From thrasher123.
Great working dogs are bred and then polished through training. Training does not replace sound breeding practices.
You cannot train a dog to go birdy. You cannot train a dog to exhibit the pointing motor pattern. (Now, you can train a dog to retrieve, but that’s a bit different.)
But good working dogs are born with these natural motor patterns. Training merely polishes and focuses the dog’s working abilities.
Training is important, but it is not the only thing.
And to suggest otherwise is a bit disingenuous.
When you find me the Jack Russell that points birds or the golden retriever that catches feral hogs, then you might have a point.
check out matt mullenix’s blog on geocities. He has a pointing wippit. Also, how do you reconsile this with the ‘pit bull’ dogs bred for fighting are not inherantly dangerous argument?
Pit bull are not always bred for fighting. The ones used for hog catching are often very nice with other dogs.
However, the tendency to fight in the way that pit dogs do, is actually a mixture of prey drive and the fact that the dogs either don’t read or don’t give off submissive signals. If they aren’t trained to fight, many of them won’t show aggression toward dogs or people. But they will still have high prey drive. They will still chase squirrels and cats if not socialized to cats. It’s not really the same sort of behavior that I’m talking about in terms of instinctive motor patterns. The pointing behavior, the border collie herding style, and retrieving are very specialized motor patterns that are largely inherited. However, retrieving can be trained using either a clicker or the force-fetch method.
These motor patterns are already exhibited in the dog from a very early age. You have to breed for them to really get a dog that can do these behaviors in the most polished way. I can teach a golden to herd sheep, but he won’t be a border collie. (Now the converse is different. Many BC’s have strong retrieving instinct and can retrieve birds quite well. I don’t think a BC has the same sort of coat that a golden has with tons of oil for waterproofing, though.)
As for the pointing whippet, that intrigues me. Whippets are the result of breeding sighthounds with lots of other dogs, and I wonder if pointers might have been one of the relatives. I’ve read of a pointing bloodhound, and a St. Bernard that could herd sheep. Some goldens and Labs will point. In fact, there are lines of American field Lab that point– called “pointing Labs.”
A friend pointed me to this post mentioning the pointing whippet. She’s my gal, Rina. :-) She’s an odd bird but does the job. She actually does a lot of jobs; just don’t tell her she’s not supposed to know how. Her training was minimal (mostly just took her hunting often) but was aided much with wisdom from Texas dog man Gregg Barrow. Rina is my second whippet. The first was much like her in untility. Here are some links:
http://stephenbodio.blogspot.com/search?q=rina
Do you know where that may have come from?
I don’t know whippets very well.
Where the pointing comes from? I suspect it is just the first part of a stalking sequence, molded somewhat by my verbal cues (whoa! Dammit!)
Rina is clearly hunting these birds to eat them. I let her eat anything she catches, which keeps her drive strong; but I do that trusting the (faster?) hawk will still beat her to most of the critters she flushes for us. She does win the chase sometimes, and I have to be especially careful at the re-flush. But generally things work out the right way.
The whippet’s mixed ancestry may have something to do with the pointing, but I have never heard that any pointing breed was used to make this one—usually the recorded mix is grayhound and terrier. There is even a contingent of writers who claim that the whippet is ancient; that there has always been a small sighthound kept in hunters’ kennels for taking rabbits. The hares and larger game would be coursed by grayhounds and saluki-types.
The use of sighthounds with trained hawks goes WAY back and is still in practice today, but this is usually in a joint pursuit of running game. Sighthounds as stand-in “pointers” or “spanriels” don’t seem to have been written about much, but knowing these breeds I would say most would do as well as Rina at her job.
I’ll just say that with dogs there are no hard and fast rules, but there are general tendencies that are bred for.
I’ve known dachshunds, toy poodles, and Jack Russells that have wonderful retrieving instinct. Neither of those breeds could be used as a retrievers, at least in the cold water for long periods of time.
But there are studies that show that aptitude for most tasks in dogs is really genetic. I cannot get my hands on the guide dog study, but the researchers there found that genetics played a greater role in determining which dogs were going to make it than training. And once the guide dog school adopted a criteria system for selecting working behavior and temperament, the number of dogs they had passed increased greatly.
Pit bulls don’t need to be taught to fight. I agree that it’s a mixture of prey drive and something, but I think that something is that boldness and unwillingness to back down. It’s not uncommon in quite a few of the terrier breeds (and other breeds) as well, it’s just not as glamorized. The same things that make JRTs good go to ground dogs make pit bulls good fighters. It’s more in how you direct that energy than anything.
You can have a very dog-aggressive pit bull and not have him be “dangerous” in any way. Dangerous means you’ve failed your dog as an owner. Training, appropriate confinement, and appropriate supervision mean a lot more than an individual dog’s level of dog-aggression.
And a pit bull should never be human aggressive.
What’s the word they use for that “prey drive” in terriers and pit dogs?
Is it gameness?
Like I said, it has be directed.
And there are pit bulls that aren’t dog aggressive at all, but are very game about catching pigs. And there are a few of these dogs that are perfectly okay with doing the same to people. Again, it’s about how it is directed.
The reason why they fight is because they either don’t read canine submission signals or don’t give them as easily.
I know that the worst dog fight I ever saw was between three Jack Russells. And if you but 8 or 9 intact male goldens or Labs that have the proper temperament, chances of having a dog fight are quite low.
Somewhere on your blog you mentioned a connection between pointing and shyness. Could you elaborate on that or point (me) in the right direction for further information. Thanks.
I think it was in Ray Coppinger’s book, but I can’t remember that the pointing motor pattern affects the part of the brain that causes fear. After all, a point is just a stalled stalk and maybe that’s related to fear hesitation.
I see pointing as much more related to intensity than shyness. When my retrievers throw point, the rest of the world melts away and they are 100% focused on that bird, like time stops so they can relish that moment with their game. They will bust through anything, and if they know a bird is not going to flush or is stuck in a bush, ditch, etc., they will pick it up without any hesitation. I also see the stalking behavior in my herding dogs as associated with intensity. Perhaps in pointer breeds, that hesitation / shyness has been inadvertently bred-in to help solidify the pointing behavior.
My BC will point on occasion, though more in a herding style crouch than a pointerly point. I see my herders stalking behavior and my retrievers pointing behavior as very similar – intensity in that moment of anticipation, waiting for their ‘prey’ to flee.
Jim Dobbs has taught some retrievers to point who didn’t do so naturally:http://www.dobbsdogs.com/library/retrievers/rj27.html
Of course, there is the argument that the dogs aren’t really ‘pointing’ if it’s not an instinctual behavior.
Well, my understanding of the behavior is it is a modification of the predatory sequence that dogs go into when hunting.
I remember watching my “golden-boxer” stalk squirrels, and she would go into position and move relatively slowly. A pointer goes into the stalk and then freezes. And it’s thought that this might have something to do with hesitation. It’s really not useful in “the wild,” but it can be bred and trained for.
There’s a really good chapter on these motor patterns in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Startling-Understanding-Behavior-Evolution/dp/0684855305
Now, as for BC’s, I think, although I don’t have very good evidence on it, that the “strong-eye” and “clapping” behavior comes from a touch of crossbreeding loose-eyed and somewhat stronger eyed collie-types with pointers and setters.
I’ve often looked at BC in its “eye-stalk” stance and thought “That’s just like a pointer or setter.”
Gordon setters are part collie. We all know this, but maybe there is some pointing spaniel, pointer, or setter in their bloodline.
I’ve heard of BC’s having birdiness, and those that are used as retrievers do it well.
I see much more similarity in the predatory motor patters of my retrievers and strong-eyed BC, than I do in those of my BC and Aussies (driving dogs).
Wolves will typically stalk prey until it flees, especially larger prey. Mech has observed wolves stalk prey for hours before leaving because it never did run. He also notes that wolves want a pack of herd animal prey to run so that they can pick out the vulnerable ones and avoid head-on confrontation. Most pointing dogs I’ve seen are the same way – if the bird runs or flushes, they are full-tilt after it (unless trained to do otherwise). Perhaps the point is an exaggeration of this ‘encounter’ portion of a wild canine hunting behavior.
Stalking isn’t as important to wolves as it is to cats. Wolves run down their prey, and harrying it to test its strength is one of the things they do. They do stalk but they don’t rely upon the element of surprise in the way that cats do.
What’s interesting is that all of these dogs can learn the full predatory motor pattern sequence up to killing it and eating. However, pointers have a little bit of a problem, especially if they’re trained to ever learn the full sequence. Retrievers, if they learn to kill, very often want to have their prey thrown for them a few times before they eat it.