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Asking for breeders to health test is not too much work. (Ensures dog is free of genetic health issues as much as possible)

Asking for breeders to breed temperamentally stable dogs is not too much work. (Ensures puppies will also be temperamentally stable as much as possible).

Asking for breeders to breed structurally healthy dogs is not too much work. (Ensures dog can function as a dog).

Asking for proof of correct temperament from an outside source like an evaluator, working/sporting test, or real world application such as actual work is not too much work (ensures dog can do what breeder claims they can do as much as possible).

These are like bottom of the barrel expectations for a “responsible” dog breeder. Asking for less is ridiculous. We are responsible for ensuring future dogs are healthy and stable and lowering such expectations below this point is like asking a bar on the floor if it can possibly go lower.

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out of sight whistle recalls

#fern pics

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several related rants rapid fire, i am sick to death of:

people stepping into dog sports for the first time and immediately deciding they need a border collie or malinois next, preferably asap

people treating malinois like they have unmatched energy and drive (spoiler alert: just like every single breed of dog, there are ranges and the drive/energy ranges of mals overlap with plenty of other breeds)

people prioritizing "training" or "sport" experience over breed experience when considering malinois (or similar bred-to-bite breeds)

just about anyone messaging to tell me they're considering a malinois at this point, i'm at the end of my rope

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idk i think having now owned two very different breed groups (sighthound v herding), which are constantly getting referred to as the low and high end of the "dog intelligence" listings respectively, and seeing how it seems like modern dog training almost exclusively caters to the latter... it's left me with a lot of Thoughts that i'm not well-versed enough in dog training to formally articulate.

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i swear those ears are getting bigger, seriously

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sprimpt

#fern pics

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Sorry y’all the entire Clever Hans wiki article should be basic required reading at this point.

The “Clever Hans” effect, also understood as animals performing tasks because their handler/owner subtly and often unknowingly cues them that they’ll get a positive response is well documented. Hell, it’s been observed in drug sniffing dogs where the dogs will give false positives based on the dog’s observance of the handler’s body language. Scientifically that’s very interesting.

Dogs using buttons are not “speaking” they are using what they know will get them a desired response. Dogs do speak, to us and each other, in their own form of communication (body language mostly). We as humans are adept at being able to learn to read this just as dogs can read OUR body language (body language we often don’t know we are communicating btw). That’s neat as heck.

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To be honest I think the idea that ‘dogs need to be “held accountable” for their actions’ has done more damage to dog training and ownership than almost anything else

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I think this is such an important conversation to have because, especially people who work with some of the breeds who legitimately do have more energy, they kind of chain themselves to this schedule that can be really brutal and disruptive for the humans.

I saw a TikTok video where this incredible woman has so much devotion to her Malinois and she’s describing the schedule, and she’s like, “This is everything that we did today and look at how much energy he still has.” And my heart was broken for her because talk about somebody who is committed to their dog, and having it disrupt her entire life because nobody had taught her to recognise that chronic stress in her dog and that she didn’t need to give him more stuff to do.

She needed to teach him how to rest. And we’ve also seen people saying, “You should never adopt a Husky unless you’re willing to run that dog for four hours a day.” And I was just like, that’s a bad thing to say for Huskies everywhere because talk about dissuading people from adopting these dogs.

Yes, they do need to run. They are high energy dogs. But I have a friend and a student who, for a living, is working with actual working sledding dogs in Alaska. And I was talking to them about it and they were like, “The only time our dogs run four hours a day is during competition season, and we have to work up to that, and we work down, and the rest of the year, it’s like an hour a day because we teach our dogs how to rest.” And I was like, that is what people need to hear about Huskies. That’s what they need to hear about Malinois. Right? When dogs have been trained and conditioned to work – I’m talking about physical conditioning – when they have been trained to do a job, of course, they can perform for hours, and hours, and hours a day, and that’s not harmful. But the belief that they have to do that, every dog of that breed has to do that, is harmful. And those working dogs are also taught how to complete that stress response cycle and come down from that state of arousal.

— Emily Strong, Enrichment for the Real World, #4 - Dr. Chris Pachel: Moving Beyond Diagnose & Prescribe

#my 1 year old standard poodle only gets potty walks and some puzzle toys for her average day #she genuinely sleeps most of the day

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#fern pics

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snoozing in the remnants of her kill

#fern pics

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in case anyone wants to know what it’s like living with topan. this is it. all the time just growling at me for attention….

#fern does the exact same thing lmaoooo

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you can’t watch these two play and not smile

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But because it’s a dog, he is supposed to completely disregard generations of breeding? Cani Corso came from rural Italy and have been bred for a range of things from driving cattle and hunting boar to guarding property.  As an intact male Cane Corso, he was just doing what he thought was his job. That behavior wasn’t learned, it was instinctual. And it’s the owner’s responsibility to acknowledge that and use training and environment to ensure the dog is never in a situation they can’t handle. I think people in many western countries and Americans in particular, have this idea that any dog who doesn’t have a happy go lucky, submissive, eager to please attitude is a “bad dog” and it’s the owner’s fault – unless he’s a rescue who’s been abused. Then everything is forgiven and the dog can do not wrong. What’s missing from that point of view is genetic predisposition and owner responsibility. 

“Is It All In How You Raise Them?”. Let’s Talk Dogs….Logically! (13 June 2018).

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I wanted to share this after the post yesterday about picking your timing and approach when talking to people about hard animal things. This book is framed for people who work as dog trainers about how to understand and better work with their clients, but I highly recommend it as a resource to anyone who wants to do outreach about topics like animal behavior and animal welfare. It talks a lot about things like empathy and working to avoid creating cognitive dissonance, and dealing with education in situations where the human relationships that are influencing action are complex.

#books #resources #save

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Hiked with the dog and thought about how ancient of an activity that it is. Walking through the wilds with your dog is probably as old as dogs themselves. Maybe that’s why I crave it so much.