Shy Dogs Are Dogs That Were Not Properly Socialised?

[sidoney]

Some people DO breed for temperament. As well as health, conformation, etc. It's not all one-or-the-other.

[Sarah L]

Sidoney, we know some people do and most try to but how well they can judge this is a different matter. There is also a large percentage who do not. I think the biggest culprits of this are puppy farmers who you and I both hate so much. They breed for what is fashionable and what is the IN dog of the moment. I recently went to a dog show and found that there were a lot of dogs there with issues that the breeders either did not know how to fix or chose not to, they were also the same people who when asked are you going to keep breeding this dog said yes because it was the best dog they had. Don't get me wrong I also know some breeders who do work very hard to change temperaments when there is a problem I just find there is not enough of them doing this.

[Vickie]

Testing Dogs before any Breeding was done could start to turn some of these Genetic based problems around.

This line reminded me of something...I know a couple of breeders whose general opinion/practice is not to go overboard with a heap of socialisation & training with any dog who will be bred from for it's first couple of years. The purpose of this is so that they can, as close as practical, see the raw genetics they are breeding. It's kind of like they are testing them by not testing them if that makes sense.

I also think it's entirely possible for a dog to grow up with very little exposure to the world & still bounce out solid as a rock. I have see a few working dogs like this, grow up on isolated farms, never been in a car or met a heap of people & just take everything in their stride when faced with it. They have also produced progeny with the same ability. To me, this is good genetics but I realised will be frowned upon by some & not practical for others.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Vickie

[Staranais]

Something topical I learnt in a vet school lecture the other day!

Shyness is apparently one of the most heritable temperament traits in dogs, i.e, it's one of the temperament traits that a dog is most likely to pass on to its offspring. Which makes breeding from a shy dog a pretty silly idea, as statistically speaking the puppies will be more likely to inherit the fearfulness than to inherit any of the dog's more useful temperament traits.

They also told us that researchers have found it reasonably easy to breed genetically "shy" lines of huskies and genetically "nervous" lines of pointers. Some of these poor dogs are so fearful that no amount of socialisation and habituation will make them comfortable in new situations or make them happy to interact with their human handlers, and it's all due to their genetics.

So while I'd never underestimate the importance of socialisation, genetics also often plays a huge role in whether a dog will be bold or fearful.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Amhailte

[Rom]

I also think it's entirely possible for a dog to grow up with very little exposure to the world & still bounce out solid as a rock. I have see a few working dogs like this, grow up on isolated farms, never been in a car or met a heap of people & just take everything in their stride when faced with it. They have also produced progeny with the same ability. To me, this is good genetics but I realised will be frowned upon by some & not practical for others.

Thats a very interesting point Vickie.

It struck a chord with me because last night I read through the entire Socialisation vs Neutralisation thread. I wonder if in a sense, these dogs were actually neutralised in that they were allowed to develop a lot of confidence in a restricted/limited environment before they were exposed to the outside world and in that sense everthing else already had a neutral value? Also because they were working dogs, their drives had already been developed and they had been allowed expression of them to reach drive satisfaction....so this presented an area in their mind where they could remain confident and thus be able to naturally prevent themselves from expression of negative drives?

ETA: On the flip side, we can all think of examples of working breeds that are kept in the backyard who are socialised and to a certain extent are prevented expression of their natural drives who are very reactive.....mmmm. Good pondering point! Perhaps some of what we attribute to genetics is not really genetics at all.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Rom

[sidoney]

Shyness is apparently one of the most heritable temperament traits in dogs

Hm, that's interesting and a very good thing to know. I never knew that. Thanks.

[Staranais]

You're welcome.

[Lablover]

Something topical I learnt in a vet school lecture the other day!

Shyness is apparently one of the most heritable temperament traits in dogs, i.e, it's one of the temperament traits that a dog is most likely to pass on to its offspring. Which makes breeding from a shy dog a pretty silly idea, as statistically speaking the puppies will be more likely to inherit the fearfulness than to inherit any of the dog's more useful temperament traits.

They also told us that researchers have found it reasonably easy to breed genetically "shy" lines of huskies and genetically "nervous" lines of pointers. Some of these poor dogs are so fearful that no amount of socialisation and habituation will make them comfortable in new situations or make them happy to interact with their human handlers, and it's all due to their genetics.

So while I'd never underestimate the importance of socialisation, genetics also often plays a huge role in whether a dog will be bold or fearful.

Does anyone else remember one, of the fox studies?

[sidoney]

You mean, where the Russian scientists bred tame foxes?

[Sarah L]

A woman who owned one of our local pet stores back home in Scotland did wildlife rescue. She rescued young fox cubs who's mothers had been killed in the fox hunting, she ended up by accident to tame two cubs which she kept and who went everywhere with her and spent there days curled up in beds behind the counter in the shop while she worked. She said it was a very difficult thing to tame them and it all depended on what age she got them at. She also said that she did not recommend this but these two in particular just bonded with her so much but it still did not make the task an easy one. To reliese them would have meant certain death as they looked upon her as mother. She did try and reliese them once and they followed her back 3 miles to her car. She then realised she had to take responability for them. They both lived with her until old age took them away. She did say this was quite strange for a fox to do this with a human. Not that this has much to do with this subject but just thought you all might like to hear the story

[Kelpie-i]

PDTS: do agree that shy dogs can be genetic or a learned behaviour. Learned behaviour is easier to overcome than genetic but genetic behaviour is not impossible to modify to a certain degree of manageability

I don't believe that we can actually modify behaviour that's genetic, but rather disguise it with other behaviours. Anything that's genetic is pretty much hard wired and impossible to modify IMO.

I like to term this as “bandage” training, others may call it "building block" training. It's pretty much like wrapping a tone of tape over a leaky hose. The weakness will always remain deep in the system but is hidden under all the layers of continuous training, desensitisation and counter-conditioning work which needs to be ongoing for the rest of the dog's life.

[Erny]

It's pretty much like wrapping a tone of tape over a leaky hose. The weakness will always remain deep in the system but is hidden under all the layers of continuous training, desensitisation and counter-conditioning work which needs to be ongoing for the rest of the dog's life.

Excellent analogy Kelpie-i and I am in complete agreement.

[bridgie_cat]

love that bit of info about "shyness" being easily inherited! If breeders knew this perhaps they would not be so quick to breed for a few v poor temp but pretty dogs, in hopes of fixing temp with a dif dog later...

although - I think there is potential for such a study to miss the mother's impact on the temps... you would have to do matings of shy dogs to outgoing bitches and see what the pups were like... OR shy dog + bitch and then swap the pups onto an outgoing bitch for raising... the results of such experiments would be very interesting... perhaps they did this anyways to come up with a scientificly sound result...

[Sarah L]

Kelpie-i and Erny I am not sure what you are trying to say? Do you mean that no one in the world of dogs can modify genetic behaviour, and that if they have success in changing shyness or fearfulness in dogs and that the dog does not display the behaviour to a greater extent any more that it is simply bandaged or they have simply disguised the behaviour. If this is the case what other behaviours does the dog disguise it's self in to cover the shyness or fearfullness?

Also what do you do when you come across dogs like this in your training?

Edited September 6, 2007 by pinnacle dts

[Erny]

If the shyness is genetic then the propensity for it to arise to the surface is always there.

[sidoney]

It's been shown that human neural pathways can be changed somewhat during brain growth and development ... I would suggest that there may be some likelihood of something like that happening in the dog brain, although to what extent I don't know ... and I wonder whether permanent changes can be made in some aspects of the dog's behaviour/reactions/etc.

Edit: Perhaps "fear periods" may coincide with times that these changes occur more ... and strong fear, especially, has the ability to make permanent changes in the brain.

Edited September 6, 2007 by sidoney

[Erny]

It's been shown that human neural pathways can be changed somewhat during brain growth and development ...

I have read that the socialisation and learning experiences we expose our pups to in the critical period actually does have an effect (or affect, depending on whether the experiences have been + or -) so profound that it alters the shape of the brain as it develops. The shape of the brain is 'set' (for want of better word) once the dog reaches 16 weeks of age.

There is I expect an amount of development that we can (and need) to produce in pups especially in an effort to counter genetic propensity. But I don't believe the genetic component (the "leaky hose" as in Kelpie-i's post) is altered and that under duress the genetic tendancy is likely to re-appear. The difference will be that with broad and good social experiences (the "tape" as in Kelpie-i's post) inside that critical period, the reactivity (in this instance, shyness) threshold may be lowered than if those social experiences were absent.

Edited September 6, 2007 by Erny

[Rom]

It's been shown that human neural pathways can be changed somewhat during brain growth and development ... I would suggest that there may be some likelihood of something like that happening in the dog brain, although to what extent I don't know ... and I wonder whether permanent changes can be made in some aspects of the dog's behaviour/reactions/etc.

Edit: Perhaps "fear periods" may coincide with times that these changes occur more ... and strong fear, especially, has the ability to make permanent changes in the brain.

There is a DVD that I hired from Blockbusters called "What The Bleep Do We Know" that covered this phenomenon of changing neural pathways in humans. It was quite interesting....it basically said that its difficult at first to form a new neural pathway, but the more the new pathway is used, the stronger it gets. The less the old pathway is used the weaker it gets. The stronger the new pathway gets, the more we are likely to default to its use as opposed to the old neural pathway. Kind of like forming a new habit or changing an old one maybe....its not always easy, but it can be done.

I guess that dogs would be limited in this capacity because they don't have deductive reasoning or an analytical mind and the ways in which we can communicate with them are limited.

[JulesP]

Shyness, softness whatever you want to call it isn't all bad! My sooky border is the most lovely pet. Slighly challenging for dog sports but he is primarily a pet. He isn't timid enough btw that he would snap at someone. He loves everyone.

He went to prepuppy school and has been going to dog club ever since, so fairly good socialisation. He is still quite jumpy at noises and gets very upset if told off. He is quite anxious in new places too. And the licking! OMG. Everything gets that submissive lick! Including the window if I am inside!

[MrsD]

Shyness, softness whatever you want to call it isn't all bad! My sooky border is the most lovely pet. Slighly challenging for dog sports but he is primarily a pet. He isn't timid enough btw that he would snap at someone. He loves everyone.

He went to prepuppy school and has been going to dog club ever since, so fairly good socialisation. He is still quite jumpy at noises and gets very upset if told off. He is quite anxious in new places too. And the licking! OMG. Everything gets that submissive lick! Including the window if I am inside!

This post reminds me of something I was thinking of yesterday when I read this thread - to what degree are shyness, fearfulness, submissivness, soft nature etc the same? Is a dog that has a soft nature automatically fearful? Or one that is submissive automatically shy? Are they basically the same thing or merely something that displays the same symptoms, but with different causes?