Kavik

It will make you either swear off them for life or want a dozen of them :laugh: Just watched it - it was awesome! They were so enthusiastic :laugh: Their carriage and body language looks very different to the show line dogs I've seen

I didn't see the working Springer video - off to watch it now!

You are right, nothing can replace actual work. But if we don't do something and say it is just too hard and too far removed and not the same, we risk possibly losing functionality altogether, not to mention how appearances change too.

Unquestionably... but I still find it highly stylised, mostly a breach of the rules (contact between dog and handler occurs frequently) and not in the interests of the dog, chiropracticly speaking. A dog has peripheral vision way better than ours.. why it has to have its head around your leg and to be looking into your eyes to be considered to be "paying attention" beats the hell out of me. But it's here to stay and obedience will go the way of agility with it being less about something everyone can try with a dog and more and more about 'dogs for the job'. That's if it ain't already. Herding breeds now dominate and the original breeds whose obedience it tested are fading into the background. When I started out in obedience with Zoe 12 years ago, the majority of dogs at the highest level in my club were Golden Retrievers. Watching Crufts agility, DWD and flyball I would say BCs made up the majority of dogs. That they have an ABC (anything but collie) class in agility tells you something!

Testing for function requires time and access to the right envirionment - challenging for many people. Testing for INSTINCT on the other hand may be more practical and certainly some instinct tests are available. Mary Roslin Williams (Espinay's second quote) - what an inspirational breeder. Nice to see it acknowledged by someone of that ilk that it's not only the show ring that shapes the direction of breeds and not always in the direction of orginal function. Even dog sports themselves are changing.. and as they change the dogs that excell in them are changing too. Kavik competition obedience had its origins in the tests for working gundogs. I try to imagine someone walking across a paddock with a shotgun broken over their right arm and a dog wrapped around their leg staring into their face and it just doesn't work for me. ;) That is a good point. Obedience and agility have certainly changed a lot too.

If there is a need in potential homes for working ability, then the working ability will remain. There is no need to regulate for it. However, if as you imagine it eventuated that a breeder group in Australia UK or USA (or any other country which feels the need to regulate everything), decided working ability/integrity was lacking, then such breeder groups could obtain dogs with working ability/integrity from the dogs' countries of origin. It is no problem. :) Maybe then you are lucky in that with LGD they are actually still doing their original job in their country of origin. Many breeds are not so lucky. Should we just let the working abilities of the other breeds die out because they are not used any more? Wouldn't that be a shame? What about the breeds where people are looking for working ability but find it difficult with Australian bred dogs due to the lack of any way to test these dogs? Should we always have to look to import if we are interested in working ability? (apart from the breeds that still do their work here - I am quite lucky with Kelpies in this way).

TSD, Did you see the gundog display at Crufts? Would something like that be something that could be used? Able to take direction, retrieve, over an obstacle etc? Maybe a gunshot test too?

If breeders maintain they are the guardians for the breed for the future, IMO this means function as well as appearance. If breeders are not willing to do the training with their dogs required to at least show they have a certain basic amount of ability to do what they are bred for, IMO they should not be breeding as they are doing the breed no favours. Sheridan, I did realise last night that there were a few terrier breeds that couldn't be tested using earthdog, Airedales and SCWT among them. With multipurpose dogs it is more difficult. Not sure what to suggest for them.

Hi lilli Seeing that it is so difficult to test for function in LGDs, how do you suggest we keep the working ability/integrity of LGDs? Should we require that the only people breeding them actually use them for their original purpose? Or that a certain amount of their dogs go to working homes so we can be sure they can still work? How do you suggest we stop them from just becoming big teddy bears and losing their working ability if they are only bred by people who have them for the show ring?

TSD Yes there is always the issue of sport being stylised vs actual work. I guess I see two main reasons why testing for function is important. One is the reason this is being debated on my other forum. With GSDs there is a show/working split in type. In other countries, working ability can be tested in various sports that include bitework (and in some countries this is compulsary for them to be bred), but in Australia this is very difficult to do due to politics and now law as well in some states. So it is difficult even for people with working line dogs or choosing working line dogs to know if they have or are getting a dog that can work. If there was recognised testing than people would have a better idea of the working ability of their dogs, and for people who say their show dogs can still work, they could demonstrate this. The other is to help with the problems of breeding for extreme features, as extreme features will not allow a dog to do its job properly. And I think people who breed dogs are responsible for keeping them true to temperament/ability type as well as physical type.

TSD Do you think then that field trials are too difficult to use as a test for breed function considering the dedication needed to trial a dog?

Yes LGD do present a challenge when thinking of testing for function - good point about it being specific to the environment, otherwise I would have suggested the same test as the GSDs but noting that they wouldn't expect to do the play drive aspect (tugging). Working tests are obviously not the same as actually working the dog, but in cases where working the dog is not actually possible any more it is the only thing I can think of to try to prove that the dog has at least some ability to do its original function. Your example with Border Collies and agility though is not quite accurate, although some people may be breeding Border Collies specifically for agility and this may change those lines of Border Collies, agility is not a test of the dog's original function, herding trials would be (there are several different types of herding/sheepdog trials, a topic in itself!), so those breeders are not breeding for function. Don't know as much about Labs and field trials, will leave that one to someone with those breeds.

That is a good point. I don't know much about those breeds. Any suggestions?

Fair enough about the staffords - they are the hardest to find a test for. However the spring pole was the closest I could find that would legally replicate their original job. But with the whippet, what if it was a rabbit hide or fake fur etc? Would she chase it then? I am not saying we have to use the tests as they currently stand, if there would be a way to improve them to make them more realistic or a better test.

I am editing OP to include the suggestions :)

If you do not feel you could test breed function well with current existing sports/activities/tests or ones found overseas which do not exist in Australia yet - what would you suggest? What would be your ideal scenario to test breed function?

Not all of these events exist here yet properly either :laugh: This is just me throwing ideas around about how we can test for breed functionality, made me think about it after a thread on another forum.

To do a generalised test like that would then extend outside guarding breeds. Bitework has its own merits as a tester, there are things you cannot prove without seeing the dog bite. There is more to it then pure prey work as well and in that ideal the dogs can be mated to produce different types of working animals. Within some breeds there is a difference between civil working animals and sport animals - you dont mix the two in some instances as it doesnt produce good pups. Plenty of dogs out there with a lot of prey, but woeful bites, and conversely those with a lower prey but fabulous bite and guarding skills. If we keep accepting alternatives our quality will slip, which it has in a lot of cases. That Korning test on paper looks to have a lot of merit, but from that video ... I wouldn't touch that dog to work with a 10 foot pole I agree that a test with bitework would be ideal, but how to get that accepted? The idea being thrown around is start with Korning test and then proceed to Korung which has bitework.

You could change the lure to be a fake fur tug or similar. Is there a way you could rig the lure to move like prey? Surely there should be a way to adapt it to test for function. This is the video of the temperament test under discussion for GSDs - if you watch it the section on testing for prey drive uses a pretend furry little animal, that might work for testing sighthounds too?

With all these threads on breed health and functionality, I thought I'd start a thread on ways we can test for functionality in breeds. For some this is more obvious than others, some breeds are still used for original work or there are sports which simulate original work, with others their work is illegal so we may need to be more creative in testing for correct temperament/functionality. Obviously I am talking about the breeds with a working function, not those who were bred stricly as companions. So the easy ones: herding breeds - herding tests/trials Terriers - earthdog sighthounds - lure coursing, maybe look at the prey drive section in Korning test to see if it could be adapted somehow? gundogs - the various gundog sports, according to the breed's function sled dogs - sled dog events or weight pull Protection breeds - on another forum we are discussing the best way to go about this as IPO is difficult in this country due to perception and laws (and lack of clubs) - so we are currently looking at alternatives that would be accepted - one idea is a temperament test that is done in Sweden and measures stability, prey drive, play drive, sociability, startle and recovery, reactions to strange people and objects and noise etc and does not include bitework For the more dificult ones Scenting dogs - nosework maybe http://www.funnosework.com/ ETA: Tracking :) cart pulling dogs - weight pull Dallies and other endurance breeds - Endurance test Companion dogs - general temperament test - handleability, sociability, nerve, maybe startle and recovery? The really hard ones - bull breeds and large game hunters whose original purpose is illegal - maybe weight pull http://www.iwpa.net/index.html or one with spring pole? (look down to hang time) http://www.irondog.biz/rules.html which would test gameness Have I missed any?

I think it sounds like you are doing well :) You have only had the pup for a few days, it takes time to build value for the crate. If you are able to have him crated at night and he is settling after a short period and not howling the house down all night long, you are doing fine and he will catch on. Have you ried just randomly throwing treats in there for him to find, leaving the door open? Mine all sleep in their crates at night and will go in on their own during the day sometimes, and are in there for training/competitions/holidays etc

Toy: Min Pin (not that much of a fan of the tinies sorry) Small: Schipperke or JRT or Aussie Terrier or Border Terrier (like them fairly equally) Medium: Kelpie. Most of the dogs I like are in the medium category but Kelpies are my fav :) Also Koolies, Pyrenean Shepherds look interesting, as do German Pinschers Large: Malinois then Groenendael, Dutch Shepherd and GSD Giant: Beauceron if they count :laugh: or Bernese Mountain Dog maybe

Yes. It happened in another agility event too.

Because the park is a very interesting/distracting environment :) you may need to work up to keeping his attention with lots of distractions.

What about teaching him to sit when he gets to the person who calls him? That way he learns what to do to get what he wants (come when called, sit) and he keeps all feet on the floor and doesn't jump on people. (by the way, that is what is required in obedience classes). And sit every time before he gets patted, no pats if he is overexcited and jumping. This is where having him on lead helps (so you can prevent him from visiting if he is overexcited and can get him to sit, and prevent him from jumping), and you need to explain to people what you are trying to do, otherwise (from experience) people will let him jump up and razz him up when patting him. Tell people to only pat him when you say so, when he is sitting, to pat him calmly and low enough so that he is not going to want to jump.