Kennel or not ? - Page 5

I think it becomes a matter of extremes and degree.   Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.

The fact that a dog lives in a kennel is not by and of itself cruel.  BUT a dog who is kenneled and only taken out once a day for work, and that work is all stress with  no play is too extreme.  The successful trainers/handlers  that I know who's dogs are kenneled,  combine work and play with their dogs, it's not all work all of the time.  To assume that just because a trainer wants to kennel a dog & gets good training results by making sure all interaction is meaningful rather than having the dog around 100% of the time does not mean the dog is being neglected in any way.  It's about quality not quantity.

By the same token and  as Shelley and others point out, sometimes a sport dog can be so nagged and harassed for it's behaviour in the house  it's drives become diminished and this is reflected on the field.   Same thing goes for the dog who is spoiled rotten by it's owner then the owner wonders why the dog doesn't have drive on the field.  They have become nothing special to their dog.  Dogs do need a place they can get away, dogs like to den, a kennel can be that safe quiet place to unwind and relax. 

To assume that people who kennel their dogs are somehow depriving their dogs is just as wrong as assuming all dogs kept in the house cannot have success on the field. 

It depends a lot on the dog. I have a couple of dogs who, although they LIKE to come in the house, have been raised and socialized in the house, (housebroken) but do not really seem very comfortable in the house. They pace, bug anyone in the room to play with them non-stop, never really seem to relax, only lay down if told to. If they were in here full time I'm sure they would not get enough rest.
SS

Over here a lot of people when training there dogs do not bother about going right  through a sequence of training, without bring play into it by that i mean if you dog is really keen on the ball like our Goran is, We for instance walk to foot for so many yards then drop the ball, take it off the dog walk on drop the ball walk on the dog then looks up waiting for the ball, into the group drop the ball when in the middle of the group walk out of the group with the dog, then take back the ball, and so on
The idea is to get the dog focused on you and make the training fun as well
Before we go onto the training field we gee him up with the ball just on the inside of the training field this brings him  up, and off we go, We always finish the training with throwing the ball a few times and he carries it off the field once off the field work and play is over the ball is taken away the dog given a little walk then back to the trailer and a drinkwhat they try to do is to combine work and play in one go this brings the dog up and he will work, well saying that it does for us
Steve

Yes we pretty much do the same thing.  

Sueincc,
My dogs guard my family and property, they have a domain to call their own. They go places, meet new people, see new things, they get love and attention, stimulation and growth, they learn something new with every experience.
K-9s go on patrol, some do the tracking and detection work, some do the attack and take down.  You have search and rescue, therapy, and once they were commonly used for the blind.  Some somewhere may still actually get to do herding.  Many are companions and like mine have a family to protect and share their lives with.  These dogs live with their human handlers and are given that interaction and companionship they require.
Doing competition and sport can be work too as long as they have more in their lives to give them the human interaction they were meant to have.  Dogs can get lonely, depressed, I believe they can feel a broken heart at the loss of a companion be it human or another animal they have a bond with.
Whatever the meaning of work is it has to involve interaction with us.  The have a need for companionship more than our own in my opinion.  They have a need to be stimulated by new encounters every day.  They can get bored.
They can get that out of the kennel, but not in.   
A kind word and a pat on the head once a day is not enough in my opinion.
These are highly intelligent animals and they require more than most understand or even care about.
A working dog needs to have a job to do everyday, not just for an hour, not just waiting for the next competition, and they need interaction with some other living thing. 
Even race horses are known to live happier lives with a companion, a goat, a chicken, another horse, or their owner who dotes on them.
Its about quality of life.
Working implies activity.
Moons.

As I said, Moons it's all about the quality not the quantity, dogs do not have to be with us 24/7 to have high quality interaction with us.  Living in the house as opposed to living in a kennel does not automatically make a dogs life better by any stretch of the imagination.  Just because a dog lives in a kennel rather than the house does not mean the dog is lacking for anything, in fact, many dogs prefer to live outside.

 

 

sueincc,
In or out is not what I was responding to.
Wasn't about kennels, it was about that quality of life you speak of.   I agree outside is better.
My power keeps going out so I'll catch ya later.
Moons.

As I see it there are advantages to for a dog being in the house and this is far from the "soft" option. 

It learns your body language and how to read you. So "you" are not a foreign language to it. On the field this means I can communicate better and the dog understands my requests faster. I have no need for yank and crank on the field and I believe many people resort to compulsion because the they have not bonded and the dog does not understand what is required of them. 

Second, my dog earns his keep as a family protector too. No use being mugged whilst he is in his kennel.

Third my dog doesn't have full run of the house the whole day. He is confined to some areas whilst we go about our business but can still view his pack. This helps so much with manners, socialization and "off" switch. When we go out, I don't have a dog that I drag along on a leash who acts like it is the first time he has seen the outside world. 

Steve 1

I understand you have never even qualified a dog to schutzhund 1, yet you talk as if you know all the answers to schutzhund. Whenever you write you always sound like you speak for th ewhole of Belgium, which I seriously doubt. You have had dogs 57 years, well our family has been in dogs 40 years but that doesn't make me an expert in schutzhund. Quite tired of your attitude.