WoofnHoof

I think you have to be very careful with a loaded term like dominance. It has a number of emotional connections to it, which in reality don't exist in the animal world. An animal does not strut around thinking "I'm the boss of you and you and you", they are entirely focused on smaller details in whatever situation they happen to be in. Words like defiance and dominance IMO have no place when dealing with animals because they evoke strong human emotions, if a person thinks that a dog is dominating them or being deliberately defiant I question whether that person is then able to make a rational and non-emotional evaluation of the behaviour. Each situation where an animal is not behaving the way we like is a finite situation to the animal, they are not linked in the dog's mind, and they are not necessarily behaviours which are dominant or submissive. The dog weighs up costs and benefits in each situation based on prior learning, observations of the behaviour of the handler, and instinct. It is not based on whether the dog thinks it's the 'boss' of you, it's whether it thinks it can get away with that particular behaviour at that particular time.

Agree with the others here, I will try to keep this shorter than my post in the other thread :rolleyes: I think that dominance is probably overused but it is possibly the catch-cry of the "quick-fix" training methods, you see it in the horse world as well, showing an animal who's boss is not the same as providing leadership and direction for the animal. I let my sibe run in front of me and have weight on the lead but he in no way dominates me, same with the furniture, if I want to sit where he is sitting he moves. My chi waits until I am practically sitting on him before he moves! Vickie has really hit the nail on the head though, and I agree with you corvus that if a dog is ignoring you on a walk it's got bugger all to do with dominance and more to do with the more interesting things out there. Providing leadership is about giving the dog a reason to take his attention away from those other things, however this is challenging with breeds which are not as human oriented.

I think a lot of it is about direction, just like horses if you give a dog something to pull against it will! I've said before I allow my sibe to have weight in the lead because that is his purpose in life and it makes him happy. However that purpose also needs direction, which he gets from me, not very well because I'm not all that disciplined but he's an easy dog so I can get away with it. Essentially I let him go straight in front at whatever pace I can keep up with, I only correct if he diverts track or stops, I just give the leash a tug and say "come on" in a stern voice and he gets back on track very quickly. Being out in front and having weight in the lead doesn't mean he's the boss because he is still listening out for instructions from me, whether it's woah or turn or whatever, and he will look back to see where I'm going if he's not sure of the direction. On the other hand I have horses who will pull like steam trains if you let them and of course half a ton of horse pulling you along is never a good idea. When riding, again the horse is in front but the attention must be back towards me, and if they pull they get pulled up short and sharp and then an immediate release. It has been very useful learning with horses because it teaches you about timing, if you don't release quick smart they learn to just keep pulling because they haven't been rewarded for stopping. Because dogs are predator animals it's a bit different but the general principle of giving clear and consistent direction I think is very much the same. The thing is that having weight in the lead or having the dog in front is not necessarily a bad thing, but some weight does not mean all weight, you need somewhere to go if you need to do a correction, so if you have a dog that likes to have weight in the lead it might be easier to allow him a little bit, but not enough to drag you along and not so much that you have compromised your ability to pull him up. I don't require my dog to have his attention on me at all times because I personally think that it is very strenuous and distressing for a dog to have to ignore everything else the whole time when he's out and about, but that's just me and like I said my dog is easy so I can get away with it. :rolleyes: I've often noticed that the more people are emotionally affected by their animal's behaviour, the less effective their signals are to the animal. I know a lady with a young quarter horse who has been having a lot of trouble, so much so that she is selling him. Now the majority of QHs are the crusiest things around, but I met this horse once and I knew he was going to be a terd because he had zero ground manners, I was chatting to her and another friend in the paddock and this horse literally barged past anyone who was in his way! I couldn't believe it and I didn't do anything because it wasn't my horse but I wasn't particuarly surprised to hear that this horse has progressed to striking and rearing with this poor lady. The trouble is that she didn't recognise the barging behaviour for what it was, which was him having no understanding of her role as his leader, she just thought of him as a lovely big baby and couldn't understand why he would hurt her. Of course the horse has no idea he was hurting her he was just so used to being allowed to behave in that manner that he didn't know any other way to behave. Anyway my friend is now working with her to show her how to give him "tough love" and learn a few manners and he is picking it up very quickly. The moral to my long winded story is that I think that dominant behaviour is not necessarily one single behaviour, it is the overall attitude of the animal towards you as it's leader. And I suspect it correlates very much with the attitude of the handler who must feel like a leader in order to provide leadership. That's my 2c

I've also heard good things about the Ipswich club, just haven't gotten around to going there yet lol! I have heard a few negatives about Toowoomba but no personal experience.

The number I have which worked at the time is 46332241, I was booked in there before I had to move so didn't get to go. I remember them saying you have to have a check chain.

Or a Dalmatian Fortunately Dals only shed twice a year, though.....6 months in the Spring and 6 months in the Autumn We just bought an Enjo lint glove - fantastic I beg to differ, I had a dally house guest for several months and I'm sorry but sibes are a whole different level of shedding! :p Excellent news! So, if I threaten to get a Sibe then say no, we'll get another Dally, OH and his navy blue RAAF uniform should just be grateful ;) That will definetly work, just take a ride in a car that has had sibes in it and your OH will be begging you to 'settle' for another dally! My friend has a houseful of dogs and even she was quite shocked at the amount of hair in my car, I must admit I was a bit slack with brushing it out so it just dropped everywhere Yep just make sure the clothes are the opposite colour to the hair and it will automatically shift in space and time, I have bought clothes home from the shops taken them out of the bag and there is hair already on them! How does that happen?!

Or a Dalmatian Fortunately Dals only shed twice a year, though.....6 months in the Spring and 6 months in the Autumn We just bought an Enjo lint glove - fantastic I beg to differ, I had a dally house guest for several months and I'm sorry but sibes are a whole different level of shedding!

Would love to see this sort of thing in QLD.

Did anyone see the guy on "Australia's got talent" with the kelpies rounding up the ducks? It was so cool he had a little pup already showing the behaviour (only one duck escaped on the pup) ETA: Snap squeak!

I have enough trouble finding the one I bought for the horses, will have to give it a go though.

Get a husky - then you will wonder what you were complaining about before!

I'll have to see if I can get some of the pics off him that he took down there, would be interesting to compare.

My dad was in Antarctica in the 80's and I will have to check with him but most of those dogs were huskies I think, no point mixing other breeds when those are the best suited to the conditions. Those dogs were used for work too they used to go on expeditions out on the ice and they knew if there was a crevasse in front of them they wouldn't go. Mind you some things never change - my dad told me a story of one trip where the dogs caught sight of some penguins and they bolted! The musher had to put his whole weight on the brake and apparently they only stopped just in time before the dogs got the penguins!

This I find really interesting as I initially thought that animals don't know who are family and who aren't if they weren't raised together but I have 2 horses, full brother and sister. Now my gelding normally reacts to a mare in season and starts carrying on like he thinks he's a stallion! Anyway he has never reacted to his sister in any way at all - so much so that I never know when she is in season because she doesn't react to him either! Yet recently she has been brought into season and she was flirting with geldings at the vets and at the stud (actually she was flirting with pretty much everyone!) and yet she never reacts to her brother at home. So this did make me wonder whether close relatives like full brother/sister share similar smells or something which results in the relatives being less likely to react? I don't really know and of course this is totally anecdotal but it is really interesting

Bit difficult to pinpoint true altruism since there are many who question whether it even exists in humans so it's even more difficult to understand the motivations of animals. I'm sure there are some situations in nature where altruism is not costly and perhaps is even beneficial, whether it is an inbuilt trait is probably a question we wont see answered in our lifetime. :p

But it doesn't count because you have an imitation sibe. Nope mine is the whizz bang red version totally souped up - you saw him whizzing around today he runs way fast :D

Ooo ooo! Does that mean my migration theory was correct? Woohoo!

I haven't heard of 'opposition reflex' before, is it like when horses push back when pressure is applied? If so that could very well be a key element - do you know what purpose this reflex developed for?

That is interesting Kelpie-i, the endorphin sensitivity in sibes must be quite strong, stronger than that in other breeds and certainly stronger than my own! Perhaps the selection pressure was inadvertant in selecting dogs which enjoyed running for running's sake? Perhaps it was a random mutation resulting in stronger response to the endorphins released by excercise, it would be interesting to compare a running sibe's endorphin levels to the levels in a running wolf, would be nice if it were possible.

I don't think it's so much the motivation in question as the original purpose of the behaviour - why exactly does it feel good to run and run with no prey in sight? What purpose would this behaviour have had originally? I'm still leaning towards migratory behaviour because prey-oritented behaviours usually have a clearer link between the selectively bred behaviour and the original hunting behaviour, whereas the link between hunting behaviour and sled pulling is tenuous IMO.

Perhaps it's a migratory instinct? Don't wolf packs migrate with the herds? Running is not necessarily running full tilt either my fellow will quite happily trot for miles. Haven my boy has not even remotely been trained in sledding, he gets walked in a walking harness and sometimes I'll give him the turn commands if I remember but essentially it's all him so this is a very strong drive without any training influence. He is very purposeful and will generally go straight along the road/track most of the time.

Is it the desire to run which in turn leads to pulling the sled? I have wondered this myself, why is it that on a lead my dog has so much more focus and clarity in his way of going than the haphazard dashing about he does while off lead? I have no idea why the lead invokes such a strong instinctive response and where that instinct would have originated. Other behaviours can be clearly linked to specific hunting behaviours (ie herding, scent tracking etc) but running in harness I can only loosely relate to the running with the pack behaviour, in a similar way that thoroughbreds have the natural running with the herd behaviour amplified and exaggerated by their breeding. Perhaps the motivation comes from the "anyone left behind is a goner" behaviour but then why is it linked so strongly to the action of working in harness? The only other times my dog is so incredibly focused and driven is when he is hunting something. I don't know, it's very interesting though.

My 'sled' dog is only comfortable when he is out front with a little weight in the lead - he thinks he's doing his job and he always has one or both ears directed back towards me listening to where I am and where I want him to go. When my chi comes out he prefers to be behind me. Really depends on the breed I think, many herding and heeling breeds are happy to be behind as far as I can tell most horse people train the dog to follow behind the horse as it's far safer and the dogs seem very comfortable there. I doubt it's got much to do with leadership at all since there are many many signals that the dog uses to identify you as the leader, even though my dogs aren't trained in much of anything they do see me as the 'boss'. I've never even noticed who goes through the door first mostly, the other day I had to urge mine to go in front I think they tend to hang back so I don't trip over them!

My first experience seeing grand prix dressage was the 1994 Olympics, Klaus Balkenhol and Goldstern, it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I'd been riding for a few years and never seen anything like it before, when you sit on horse and it doesn't do what you want it to do that kind of communication is really awe-inspiring - much like the dog training is to me these days

Lol they are the best dogs aren't they! Since it seems to be the strangers it is going to be harder as you will have to recruit others to help you, how does she go out on walks in crowds of people? Does she shy away if they accidentally brush past her or is it when they actually go to touch/pat her? Maybe you could get people to walk past her and brush past her and not stop and desensitise her to that type of thing first. Maybe walk her in between other people and just keep on walking like it's no big deal? That's something I would try if she doesn't freak out so much at the people themselves but when they reach out to her. When she is comfortable brushing past people you could get the people to crouch a bit so their hands brush her as she goes past. Obviously this would have to be repeated ad nauseum and you would have to make sure it doesn't stress her out but without seeing her that would probably be my strategy - works with horses anyway