice not to do it. Now its up to you to get some help to make sure that this does not end in disaster for either dog OR you if you intervene in a fight. And I'd be remiss if I attempted to sugar coat this in any way. Heed the warnings, if not from me then from Sandra 777 who is an SBT breeder and has given the same advice.

The Shear Magic ones are good. Or better still, get a Dremmel.

Dislikes: "Tough" names on dogs of "tough" breeds... nice work negatively stereotyping your dog. Anything cliched for that breed... Whippets called Devo and Poodles called Fifi are a dime a dozen. Other than that, if you can yell it at 80 decibels while running frantically, fill your boots.

This may be self evident to a lot of us but you're not feeding them both from the same bowl are you? Feed them separately, preferably not in the same immediate area. Different rooms is a good start or one inside and one out. And get that help.

Two young female Staffords.... not a choice I would have made. Dogs don't do "nasty". Are they just playing rough or is there more going on? Very hard to tell from your description. There will be a reason for this behaviour and my advice to you is to summon an experienced dog behaviour professional and be quick about it. There is potential for this to end very badly for one of both of your dogs. There are no equals in the dog world. One or the other will be the boss of the pair and by treating them equally, you are potentially making it worse. Get help. Rehoming Roxi might be something you need to consider if the professional identifies aggression between the pair. You do understand that SBTs can be more prone to dog aggression than many other breeds I hope.

There's heaps of advice and opinon on the internet about dogs and most of it is emotive and uninformed. The simple answer to any question of ethics is to seek guidance from those who actually know what they're talking about and few internet sites will assist there. No point in expecting anything different.

The farmers groups can simply invest in a few of these. Bye bye spy drones... a Predator drone will solve the problem. :)