Sport versus Work - Page 4

Blackmalinios, from your description, I would think that those dogs do not have the luxury to just quit/withdraw from work as tho at a trial, as can a IPO dog who doesn't 'feel like' tracking today .

I don´t try to compare the quality of "work" different dogs have to do in different jobs, I only tried to point out that FOR A DOG there is no difference in "real work" and "sport". The dog is doing a job in both cases, WORKING for its handler. My personal conclusion : a "sport" dog is a "working" dog.
Might be true, might be wrong - just my opinion, open for debate.

Both SAR and bomb detection dogs normally don´t work for hours, not during training, not in the job. They get rests, but they still have to work through a lot of stress.
Not talking about "war" - that´s totally different - a human life is more important than the recreation phase of military stuff ( dogs ).

I guess you´d be able to do tracking, obedience, bitework for hours with an adult fully trained IPO dog. Its quality of work would drop dramatically, but the dog would try because of training. No difference to "real" dogs.

Normally a dog is used for a special job, because it´s able to do the job, no matter what.

Seems to be that 'real' work is more sustained, in some ways more
important, and often - but not inevitably - more demanding, than
Sports 'work'. Or than other activities for which dogs are trained,
and which give pleasure & a sense of achievement to the owner,
even if not the dog, for which individual dogs might be better suited.

I can live with that definition, but not the state of (human) mind which
insists ALL GSDs have to be capable of that serious working life and
there is no room for dogs who are not given those kinds of tasks.
This is often not about the capability of the dog, but about the inclinations
or abilities of the owners. But neither deserve to be written off with
contempt, e.g. because they choose to do Obedience instead of IPO,
or Agility instead of Personal Protection, [or Dock Diving rather than
Herding !] - these guys should save their critical comments for those
people who MUST have this breed, but then do NOTHING with it (and
then moan they are having to call in a Behaviourist, or that they are
forced to give the dog up to a Shelter because it has got too big, and out
of control).

There is no point to do this with a IPO dog: "I guess you´d be able to do tracking, obedience, bitework for hours with an adult fully trained IPO dog. Its quality of work would drop dramatically, but the dog would try because of training. No difference to 'real' dogs."
But the 'difference to real dogs' is many times, a matter of life and death/quality of human life compared to recreation/points.
Susie, the people put the labels on...the dogs don't know what sport/real world is...its all real world play or fight or work for ball reward to a dog. Except where life and death is at stake, then the dog KNOWS its real world and not play. I was under the impression the op wanted to know if there is a difference between work and sport from human perspective, not the dogs' perspective....anyway, that's how I answered.
As for a dog realizing the difference between a life and death fight with a real bad guy, and a dog sparing in sport with a decoy who follows rules of the game instead of actually trying to kill the dog; yes, I believe the dog can recognize the 'difference' between reality and sport.

"I was under the impression the op wanted to know if there is a difference between work and sport from human perspective, not the dogs' perspective....anyway, that's how I answered."

In this case you answered the question from human perspective, I tried to answer from animal perspective.

"As for a dog realizing the difference between a life and death fight with a real bad guy, and a dog sparing in sport with a decoy who follows rules of the game instead of actually trying to kill the dog; yes, I believe the dog can recognize the 'difference' between reality and sport."

In this case the dog is in danger of itself, but no dog does recognize that it saves lifes by finding bombs or buried people, and the dog doesn´t know that drugs are dangerous for humans. The dog doesn´t even know that a bullet is able to kill it...

 

Sorry Susie but I don,y agree that the sport are dog at the same level as the real dogs, I can discuss
with you for hours, but this dogs have realy diifferent qualitys than the safe and in routine sportdogs.

@ JoanI agree war  dogs don,t have any luxury maybe some people have to find out walking for hours on the leash
with your dog temp 113 Fahrenheit in the sand and all that stress around them.





 

 

Black, once again, I didn´t talk about "quality" of work but about work as a whole - the definition of "work" for a dog, not for you.
A dog working for its handler on a high level is a working dog in my opinion.
Are there better or worse "working dogs" ? Sure - but all of them are "working" for us.

"In this case the dog is in danger of itself, but no dog does recognize that it saves lifes by finding bombs or buried people, and the dog doesn´t know that drugs are dangerous for humans. The dog doesn´t even know that a bullet is able to kill it..."

Very true, Susie. But the people selecting the dogs for those jobs are well aware of life and death work the dogs are being used for...sport only needs a good trainer to train and title a mediocre dog. And some exceptional dogs will train and title with only mediocre handler/trainer.:-) But for life and death job.... Only exceptional dog can succeed for extended career with exceptional trainer/handler.
And I have heard that S&R dogs become very depressed when working disaster scene and only finding one corpse after another...

I don´t want to destroy anybodies believe in "real working dogs" - but you already answered for me "Only exceptional dog can succeed for extended career with exceptional trainer/handler", no difference in sport and real world.
There are no points in "real life jobs", a lot of "real" dogs make faults,too, but we will never hear about it - there are some exceptional dogs out there and there are a lot of "mediocre" dogs out there, no difference.

"...sport only needs a good trainer to train and title a mediocre dog."
This is only true for lower club level, I think we are talking about seriously handled sport dogs.

This statement might sound blasphemic for a lot of people, but out of my experience there are a lot of mediocre "real"working dogs, and the BEST handlers most often are the volunteers out there ( f.e. titled SAR ) who really try to get the best out of their privately owned dogs, and the police officers, who train privately, too, because they are interested in dogs as a whole.
Most often a young officer gets a dog pre-trained by someone else, and this new born handler doesn´t even know how to read his own dog, not to mention any further progress in training.