Greyhound racing Vic is doing a survey

[Two Best Dogs!]

im on phone so hard to paste prob in this new forum style 

 

[Maddy]

It seems like they're looking for a particular answer and given how many of the Save Them All brigade will likely complete the survey, I think it's safe to say that GRV will get the answer they are hoping for. Perhaps it was just bad wording in the survey, but I'm surprised and disappointed that GRV would go anywhere near the "retraining" crap that goes on. All it does is create dogs who are time bombs- without even the ticking to alert new owners to the potential risks.

If reducing prey drive is the goal, perhaps not breeding from dogs who are prey driven maniacs might help? 

[Simply Grand]

Agree Maddy, the only way to stop the problem is to stop breeding and raising dogs specifically to be racing dogs. You can't breed specifically for high prey drive and determination to chase, raise dogs in an isolated kennel environment and then expect them all to retire and go on to live happy, well adjusted lives as pets. 

 

But somehow I don't think the results of the survey will be used to work towards changing that.

[Simply Grand]

I started the survey out of interest but I think the nature of the questions means the answers need to be too black and white. I don't think you can say that all dogs will behave the same given the same experiences, which seems to be what they asking. I think predatory aggression is more innate than that. 

 

There are plenty of ex-racing greyhounds that will run in a race but show no interest in trying to kill prey animals (or other dogs) in a real world situation. There are dogs that you can either encourage or discourage chasing of prey or a lure through training and socialisation as a puppy, and that you can probably also retrain to respond differently when older,and then there are dogs that have the drive to catch and kill prey animals, including other dogs, and it cannot be trained out because it is so strong and so intrinsically rewarding.

 

I don't know enough to know which of the above contributes to the most successful racing dogs but I imagine dogs that are intrinsically motivated AND encouraged to chase the prey (lure or god forbid live bait) perform the best.

 

As I alluded to above, I also think there are problems other than prey drive/ predatory aggression that are likely to occur in dogs born and raised in an isolated kennel environment where they are not exposed to other animals, other dogs, differing environments, novel surroundings and events, home environments, being left alone etc etc etc during vital development and socialisation periods and those issues may be much less visible, but just as real as predatory aggression.

[PossumCorner]

Quite weird is how I see it.  Some non-doggy Uni people doing an ill conceived survey and somehow winning GRV funding.  To what purpose?  And only twelve follow-up interviews to base outcomes/recommendations etc on.  Ummm, no.

[corvus]

The uni people involved are VERY "doggy". GRV is extremely interested in socialisation. I didn't really think the questions had a foregone conclusion. Depends on what your experiences have been with predatory dogs. Racing greyhounds represent a pretty unique sub-population that a lot of people don't really see much of. I know trainers that would answer both ways depending on their experience. Trainers that have a high success rate with greyhounds are systematic in their training and introduce the dogs to the conditions that cause the most distress on a track early on. "Keenness to chase" is highly sought after, and suggests both high motivation to chase, but also plenty of resilience. It's very easy for a dog to have a bad experience on one or more of their early races and suddenly they don't think it's so fun anymore. A dog that is resilient has a better chance of overcoming incidences like another dog running into them or growling at them on the track.