Every dog? Training? Genetics? - Page 4

Thanks for not understanding my point and proving it at the same time. You're 5'9". Genetics kept you from being a center. No matter how much training, you could never be one.

And for touching up on the "intangible" characteristics that really make a huge difference in the overall importance of the performance.  Such things like having a natural entusiasm to work for the handler, the perseverance to endure, and the resolve to win.  I'd say MOST of a dog's gripping power comes from it's commitment to the bite, a behavior which is still due in large part to genetics, aside from how phyically endowed they may be for the task.  Try finding that will to succeed among generations of animals on doggie welfare, and you won't.  Expect to find it 'everytime' in a long unbroken line of ancestry, and you still won't.

Nurture vs Nature

It's genetically predispositioned. It's all a matter of how you manipulate it in training. Though this isn't relevant to dogs, it gives the gist of what I'm speaking of; Say you have a schizophrenic mother and the father dipped, child is taken away by social services and raised in a home where he never knew his biological mother. The child will retain a paranoia as a predisposition (often brought out by traumatic events), but will by no means be full blown schizo unless raised in such a scenario.
..I swear to you I wasn't a psychology major.

Then by stating the predisposition, you should mean to say; the common accepted viewpoint is Nature AND Nurture, not "vs."

The Finnish adoptive family study of schizophrenia.
P. Tienari, A. Sorri, I. Lahti, M. Naarala, K. E. Wahlberg, T. Rönkkö, J. Pohjola, and J. Moring

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.


Abstract
A nationwide Finnish sample of schizophrenic mothers' offspring given up for adoption has been compared blindly with matched controls; i.e., adopted-away offspring of non-schizophrenic biologic parents. The families have been investigated thoroughly by joint and individual interviews and psychological tests. In the 91 pairs where both the index and control families have already been investigated and rated, the total number of severe diagnoses (psychosis, borderline, character disorder) is 28.6 percent (26/91) in the index group and 16.5 percent (15/91) in the matched control group. Of the seven psychotic cases, six are offspring of schizophrenics and only one is a control offspring. However, no seriously disturbed offspring has been found in a healthy or mildly disturbed adoptive family, and those offspring who were psychotic and seriously disturbed were nearly all reared in disturbed adoptive families. This combination of findings supports the hypothesis that a possible genetic vulnerability has interacted with the adoptive rearing environment.

Get a printable copy (PDF file) of the complete article (1.1M)

darylrhret - The argument at hand is one over nature vs nurture. Hence why it is separated from the remainder of my statement. I stand by what I had stated.

gotcha

We have some "deep" individuals here............ And Chaz; "I see said the blind man".

I once heard a world class trainer whose seminar I attended say to a guy.... "Dude! You listen to me. Eagles fly like eagles. All the training only makes an eagle fly faster, higher and strike harder. But if you got a turkey then you can give it all the training you want and at the end of the day all you'll get is a lot of "Gobble-Gobble & Flappping".

Your dog bites like a bird and all the training is only gonna make him peck that sleeve to death... Take him home and enjoy him as house pet!

LOL Lonewulf, I agree with that trainer. :)

i believe if the dog picked up the good genetics from his/her parents and has good prey drive he would be a dog for the sport, but from the same parents you can also have dogs with no prey drive.
i believe for protection training the dog would need to have good prey drive , training a dog with no prey drive, you will never get a dog from protection. if there is nothing there its not going to happen. it has alot to do with genetics.and some have it and some dont, this is true from all lines.