[Doggies4Evers]

Hey, I was just curious.

You know in the wild, (wolves) how theres a top male and top female which rules over the rest of the pack? Well I was wondering since its just me (female) and Buddie (male) that he would think that we are top dogs? Equal? Since we are different genders? I am just wondering if there is such a thing. Don't think so?

[Curbside Prophet]

No, dogs don't look at us like other dogs. We don't communicate in dog language, and we fail more times then not when we try. So no, I don't believe my dog looks at me as an equal. I do believe it's natural, by the dog's evolution, for her to look at me as her source of resources...that means it's her nature to look up to me.

[xoxluvablexox]

Your ideas about dogs are pretty interesting. Most people go for the typical dog/wolf theory. I've never really looked into it much I just figured they had simliar instincts being that they're both canines. That just made sense to me but It makes sense that they wouldn't be similiar considering that wolves don't really live among humans like they might have when us humans lived outside in caves and huts and stuff.

[DOBERMAN_07]

Only in Canada

[Curbside Prophet]

If we look at an animal that's more closely related to our dogs, the village dog, you will see that the village dog lives off of human waste. If you've ever been to a third world country, dogs hang out around humans, but they aren't owned by anyone...they are scavengers and you're likely to find them at dumps where scrap food sources are prevelant or where people are nice enough to throw them a bone, so to speak. The village dog lives around people because they've evolved to take advantage of the resources we provide them...unlike the wolf. This is a totally different way to look at dogs. To view them as needing us as hosts, where the wolf doesn't need us at all. In so many ways, our dogs have evolved to be parasites. That being said, if our dogs naturally depend on us, why would I want to try and reduce their rank in a human/dog superficial pack? I don't need to. Or I should say, for me, I don't want to waste my time using faulty reasoning to do so. I think if more people did this, we would have less problems with our dogs. Because often when dominance training is prescribed, the training itself is the actual cause of the problem.

A dog bites a child, someone will say, you need to establish yourself as Alpha and show him who's boss. When in fact most acts of perceived aggression is fear and it has nothing to do with dominance. The dog fears the child for whatever reason, most likely because it hasn't been socialized with children, and the recommendation is to remove the dog from the child, or worse to have the dog euthanized. When in fact what the dog needs is to be socialized with the child, and to learn that the child poses no threat. Under supervision with a trainer, the best solution is to have the child train simple obedience using food rewards, and this alone can reduce future bites 90%.

Dog/wolf parallels are faulty in so many ways that I can't stand seeing them being used erroneously. Most people don't even know that the wolf dominance model was developed out of 1% of behavior of captive wolves. Does this sound like good conclusions can be made from this? Not to me.

[xoxluvablexox]

That makes sense but then where did the dog come from?
I've always thought that since people lived more with nature so long ago wolves became more used to us and even got food from us wich led some of them to become "domesticated" in a way of speaking. Not saying that wolves were the one and only first dog or the only canine species used increating the dogs known today. I just thought that was a big part of it.

[Doggies4Evers]

So many interesting views. ^-^ They say the wolfs with the least flight distance would be the ones to eat the waste food people had thrown out and over time became the first dog. I watched Nova, was about how the dog came to be. Was really interesting.

[SunSiberians]

Originally Posted by Doggies4Evers

So many interesting views. ^-^ They say the wolfs with the least flight distance would be the ones to eat the waste food people had thrown out and over time became the first dog. I watched Nova, was about how the dog came to be. Was really interesting.

That was an awesome show! I even bought it on dvd, lol.

[Doggies4Evers]

Sounds wonderful, they have another one related to dogs, however they havn't been kind enough to put it on tv for the world to view and enjoy as of yet. I wonder if they are keeping those foxes that are acting like dogs as pets in that town. Quite interesting indeed.

[SunSiberians]

Originally Posted by Doggies4Evers

Sounds wonderful, they have another one related to dogs, however they havn't been kind enough to put it on tv for the world to view and enjoy as of yet. I wonder if they are keeping those foxes that are acting like dogs as pets in that town. Quite interesting indeed.

There's another awesome series about dogs called "Dogs that Changed the World." It's brought out by Nature, you should look up the next showing, it's really wonderful.

[Doggies4Evers]

Wow thank you for telling me about it, I hope I do find it and able to watch it

[Curbside Prophet]

Originally Posted by xoxluvablexox

That makes sense but then where did the dog come from?

Really, no one knows...a direct link between the wolf and dog hasn't been discovered. Scientists have only been able to draw conclusions from mitrochondrial DNA, the chromosomes, and the number of teeth that the dog is descended from the wolf. Was it a cousin of the wolf? Or a wolf like animal? We can only hypothesis at this point. But what we do know is that the wolf has remained unchanged for centuries, and we have the domestic dog that has changed in looks and behaviors and can now do many things that are totally alien to the wolf. Dogs are now as far removed from their ancesotors as we are from ours.

I've always thought that since people lived more with nature so long ago wolves became more used to us and even got food from us wich led some of them to become "domesticated" in a way of speaking. Not saying that wolves were the one and only first dog or the only canine species used increating the dogs known today. I just thought that was a big part of it.

If you're saying that our dogs came from an animal that adapted to human civilizations over thousands of years, I say yes. But if you're saying that man took a wolf like animal and made it tame, I say yes and no. Why?

There are biological differences between the wolf and dog that can't be explained by breeding for tame. Dimitri Belyaev did a 40 year experiment on breeding for tame in foxes. What he saw was his foxes become dog like to the point that they even barked like dogs, and he even started to see variations in coat color. He selected his foxes based on how close the fox would get to humans. However, the size of the skull of the fox was virtually unchanged. If you took a 100 lb dog and a 100 lb wolf, one thing you will notice is that the wolf's brain is much larger and so is their skull. So the question becomes what pressure is needed to shrink our dogs skull in evolution if it's not breeding for tame. IMO, the pressure is a natural evolution, adapting to an ever changing niche in a human environment, over thousands and thousands of years. IMO, the dog evolved into the village dog, by natural pressures, and then man took the village dog and bred it for domestication. Was the wolf the first animal to take some scraps from humans? It's very likely, and wolves do this even today. But the differences between wolf and dog to me only means we shouldn't treat our dog as wolves.

[SunSiberians]

One of the current theories is that dog originated from the Asian Wolf (very different from the North American Wolf). With that they've then created four groups of dogs that are believed to be the closest related to the wolf. The first group and the closest branch contains the Akita, Chow Chow, Shar Pei and the Shiba Inu. The second branch includes the African Basenji, the third group contains the Alaskan Malaumute and Siberian Husky and the fourth group contains the Afghan Hound and the Saluki - then the final group is "most other breeds." Scientists have discovered that the greatest diversity in canine genes comes out of Asia. They even say that the common Asian companion breeds such as the Shih Tzu, Lhasa Apso and are much closer (genentically) to the wolf then most people would like to believe. The majority of dog breeds however have much more recent origins (recent being in the last 300 years - which in the scheme of things is very recent). Within these modern breeds genetic studies have shown that there are three distinc groups - the mastifflike breeds, herding breeds and the hunting breeds - all base on human activity. Very interesting.

I also agree with Curbside Prophet, that it's more likely that wolves chose to be tame rather then humans choosing wolves to be tame.

[DogAdvocat]

Originally Posted by Curbside Prophet

A dog bites a child, someone will say, you need to establish yourself as Alpha and show him who's boss. When in fact most acts of perceived aggression is fear and it has nothing to do with dominance. The dog fears the child for whatever reason, most likely because it hasn't been socialized with children, and the recommendation is to remove the dog from the child, or worse to have the dog euthanized. When in fact what the dog needs is to be socialized with the child, and to learn that the child poses no threat. Under supervision with a trainer, the best solution is to have the child train simple obedience using food rewards, and this alone can reduce future bites 90%.

I look at this a little differently. I think a lot depends on the age of the child. For older children, you may be right. But for younger children, I don't think the aggression is fear based at all. I think it's discipline based, and the dog IS asserting the alpha role, or at least a parental role and using the bite to let the child know that their actions are not acceptable. That includes a prior warning. They do the same thing to other dogs. Of course I'm not talking about full on mangling attacks, just simple bites, which usually do far less damage than the dog is capable of.

[Curbside Prophet]

Originally Posted by DogAdvocat

But for younger children, I don't think the aggression is fear based at all. I think it's discipline based, and the dog IS asserting the alpha role, or at least a parental role and using the bite to let the child know that their actions are not acceptable.

IMHO, dog nipping of young children is caused by two factors. 1) it's being reinforced by the environment. (Dog nips child. Child runs away) 2) Because no one ever trained the dog to do otherwise.

Why these two factors and not dominance issues or Alpha issues, or parental issues? First off, I don't for a minute believe my dog views me or a young child as another dog. But also because to view this as not being a condition of well-executed conditioning and an adequate environment, the recommended training is typically to exert dominance over the dog. This can be incredibly abusive concept in the mind of an idiot, and more times than not, rank reduction games only perpetuates the problem further. I've witnessed too many people trying to explain misbehavior with "pack" theories, when all they really need is a better understanding of learning theory. Train the dog first, then make up whatever story you want in your head, but just don't jump to conclusions about your dog's place in the pack. This is my perspective, and maybe I'm in the minority?

[Elijah]

I wonder how this guy would be viewed by most dogs? Seems he'd do well in the city or in the wild country...sort of ambidextrous I would think.

[Curbside Prophet]

See, I told you Grandpaw Elijah that a face lift wasn't needed. But it looks like you done and did it anyways.

[DogAdvocat]

Originally Posted by Curbside Prophet

IMHO, dog nipping of young children is caused by two factors. 1) it's being reinforced by the environment. (Dog nips child. Child runs away) 2) Because no one ever trained the dog to do otherwise.

Why these two factors and not dominance issues or Alpha issues, or parental issues? First off, I don't for a minute believe my dog views me or a young child as another dog. But also because to view this as not being a condition of well-executed conditioning and an adequate environment, the recommended training is typically to exert dominance over the dog. This can be incredibly abusive concept in the mind of an idiot, and more times than not, rank reduction games only perpetuates the problem further. I've witnessed too many people trying to explain misbehavior with "pack" theories, when all they really need is a better understanding of learning theory. Train the dog first, then make up whatever story you want in your head, but just don't jump to conclusions about your dog's place in the pack. This is my perspective, and maybe I'm in the minority?

Let me clarify something. When I said I think that the dog is disciplining the child like it would discipline another dog, I didn't mean that the dog sees the child (or us) as another dog. Just because we discipline a dog the same way we might a child doesn't mean we are ready to go get the dog a social security number.

But dogs have learned from their mothers to growl, snap, or bite (without real pressure) when they don't like what another dog is doing. Mama dog never told them how to restrict television from humans, or how to ground them, or take away their allowance. So they do what they know. And I think the mere fact that they have the capacity to inflict major wounds, and they do not, shows it's meant to be discipline. Unfortunately, they don't understand that we don't have fur to protect us, so sometimes blood is drawn, but I don't think that they meant to do injury. And again, as a disclaimer, I'm not talking about when a child's face is ripped off.

I hope that makes sense, whether you agree with it or not. But I do agree with you that the first thing that we as humans need to do is rectify the situation, and when that's done, we can wonder and muse on why it happened and what the dog's intentions were. My interest in this is that I hate to have people assume their dog is vicious because it snapped at their child after the child tried to put a cracker in the dog's eyeball. It's up to the parent to control their child, but I think it's a no-brainer when the dog does it instead, and I don't think the dog should be punished or lose it's home for that.

[Elijah]

Originally Posted by Curbside Prophet

See, I told you Grandpaw Elijah that a face lift wasn't needed. But it looks like you done and did it anyways.

Oh, that ain't me-he's better looking and has a bit more hair!!

IMHO, dog nipping of young children is caused by two factors. 1) it's being reinforced by the environment. (Dog nips child. Child runs away) 2) Because no one ever trained the dog to do otherwise.

Don't forget hereditary factors as well. Corgis (Pembroke and Cardigan) have genetics bred into them that make them want to herd the kids when they play out in the back yard and maybe even nip at their heels to get them where he wants them. they can be taught not to do that but, it's ingrained in them. I've heard of some that will attempt to herd everything from the vacuum cleaner to the wheel barrow. Being of the Herding group, that's just their forte. As you said, no one may have trained them to do otherwise.

[Curbside Prophet]

Originally Posted by DogAdvocat

It's up to the parent to control their child, but I think it's a no-brainer when the dog does it instead, and I don't think the dog should be punished or lose it's home for that.

It makes complete sense and I agree, I think it's a no-brainer too (but I like to blame lack of training on the owner, not how the dog is being a dog), and I always look to whether or not the dog has been trained around children, first. The questions I like to ask when I read a story about a dog that bites a child is, how many times has the dog bitten the child, and how much damage did the dog do? The frequency tells me how big of a problem it is, and the damage tells me how much bite inhibition the dog has been trained to have. Managing the environment will reduce the frequency and further teaching the dog bite inhibition reduces the damage, and also minimizes the frequency. But this is exactly my point, recognizing that more training is needed, instead of categorizing a dog as to what rung they are on in a social hierarchy (even a dog social hierarchy), keeps the dog in a home, IMO.