sandgrubber

In my experience, temperament/behavior is not only genetic, it can be hard to breed out. I, unfortunately, started with a foundation Labrador bitch who wasn't fond of water and had zero retrieve drive. Her sire was the same. I've tried to counteract that by choosing studs with retrieving qualifications. Three generations later, I have dogs who like, but don't love, water, and still no retrieve drive. Actually, it's more complicated. I kept a pup from my first litter with foundation bitch. Sire had his RRD plus a bench Ch. I was living by the beach at the time, and the pup got an early intro to water, and surf. She ended out very aggressive in approach to water. She would plow into a breaking wave, get rolled, and come back for more. So maybe the potential is there, but requires early training to bring it out.

What I'd like to know is whether bull breeds are getting better or worse over time, and if they are getting worse or not improving, whether the bad element is concentrated in some lines. I am no expert on bull breed history, but it does seem to me that the average temperament has probably gotten more social since the days when dogfighting and bull and bear baiting were popular sports. If the bad name is coming from, say 10% of the individuals, and the temperament problems are concentrated in certain lines, the solution is to regulate the problem lines, not the entire breed(s). The Staffy is neck and neck with the Labrador for numbers of pedigree registrations in Australia. I can't believe SBTs would be that popular if most of them were inherently problematic.

Well I must be fortunate because my dogs are mother and daughter and there has never been any aggression between them. In fact they seem to adore each other. This may be a Lab thing...or at least common in Labs. I've kept a lot of mother daughter pairs together. The bigger worry is how they will grieve when separated, not whether they will fight. Here are my present two, Jarrah, aged 9, and Bonza, her 3 yr old daughter ...oops file too big ....damn iPad. Anyway, they groom eachother regularly, and preferentially sleep touching one another. They also play together, though the old girl doesn't last very long.

Link leads me to a video error. Please check.

I came across an interesting discussion of temperament on a GSD breeder's website. They define temperament as 100% genetic (as opposed to behaviour, which can be shaped), and go on to catalog describe various unsound temperaments, including sharp, shy, sharp-shy, submissive, temperamental, hyperactive, overaggressive, dominant, and independent. For details see: http://www.videxgsd.com/understanding_dogs.htm I like the idea that undesirable temperaments are genetic and can be bred away from, if not out. The notion that there are different temperament faults, and each needs to be considered specifically also rings true. But does it work in practice? Are people like me who advocate more breeding for temperament as opposed to cosmetics, full of hot air? Could breeding for temperament be done more systematically?

I can see them as beautiful. But lions and tigers are beautiful, too. If I wanted a muscle dog, I would avoid a breed with white skin (sunburn and deafness issues) and a very narrow genetic base. Temperament aside, the dogo has the hallmarks of a health disaster.

I am of very strong belief that breeders be it registered breeders or BYB's need to be scrutinised and held accountable for their reproductions. I am really tired of the fact the breeding of dogs is a complete free for all, breed what you want when you want, personally, I would like to see it as an offence to breed dogs without a licence with the introduction of a BSL....."breeder specific legislation" It is not, and has never been a "free for all" for registered breeders. Registered/show breeders face amazingly few restrictions with relation to temperament. I would have no problem registering a Labrador that is gun shy, hates water, and is dog aggressive. Such a dog could even be titled, provided that the DA can be curbed in the ring. However a cosmetic fault, such as light eye colour (which. btw, gives the dog better night vision) seriously affects results of competition in the ring.

Does the fault also lie with the owner who pts's the dog because they cannot modify the dog's behaviour sufficiently to make it an animal they can live with?Temperament defects occur in all breeds. But it is much more common for some breeds to be euth'd for behavioral reasons than others. I think we need to blame breeders as much as owners...and support subsidized Spey/neuter programs.

No problem with Labbies. They're more reluctant when it's blazing hot than when it's raining. What I want is a way to get them to wipe their feet before they come back in the house. I am so tired of muddy footprints.

Santos, you make it sound like it's black and white. It isn't. The two most vicious dogs in my immediate neighborhood, Dixie and Emily, are both Labradors. Emily's partner in the yard, LuLu, a pit bull type, has a bad habit of jumping the fence, but she doesn't growl at people or dogs, much less attack; without Emily, I suspect she would be a friendly, stable dog. Dixie's family also has a second dog, a rough coat daschund named Boomer. Remember that study in 2008 that found daschunds to be the most aggressive breed; well Boomer is a fat, cuddly sook who sticks close to his Mum. There ARE breed tendencies in pedigree dogs, no question that these are genetic. You'd have a hard time training normal Labbies as schutzhunds. But if you really wanted to do so, and you could find a few dogs like Dixie and Emily, you could probably develop a line of Labbies that would match the GSD's and Rotties in schutz training (actually, forget Dixie, she's unstable). Likewise, if you really wanted, you could develop lines of pit bull that were sweet and docile with soft mouths. The problem, as others have noted, is that there's a small population of dick heads who LIKE dog fights, and like snarling, biting dogs, the tougher the better. Such drongos, as a rule, don't believe in desexing, and brag about it when their monster sires a litter on the bitch down the street. There's a larger group of people that is less extreme, but tolerates dog aggression and for some reason likes to have a mean dog in the yard. Unfortunately for bull breeds, they are favored by such idiots. I'm a Labrador person, not a bull breed person, so I'm b.s.'ing here. But I imagine it would be pretty hard for a bull breed person to find a niche in the dog world if they specialized in breeding for sweet tempered dogs. The altruists in the bull breed community seems to be heavily involved in rescue, and few of them have any interest in breeding out the traits that get bull breeds in trouble. The cultural side is important. I've met several aggressive Labs, every one of them was desexed. A Lab breeder I know euth'd an imported, titled dog because he bit and harmed a puppy.

Unfortunately, I think the Finnish KC is unique in keeping stats on cause and age of death and making them public. I wish other KC's did this. There is no way to know how representative (or not) the Finnish data are. One interesting thing in the Finnish data. If you click on the highlighted entry for cause of death you get a tabulation of all test and show results for the dogs listed. Several of the dogs who were pts due to behaviour had bad hip scores (C/C or worse). So pain-related biting, or going for euth because the dog was not suitable for breeding, may be part of the picture.

I think the way to avoid bull bashing is for bull breed people to stop denying there is a problem. The cause of death statistics below for the AmStaff are from the Finnish Kennel Club's database. Nearly 10% euth'd for behavioural reasons, and an additional 10% dying of accidents at a young age, and about 6% dying of neurological problems is not a good look! These are not cross-bred mongrels. They're registered pedigree dogs (including a couple Ch's). You can check their pedigrees, and show results, out on the website. (See http://jalostus.kenn...Lang=en....play around with the various options). The Am Staff is considerably worse than the Staffy or Bull Terrier in these stats, but these breeds, too, show high mortality from accidents and being pts for bad behaviour. I agree with the concept of deed not breed, but I do believe a fair amount of behaviour is genetic. ALL breeders of ALL breeds need to breed away from lines that are fraught with behavioural problems. Denial of the relatively high frequency of those lines in bull breeds is simply perpetuating the problem, and holding the entire bull breed group responsible for the outcomes of breeders who don't select for temperament, or who do select for temperament that makes their dogs a menace.

I can't imagine the Swedes making it difficult for a hobby breeder who chooses to raise litters in the spare bedroom, and I don't think they regulate matters such as how many times a bitch can be bred. They do have some pretty strict regulations on 'professional breeders' (it looks like the rules for dogs are similar to those for livestock), and some rules you don't see in the US, UK or Oz, eg:" It shall be prohibited to own or breed dogs which: 1. are exceptionally aggressive; 2. are irritable and bite; 3. are difficult to restrain once they have started an attack; and 4. are inclined to direct their aggression at people or other dogs. Ordinance (see www.government.se/content/1/c6/09/03/10/f07ee736.pdf‎). I may be missing something, but I think Sweden's laws generally do help animal welfare without meddling deeply in hobby breeder's rights. Ok, there's docking of tails and ears, but that affects appearance only, not the essential parts of dog breeding.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of horses left in that stable. It's not unusual, around where inlive, to see a couple pitties chained in a yard and straining their chains to lunge at passers-by. Often there's a sign posted saying BAD DOG. (Could be other breeds too...but there are an awful lot of pit-types). I hope the owners of such dogs are getting a message. p.s. On my dog walks, I regularly run into an 85 yr old who lives next door to a pair of such dogs. He says they attacked him once, and he told the owner: " if I ever see dem runnin loose agin. I'm goin to git my shotgun". On the question of second degree murder vs manslaughter. I think manslaughter is pretty much kept for crimes of passion or stupidity. If you know your dogs can kill and you have been apprehended for dog attacks before, and you continue to willfully neglect to restrain them, then some judges will interpret it as second degree murder. Likewise, is increasingly common for drunk drivers who cause fatal accidents to be charged with murder.

There is nothing wrong with Bull breeds, what's wrong is the idiots who breed some of them for the wrong reasons. The Pitbull was a dog fighter not a protection dog, but some idiots along the way decided that they should be harmful to people so they bred duds that showed aggression in the wrong areas the way I see it evolve......so man made many Bull breeds into what they were never supposed to be, so what needs to be done IMHO is cull off these crap Bull breeds, get out the breed book and start breeding some proper ones who comply with the breed standards Pitbull's shouldn't be biting people, if they do......something isn't right in the bloodlines.......a friend of mine has 2 Pits both bullet proof with people and other dogs, but I have also seen some shockers too, maulings waiting to happen. I'm going to regret this.... I can see a one notion mind at work. Yes, genes are important.... but they are not alone in the mix which determines if an individual dog has a high risk or a low risk of aggression. What is required is attention to all the factors. MOREOVER breed does not precisely or fully predict the genes that affect behaviour. Yes, all breeds have tendencies, but all breeds also have exceptions to the norm, and many breeds have different norms depending on whether the lines are working or pet or show. You can find mean Labradors; and laid back JRT's. In many breeds there are crappy breeders who have allowed temperament to go to hell, eg, by breeding unstable or highly reactive dogs. Dogs from working lines, including guarding, herding, vermin control, and hunting (to name a few), may not be suited to the average suburban family, and at least some of the offspring are likely to become problematic without adequate investment in containment, training, and stimulation/exercise. Lines that have been bred more for pet/show purposes may be easier to keep and less prone to going nutso (often translates to' mean' if the dog's 'job' would require high drive and use of teeth) when they no longer have a 'job'. The fact that every breed includes individuals who exhibit different behaviours makes it important that breeders explicitly breed for temperament, and make it clear to puppy buyers what temperament they have bred for, and what sort of management their puppy is likely to require. It pisses me off that so many breeders simply say "wonderful temperament". Wonderful temperament for what? We need to describe temperament, not in terms of good and bad, but in descriptive terms, such as drive, biddability, etc. End of lecture. It sure is easy to get worked up about this topic.

so that argues calories restriction/being kept lean is positively associated with longevity, rather than a 'high quality' diet per se? I think that fits with what I am thinking - that not over-feeding is maybe the most important bit of diet thse days. Effects of diet restriction on life span and age-related changes in dogs Richard D. Kealy, PhD; Dennis F. Lawler, DVM; Joan M. Ballam, MS; Sandra L. Mantz; Darryl N. Biery, DVM, DACVR; Elizabeth H. Greeley, PhD; George Lust, PhD; Mariangela Segre, DSc; Gail K. Smith, DVM, PhD, DACVS; Howard D. Stowe, DVM, PhD An amazing study that followed 50+ Labs in controlled conditions over 12 years or so...the diet restricted group fared a lot better than the control groupl. p.s. I notice that the link above has gone 404. Try this one https://www.avma.org/News/Journals/Collections/Pages/AVMA-Collections-Obesity-in-dogs-summary.aspx

Good decision. I started out with one lab, then went to two, then to several, now I'm back at two. I'll never have only one again. Even if they're very people oriented, dogs like to talk dog, not to mention the little joys they get from playing mouthy games, licking ears, etc.! Sex matters a lot if you intend to breed. If you're desexing, not a big deal. Just go for good temperament and good health (find out all you can about diseases and age of death in ancestral bloodlines.

Hate to disillusion, but my Labbies have no interest in tennis balls (though they do love their tucker :)). I've known sweet tempered pit bulls. And couch potato JRTs. And aggressive Goldies. And ... Every breed has a range of temperaments, though there are breed tendencies; some of them quite strong. The existence of a range means traits can be bred up, or down. I wouldn't be surprised if the war dog mastiffs used in the settlement of the Americas to fight indigenous people and control slaves were, in some cases, bred down to be decent pets. You can this sort of thing hapening if you look at the two registries for the Fila braziliero. One registry demands extreme intolerance of strangers from early puppyhood, the other registry wants Brazil's national dog to be a breed suitable to family life. The breeds bred for guarding, fighting, and vermin hunting are prone to various attack behaviours, and too often come to bad ends due to the combination of high drive and owners who don't manage this well. Most likely result is not an attack in which someone gets hurt, but a dog that dies an accident in its early years, or is passed on to a shelter or a new owner, which may or may not result in a better situation. There are places for working guardian dogs, vermin dogs, etc. But breeders who specialize in breeds with strong drive should either be working to moderate that trait, or be careful to place pups in homes that are suited to the likely nature of the adult dog . . . or both. Unstable temperament is always bad, and should be treated like a genetic disease . . . in any breed.

I've always put wood rails in whelping boxes. I know others use broomsticks. Came across another solution on this site http://www.luggerlab...managepups.html (If you don't want to follow the link, she's used pvc pipe with elbows and drilled holes through the box to anchor the frame to the box). Looks easier to install / remove / store and easier to clean than the solutions I've used. Cheap, too.

After spending many hours looking up cause/age of death for various breeds on the Finnish KC's database, I'd say temperament and care. The dominant cause of early mortality for many breeds is accidents.

Then the breeder deserves a look over. If these are not the first 'ugly' dogs he or she has released to the public, it's time he or she faced some sort of penalty. Some breeds get a bad rap cause some breeders deliberately run bloodlines that are bound for trouble.

I can imagine that term being applied to me one of these days.

It was Dimitri Balyaev who started the experiments. Work began around 1960 and continues to this day. You can also buy a domesticated fox (very expensive, neutered). Google Russian fox domestication and you'll get hundreds of interesting articles. In selecting for friendliness to humans, they found degrees of domestication. They eventually had to add a super domesticated category above their original top category to accommodate foxes whose affectionate responses were off the original chart. So, yes, if dogs and foxes are alike in range of temperament, dogs can potentially be bred to manifest a wide range between mean/wild and spooky/friendly. I think most dog people have seen the extent of this range. It's not all genetics, but it can take a lot of management and training to overcome genetics.

you'd be crucified for doing it now, regardless of the bitch being up to it or not. Of course there's no science, it's pen pushers and animal lib drawing the lines in the sand these days, regardless of them being wrong. But hey, they have to protect the dogs from the puppy farmers some how Meanwhile, thanks to 'improved' and often very costly fertility therapies, women are having babies into their 40s and 50s. Go figure!

Not necessarily. If the straps are narrow they concentrate the force over a small area, thus increasing the likelihood of snapping bones or decapitating. Going airborne might be better if the dog ended out hitting a flat surface.