triangle-dog - Tumblr blog

triangle-dog · 2 days ago

Note

What are your thoughts on "dogs aren't violent, owners are" take? On one hand socialization absolutely makes a world of difference -on the other, dogs are bred for certain tasks, and some need more violence than others

(sincerely, someone who knows nothing about dogs but loves your posts about them)

oooo, kind of complicated. Also hi! thanks for loving my dog posts, that's a great compliment :)

Okay, so, the tldr version is, most dogs (there are always individuals that are exceptions to any rule, but most dogs) of any breed can be raised to be completely safe. After all, we started with wolves, arguably the most dangerous/violent version of any dog, and the first and most important changes we made were to have them be safer around people and more trainable.

But this touches on some current problems with dog ownership in the US (other places have other dog problems and may also experience the issues i am about to talk about, idk, but i see US dog ownership up close all the time) So i'm going to talk about dog "violence" for a bit before i answer the actual question in full

For one thing, people do not seem to understand dog "violence" at all. So often i hear a client or other dog owner say something like "this dog attacked another dog" And then i ask questions like "did the other dog have to go to the vet? were there any broken bones? was there any blood? was there even any fur missing?" and it turns out the dog did NOT "attack" the other dog, or "fight" the other dog, or anything serious, usually people saying these things are talking about a situation that involved some loud vocalizations, some tooth-flashy correction bites that cause no damage, and some body checking (which means, like, bumping their bodies physically into each other)

Wolves, and therefore most dogs, have been designed by nature as canines to literally dismantle large animals into tiny pieces. IF a dog wants to cause damage to another dog, there will be serious damage done. Period. I know of one case in my area about 4 years ago where a dog walker brought a new dog to a dog park and some shit popped off and that dog ran over to another dog and literally beheaded it in a few seconds. Took that dog's head all the way off in a few quick bites.

So when people talk about dog fights, dog attacks, dog violence etc, if there are no injuries then that is just 100% dog communication. Like two humans yelling at each other. But it scares people to see dogs do it.

I saw a guy at a dog park who wouldn't even let his dog play with other dogs because his dog was play-growling and showing teeth (which is a normal kind of play) but this guy kept stopping his dog and making him sit because he thought his dog was being violent or mean, and that was sad for that dog.

And even if your dog is growling for real, you want to allow some of that. If you don't let your dog growl and show teeth and stuff, you wind up with a dog that will bite with no warning. That's way worse. Growling prevents bites. Imagine your dog is in a lot of pain in his elbow and you don't know it. You grab his elbow. He growls or bares his teeth at you. You stop grabbing his elbow right away and start investigating what's wrong with his elbow, right? But if you have conditioned your dog to not growl or do these things, you will keep grabbing his elbow until the pain is finally too much and your dog lashes out and bites you. People should let their dogs communicate, and some of that communication is growls and showing teeth and even corrective bites.

A corrective bite is what most dog "bites" are that people see. If you see a dog "bite" and there is no blood and no fur missing, that was not a real bite. Dogs do this thing where they look like they are biting but what they are really doing is just knocking their teeth against the other dog (or person) in much the same way that you would knock the back of your hand against a friend's shoulder if they are being a dick or you need to cut through their mindset and get their full attention. That is not a punch, and a corrective bite (which could go all the way up to grabbing another dog by the skin, typically on the neck where there is usually extra protection, and shaking or pulling a bit without causing any injury) is not a real bite. Remember, if a dog wants to do damage, they 100% can.

I currently work with a dog that was banned from the local dog park for being "violent" and "attacking" another dog, when all she did was shoulder-check another dog, which knocked that dog over, and then stood over that dog while it was on the ground. She did it in a very energetic way that was not playing, so this is not good behavior, and clearly the dog needs training and social conditioning (which i am providing) but she is a 70lb siberian husky who could easily have done serious damage, she did not "attack" that dog. That shoulder-check knock-down stand-over thing she did is absolutely a dog communication tactic, uncalled for in that instance, but certainly not an "attack" by a "dangerous" dog. She currently goes on pack walks with me and is not a problem around any of the dogs in the pack, nor is she a problem around other people's dogs that we pass during the walk.

okay, so we've covered some of what dog violence is and isn't. Let's talk about what dogs are bred for.

All the things dogs are bred for are expressions of natural wolf behavior.

Wolves are distance travelers and persistence hunters, so we have sled dogs and racing dogs

Wolves control the movements of herd animals, so we have herd dogs.

Wolves protect their territories and their pack members, so we have guard dogs and livestock guardian dogs.

Wolves track prey by scent so we have scent working dogs

etc etc. It's possible to physically ruin a dog for some of these traits/activities, for example you could breed them into having misshapen breathing equipment and twisted little legs and then they won't be able to really run anymore (pugs, frenchies, etc). But for the most part, all dogs have all these wolfish traits. Just because you have a golden retriever doesn't mean you can guarantee your dog won't chase down and kill an animal, etc. I know of a basset hound (you know, those funny, stubby, lazy, droopy little dogs?) that used to regularly hunt and kill songbirds.

Imagine if Michael Phelps married another olympic swimmer, and they had a child. Phelps has attributes that make him a great swimmer, big lungs and heart in a chest larger than average men his same height, slightly longer arms than would be average for his height, feet a little larger than average, joints that bend backward just a little bit and provide extra range of thrusting movement on kicks. The other olympic swimmer probably also would have good swimming attributes (the joint thing for example is far more common in pro swimmers than in the general population). If their child got in the water and swam, they would probably be a little better at it than other first time swimmers their same age. They would probably love swimming, because when you do something that you are good at right away it feels good, right? If that same child grew up swimming a lot, they would likely be better at swimming than most of the other swimmers they were around. But they would not just automatically be better at swimming than other people. If they never got in the water until they were an adult, and then they got in a pool, they would not be as capable a swimmer as anyone else in that pool.

That's basically what dog breeds are. It's not a perfect analogy of course, but that's essentially what's going on with dog breeds.

So if you have a dog like the presa canario, you have a dog that was used (and therefor sometimes bred) for dog fighting and exterminating stray dogs. This means if they get into an altercation with another dog, like the swimmer's child, they may find they are naturally gifted and enjoy it, which will motivate them to develop the behavior and seek it out more. But we didn't breed presa canarios straight from wolves starting 30 thousand years ago. First we bred wolves to be good around our families for many thousands of years, then we bred some dogs to be herd dogs for many centuries, then we spent just a couple hundred years using some of those dogs for fighting.

Humans were "bred" to be upright distance walkers and runners. Just because Michael Phelps has a body and mind that is good for swimming does not mean he is bad at jogging, right? But if you don't want him swimming, you probably have to control his access to swimmable water.

Lets take another look at that siberian husky i work with. My own dog is mostly husky too, and i would say if you own a husky it is irresponsible to not give them access to running. My dog will spit out a mouthful of chicken to go running. BUT

that husky i'm working with right now? Had a rough start in life, and this current owner is the first stable loving family she's had. And when i tried to run her, she did great until we moved her from solo practice to the scheduled pack run. Because her morning routine up until then was:

go with stable loving owner to coffee shop, sit outside with owner, get special chew treat, receive positive attention from 50% of all the people that walk by the outside tables.

When i tried to hook her up to the rig and run her with the pack INSTEAD of that quality time with owner, she straight up refused to run. I worked with her for two weeks to see if we could overcome that, and she refused to run the whole time, sitting down in the harness, and even growling at me and refusing to get out of the car. And she and i had spent three months of walks building a good relationship before that. She just refused to give up her favorite lazy loving treat-filled morning routine in exchange for exercising with a group of dogs she frankly didn't like all that much to begin with.

As a husky, she still needs plenty of exercise, which her owner and i make sure she gets, but just because she is a siberian husky does not mean she will ignore everything else to go run, like some kind of running-programed machine.

So there's your long answer. Every dog started as a wolf, every wolf has all the attributes we see in dog breeds and therefore so do those dog breeds, we can make them better at an activity and more inclined to pursue that activity, and they may be more mentally and physically healthy if they have access to something that approximates that activity (playing tug of war is great for rottweilers, you don't actually have to get them a cow to drag around) but it isn't like they are genetically driven to pursue that activity to the exclusion of their other traits, which include following the social norms of their pack. You have to be aware of what your breed was bred for, and have to socialize on purpose to address those things, in every breed. But if they are socialized correctly, and the social norms of their pack are "we do not attack people and other creatures"... then that's what you'll wind up with 99% of the time. And if you do not socialize correctly, even a lab or golden retriever can pretty easily turn out to be dangerous.

hope this answers your question, always happy to talk shop about dogs!

#rb #breeds #dogs

65 notes · View notes