Thread: Councils should admister an IQ test before people can own a dog!

NO, my dogs are not aggressive and I have them in runs when I am away... for their protection. I wouldn't leave a dog in a house to have to deal with a potential intruder if it wasn't capable of it. If it was capable, I would still put it in a kennel and run. For this reason I would consider it the owners fault if their dog was left to deal with an intruder and it got hurt.

I also wouldn't have any faith whatsoever in the intruder reading your chart. I realise it is for visitors, but can you not just ask your visitors to leave the dog alone? Asking a non dog person to read a dog, with potential to bite... I don;t know the circumstances but you say it has bitten you..., on the basis of a cartoon is playing with danger... for your visitors and dog. Why even go there... it's not doing anyone or the dog a favor... just ask them to leave the dog alone....

As for dreaming... I have no dreams... I am a married man....

The context of Ceaser making that comment that "I didn't see that coming" makes perfect sense. Sure the dog was uptight... but it was beginning to calm, he just made his play a bit sooner than the dog was ready for it... it happens, it's the nature of dealing with dogs like that. I used to break horses, I remember one in particular, you went out knowing he was going to buck at some stage most mornings... 99.9% of the time you could tell when it was coming... sometimes he hit so fast and out of the blue you were airborne before you knew what was happening. Now it would be easy for someone who had never ridden to misunderstand if i was to pick my self up off the ground and say "I didn;t see that coming" and for them to say "what a muppet, it bucks every morning"....

I have studied the video... the link above does not seem to work anymore so I'll include it here again....

The bite occurs at about 1.11 mins into the clip.

The dog was basically relaxed in demeanor. I wasn't totally surprised by the nip, and it was only a nip when Ceaser pet the dog on the nose... that was expected, but that was only a "Leave me alone" communication. What followed the split second later was a totally against the dogs body language. there was nothing defensive in that attack... that was a 100% "F^%K YOU" from the dog, against the situation, unprovoked and surprising. If you cannot see that you need to study dog language a bit more and I mean absolutely no disrespect in that. I'll explain it a bit more later. It sure as hell would fooled me.. the nip wouldn't have, the all out attack would have.

Nothing about that dog, from the time it left the food bowls, indicated it would initiate an attack... the hand rub might have pissed it off... but in the second between that and the attack Ceaser had amended his body language, was actually backing off and the dog took the apparent weakness as a cue to have a go.

Now when you go into bat with a dog with issues like this one has you have to read the situations split second by split second. The aim is to make contact with the dog eventually in a positive fashion. At some stage, if the dog doesn't initiate that contact you have to. Judging that is delicate. In this situation the "nip" would have told me the dog wasn't ready... and I would have backed off, but not too much, and reassessed and re-established the situation... in my eyes this was exactly what Ceaser was doing when the dog attacked very surprisingly and not in keeping with its current demeanor. This isn't science, it's good old fashioned dog handling and there are variables in the canine mind that we often don;t see coming. Like I said above, it goes with the territory and just like the horse brekaer expecting never to be sat on their arse, a dog handler working with dogs with potential for biting will get a few bites.

In this case it was particularly surprising.. had that been a Pit-bull then I would have had an ounce of surprise, but as it is yellow lab which seems to be able to relax while still thinking about dominating someone who is pissing it off then sure it could surprise me... and further.. If that had been me that dog would not have got to see another sunset. I would have extreme doubts over the rehabilitation potential of a dog that acted in such a fashion.

I do get passionate about this, because i often hear opinions from people who have never gone into bat for such a dog with the thought of saving its life, and as much as whatever dog training doctrine you follow when these totally predictable and acceptable instances are used to bag someone who does go into bat for these dogs I get a bit ansy. There are many dogs termed aggressive that can be 100% changed and made safe by better handling. There are some that cannot... and to use them against someone who prepared to have go when others weren't smacks of agenda, or at the least extreme bias, to me.

Good luck.

this one time me the wife and my 14 year old gsp went for a short walk in pureora. while walking down the track i spys a pighunter walking up the track with a bunch of mutts. before i could grab my old dog this wank dog as big as a hippo runs straight up the track, and latches on to my dogs throat and starts shaking her from side to side. this arse dog did not even stop for a arse sniff or even a shape up. just into it. my poor old dog. i could not get this dog off, and i did not even have a shooter with me, i was yelling to my missus to get my knife out of the daypack she had on. to cut a long story short i was just about to run my knife in the the dogs ribcage when the owner of this shithead dog turned up and managed to get it off. lucky he did because i was just to bout to gut his mutt live. my gsp was wearing a leather collar which took the worst of it, and she got away with a few small holes here and there. i told the dude i better not see that poor excuse of a dog again or i will kill it and how could he own a thing like that. wot if it did that to a small child? if found him to be an idiot and people like that tend to own mutts like that.

Originally Posted by sakokid

this one time me the wife and my 14 year old gsp went for a short walk in pureora. while walking down the track i spys a pighunter walking up the track with a bunch of mutts. before i could grab my old dog this wank dog as big as a hippo runs straight up the track, and latches on to my dogs throat and starts shaking her from side to side. this arse dog did not even stop for a arse sniff or even a shape up. just into it. my poor old dog. i could not get this dog off, and i did not even have a shooter with me, i was yelling to my missus to get my knife out of the daypack she had on. to cut a long story short i was just about to run my knife in the the dogs ribcage when the owner of this shithead dog turned up and managed to get it off. lucky he did because i was just to bout to gut his mutt live. my gsp was wearing a leather collar which took the worst of it, and she got away with a few small holes here and there. i told the dude i better not see that poor excuse of a dog again or i will kill it and how could he own a thing like that. wot if it did that to a small child? if found him to be an idiot and people like that tend to own mutts like that.

Agree with you Sakokid... Hunting Tauhaura and Tinokouri I encountered some pig dogs like this.... It didn;t get as far as it did with yours, thank god, but I always had a shooter, and truth be told I'd shoot a dog like that as quick as look at him if he was hell bent on killing my much enjoyed hound.

Ruff I appreciate your passion for the subject, as I am sure you have noticed I am too passionate about my dog and dog training.

I would however like to end this with saying that you do not know me or my dog and do not know the circumstances of the bites I have recieved from him - during reward play, when he was highly aroused and I was not thinking about lowering his stimulation and taking control of the situation. As for telling visitors to leave my dog alone - I do not have a 'working dog' as such, like the ones you own and train. I have an average joe dog. I have friends. My flatmates have friends. These are real people that love your average joe dog. They want to pat dogs, cuddle them, make them do tricks. And so do I. I love a working dog who does a job. But you've got to be shitting me if you'd profess to never patting or showing affection to your dog - it's what (most) humans like to do. And with a bit of instruction and pointers, I'd like my visitors to enjoy my dog with pats and cuddles and tricks and have my dog enjoy the affection of the visitors once he is comfortable.

The point of the posters is to help people to understand dogs a bit better and their body language. Good luck to you mate if you'd like to lock up every un-educated average Joe and never let him pat a dog again without attending one of your lectures. Me on the other hand.....I'd like to explain to people how they can interact with Fido a bit more appropriately. Even if that means educating one visitor to my home at a time.

You don't need to worry about the posters though, you'll never be round to my house!

I don;t do lectures and I do tell strangers to leave a dog alone. They are dogs, not people.

Originally Posted by Ruff

I don;t do lectures and I do tell strangers to leave a dog alone. They are dogs, not people.

I agree, and people may not understand their body language. Hopefully I can change that.

Originally Posted by Dougie

I agree, and people may not understand their body language. Hopefully I can change that.

Not unless they want to make a study of it, and I doubt many people casually dropping round do... No one visiting our place comes in contact with me dogs unless they want to. The dogs couldn;t care less.

This is totally the nature of every dog thread on here....

Goodnight, Ruff.

No it's not... not among hunters with dogs Dougie. A pet forum would get a different response I'm sure... Don;t judge me harshly for thinking this forum is about hunting dogs.

Sweet as, in my opinion 99% of the dog threads on here consist of some information and then a battle of the brick walls saying "my ideas are better than yours".

Dear moderators....please move this to 'Off Topic'.

I dont know if youve noticed Dougie but all my ideas are the best even if theyre fu--ed

Originally Posted by el borracho

I dont know if youve noticed Dougie but all my ideas are the best even if theyre fu--ed

Tweed makes everthing right...

that it does

In a situation where you discussing the potential of someone being hurt, I think it's worth being pedantic over.