[ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: fine line
- From: Pinehillgsds@xxxxxxx
- To: hollywoods@xxxxxxx, showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2007 10:23:24 EDT
In a message dated 9/23/2007 1:03:51 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
hollywoods@xxxxxxx writes:
I have noticed quite a few of you have had dogs that have killed bunnies,
possums, birds etc.. Some think its yucky but not too bad... Where do you draw
the line at what they killed... How about a little dog?... Same with not
biting a person but its ok if the guy is a bad guy... but what if they just
thought he was a bad guy... Just wondering where we draw the line on a dog
being
ok to bite something and not ok to bite something.
Well, that's a thought provoking question for a Sunday AM <G>.
The short answer is YOU either determine where the line is acceptable for
you and you train your dogs accordingly or you leave it all up to instinct and
just observe what happens.
Unless taught to ignore their instincts, dogs will act on them. (They're
dogs, not little people in furry suits!) For example, it's instinct to follow
prey drive. You can train away from that (you would teach a dog "leave it",
teach a reliable recall and a reliable down), OR you can capitalize on prey
drive (herding dog people do it to a very controlled degree with herding,
sporting dog people capitalize on prey drive for dogs to find/retrieve....).
We know it's a dog's instinct to protect the pack. (There is a tendency to
humanize this, but, no, the whole concept is one of self preservation.)
And...pack can have some strange definitions; for instance, when visiting my
sister my dogs consider my sister's house cats part of "the pack". When I go
to
the vets, they have loose cats all over and my dogs ignore them, basically
accepting them as part of "the pack". However, my sister has an annoying
feral
tom cat who menaces the other cats that the dogs would kill in a New York
minute if they could catch him. So does that make them cat killers?
Probably.
(I'm not loosing any sleep over the nasty tom cat, but it might bother some.)
When visiting my brother, my dogs consider my young nephew part of "their
pack". An adult who is a stranger to the dogs is watched very carefully until
we say "it's ok". But the baby is "ours" part of our pack.
We can teach appropriate situational behavior that goes against a dog's
natural instincts (NO, don't growl at the judge who looks like he is stalking,
lol!, NO don't chase the UPS man who is running back to the truck!), but we
can also capitalize on their instincts to protect what is "theirs" and feel a
great sense of security with dogs in our homes.
Interesting tidbit; our dogs key off a physiological change in us when we
are nervous about something, as they do with a physiological change in a
stranger who may be nervous or apprehensive. Their instinct when we (or "the
pack") show apprehension is to protect us, when another shows apprehension is
to
defend the pack...so they could be reacting to us, a stranger or both. (My
mother always says go with the dog's judgement!) But in reality, ever notice
how some dogs act a little "off" when someone is afraid of them? Or ever
notice how some owners can't stand ringside with their dogs because the
owner's
nerves go right down the leash? Basically, the dogs are thinking "something
wrong here, not sure what, better be prepared though".
The more we understand pack behavior, the more we can control or channel it
to our advantage. The other course of action would be to block the behavior.
I was speaking to a lady with a young male Akita and this gal was just
finishing chemo. The dog was extremely protective of her. Aggressive dog?
Not
at all. He knew there was something very wrong and although there's no way
to rationalize to him that there's nothing he can do, the least we can do is
understand his behavior and block it to prevent problems. Ever notice, to a
lessor degree when something isn't "right" in your life, the dogs are a little
more on their toes?
But here, if something happens, I put the blame on me not training correctly
or not taking the precaution of anticipating then blocking perfectly normal
behavior. For instance, I can call a dog off of a bunny or a feral cat if
I'm out in the front yard gardening w/ a dog for company. I can't see the
rear
of my fenced area from the house though, so if the dogs are out back in the
woods the critters are on their own. I demand my dogs act "right" with other
dogs while working (training, tracking, herding, showing etc.). If a stray
dog ever got into the back fence, however, it wouldn't be pretty and I don't
kid myself about it (they are, after all, dogs!). I block that by having VERY
good fence! The dogs are trained to accept visitors. (In fact, if visitors
include children they enjoy the heck out of them!) BUT, I'm still dealing
with the situation of a puppy I sold, who as an adolescent, loose in the house
with another dog, bit a member of a cleaning crew in the arse after the
cleaning crew let themselves in using a key in a lock box. (Cleaning crew
changes weekly, the supervisor was the only constant, so the person she bit was
a
stranger). To me, that's normal behavior. It should have been anticipated
and blocked by putting the dogs up on the day the cleaning crew was coming.
But "the fine line"?...it's a personal determination, up to us to draw it,
UNDERSTAND dog behavior, capitalize on instinct, train for wanted behaviors,
anticipate and block unwanted behaviors.
Different people will define their "lines" differently, and unfortunately,
we know some won't bother at all and dogs acting on normal instinct will be
sure to get in trouble:(
Kathy, member GSDCA, DVGSDC
Celebrating generations of Dual Titled TC'd Champions
visit www.geocities.com/pinehillgsds
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