A Lil Pet Peeve of Mine - Page 2

Hello,
I know, I will be in the heat, hopefully you guys wont tar & faether me.

1. I doubt that, even in a litter bred solely with the intension of producing PPD's, all pups of that litter will turn out as that. Why ? These are living creatures with different temperements, it will never be predictible what the outcome will be. 
2. It depents heavily on the situation a threat occures, might look threatening to you, but maybe not to your dog.
3. Imo, what a dog will be or not be, depends to 75 % on the upbringing of the pup. Whilst it still needs the heritage to have the rest 25% out of lines that are proofen.
4. von sprengkraft puts it pretty clear, most of the peopel of today cannot handle a tough dog.
5. Just how many "really" tough dogs do we need in this day & time ? Here in Germany we have aproxemately 18 000 puppys a year - I dont even want to picture the scenario, if all of them would be "real" tough dogs.
6. I rather have Joe Public do Schutzhund, as I believe that many behavior problems do arise, when our breed has no porpose at all anymore.

But back to JC, you are right, it is sometimes exhausting to explain the stuff over & over again, but I guess it's the only thing we can & should do. The more peopel understand what is done in Schutzhund, the more will accept it. I for my part cannot count anymore how often I explained, that SchH has nothing to do with making, or training a dog to be aggressiv.
And yes, if someone asked for a PPD and you sell him a Sportdog or a couchpotato, that is wrong. On the other hand, if this person cant tell the difference, he/she should probably not have such a dog to beginn with. I believe there is a lot of responsibility involved, to sell a PPD.
Ulli 
 

I personally have no interest in training my dogs to be man stoppers, I am happy for my dogs to target the equipment and be as sure as I can be that they will not mistake an unwary movement from an innocent visitor for a threat, but if the dog has the right temperament and training, the reflex to engage on command will get an intial bite and the dog will get serious as soon as the fight starts for real, using the fight skills he has learned in training.

I've sold many dogs with initial training groundwork in Schutzund to police forces and they had no trouble transferring thier training to a "for real " situation .  It's a bit like martial arts, you learn the moves until they are instinctive and if you have real fight in your heart, you will use them to defend yourself with maximum effect if the need arises. if you are just an acrobat with no bottle or spirit, you won't.

Margaret N-J

Ulli and jc, all you can do is keep explaining that schutzhund and personal protection are NOT the same (patience can be a hard to acquire virtue). They aren't trained for in the same way.  Owning a PPD is a serious responsibility, I agree, and most people don't actually need a trained  PPD.

Are handler toughness and the instinct to protect genetically related? It seems to me you can get one without the other or you can get both in one dog. Right? Wrong? Both in one dog makes for a dog that is only suitable for a very experienced handler, IMO, and this dog would be a disaster in the wrong hands.  I guess I am equating Margaret's "fight in the heart" with instinct to protect here. 

Sam,
as I have seen a few handler agressive dogs, I cannot really answer if this "trait" is genetically inherited. I dont believe it is, as we had a 2 dogs out of the same litter at our trainingplace. One was raised by a serious guy, wanting a protection dog, the other one was more raised as an family member. The dog of the serious guy was kenneld, the guy did not want his dog to interact with other peopel to much and showed a certain toughness to his dog aswell. The dog was mental stable and would be perfectly calm when around strangers, but you would better not invate his space, I am not sure if he would have bitten, if you did, but his bodylanguage and expression showed just that. The more the guy trained with him, the closer the bound between them got, but, and that did astonish me, it seemed that the dog develloped some agression towards his handler. If the handler would not be on his toes 100%, the dog would "correct" him, taking a little nip ! It truely was a pleasure to watch them both, but sadly it took a sad ending. The handler got sick, could not take care of his dog anymore, nobody could get near the dog anymore. Still I would say this dog was not "mean agressive", he was, imo, a tough dog that would stand his ground and was tuned to just his handler.
The litter brother was raised in a family with 3 kids, a perfectly friendly dog, that was not interested in strangers, but who would greet you friendly if you came up to him. The intension of this family was simple, they wanted their dog to get a good obidience, they did not want to get invoved in Schutzhund at all. On top, they believed in praising the dog more then to correct him. It did take them a longer time to get down on him what they wanted, but it worked.

Sometimes there is a "night trail" at some dogtrainingplaces. This is something the dogs are not used to, some dogs do it just 1 time in their life. Its like a handler takes a walk through a dark park, and someone would kick a plastic barrel down a flight of stairs. Or all of a sudden a "ghost" would fall out of a tree, "drunken strangers " would walk by singing beer songs. At some point there is an attack onto handler & dog, good thing is, the handler does know that there will be an attack, but he does not know where & when. It is always very surprising how the dogs handel that, quite often, dogs who we thought that they would not engage at all and rather tuck in the tail, got so intense defending their handler, it was plain simply astonishing. Others that we knew, or at least we were very certain that they would get pretty mad, did their job, but we thought that little"cest" was missing. And there are sometimes the ones that really do tuck in their tail and haul a** ! 
But we could never determen, if these dogs were out of certain lines. This is the reason why I do believe that, all this being capable to do a certain tasks, is a) inherited and b) dependent on the upbringing of the pup.  Imo, with a heavy lean on the upbringing of the pup, the foundation must be set at early age towards a certain goal. This is also the reason why I always say, it is important to have a goal in training, due course you will see & find out, if this certain dogs will be capable for the goal you set for him & you.
Ulli

Ulli, interesting thoughts regarding inheritence & upbringing.

I was always under the impression that upbringing can & does change the dogs day to day attitude but when the chips are down and the dog is confronted and pressurised by a stressful situation his inherited temperament will always come to the fore and this temperament is not something that can be changed.

As you mentioned in the second paragraph dogs that had been trained and you thought would cope with a particular situation in fact couldn't and others that you thought couldn't in fact performed admirably (with or without training). Who knows which of us will be the unselfish hero? Cometh the moment cometh the dog

As to which lines have and can pass on such temperament... I'd be breeding dogs if I knew that

Cheers,

AandA

AandA,
to a certain point I do agree with your assesment of temperament, that's why I believe in these 25%.
Why do I put so much emphasis into the upbringing ?
Take 2 pups out of 1 litter, one is exposed from early age to rattling plastic bottles, plastic tarps to walk & play on, wooden flooring, the noise of flapping tarp in the wind.
The other one grows up in a family with much less stimulation.
Konfront them at 6 month with something that they never saw before - I bet the pup # 1 will check it out way quicker, where I am sure pup # 2 will check it out too, but probably way more carefull.
They do have both inherited the same temperament - but it is more develloped in pup #1.
I believe that with the level of training and experience one dog has, it will be able to cope & react with different situations in much better way then a dog with a lower level training. Even if they are out of the same litter.
Ulli 

VomMarischal


that was a funny post.................My female is a lapp dog and not a good pack leader but she is the first to protect and bite any intruder that comes in the home..My male is laid back but sometime he shows aggreession to teenagers and kids..  I have kids and its just wierd, I've never had such a unstable GSD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ulli, totally agree with your example of two pups who've had different learning experiences displaying different reactions to something new but when it comes to the point of doing something about the new situation then the inherited aspects of their temperament would be displayed. Perhaps it's best to call this their drives? After all you cannot expose a dog to all possible experiences they may be met with.

I think we are on the same page here but just getting a little lost in the symantics of the language

AandA

AandA,

I really try hard to find the right words, but I do realize quite often that it is hard for me to put down my thoughts in english.
I too think we are on the same page here and I do apologize for my rather poor english. Maybe I should brush up on it a little bit., I think it's good enough for daily life, but when it gets into the nittygritty stuff, I have to surrender !
Regards Ulli

Ulli, I get what you are saying about the ability to protect being somewhat unpredictable in dogs and being a bit more foundation and upbringing than inherited. Since most people who buy a puppy only want a  pet, this is probably a good thing I think. Others may disagree with me.

I also think, based on the limited number of dogs I've had and seen, that you never know what the dog will do unless and until it is tested with one of those night trials you are talking about where a surprise attack is sprung on the dog and handler. (well, a surprise for the dog anyway.) 

Your English is understandable, don't worry about that.

Sam