Interesting topic!

My question:

Will this discussion cover just the typical dogs bred to be highly responsive to humans, or the breeds who were bred to be intelligent, independent and much less responsive to humans?

I have the great pleasure and privilege of owning a purebred mutt who turned out to be most like his Great Pyrenees grandsire, one of the livestock guardian breeds. When I took him to obedience classes, I thought he was defective because all the other puppies were attentive and responsive to their owners, but he wasn’t. Much later I learned that this was a feature of LGDs, not a flaw. Fortunately for both of us, he had a splendid temperament and he didn’t require much human supervision.

Looking forward to the show. We got ourselves a puppy 4 months ago, and it is I have to say a life changing experience. Other than the physical aspects of making changes in our lifestyle, our psyches are experiencing change. For one, I am humbled in the knowledge that humans don’t feel for the planet as much as the other animal beings do. From the day Sami walked in, he has loved a patch of grass as much as a breeze blowing a leaf.
I recommend ‘On Talking Terms With Dogs : Calming Signals’
By Turid Rugaas, for anyone who faces, deals with wants, loves and cares about dogs. After reading, YOu will see when and how the dog tries to calm you, and what you can do to calm him/her – with a yawn, a move etc. My daughter and niece managed to communicate super effectively in minutes. It is amazing to watch how she will just kneel down, & yawn to him, and he will instantly settle down.

I am a pet sitter. When I throw a ball for an Australian Shepherd, she watches my eyes – not the ball as all other dogs do.
Caroline
Beaufort, SC

Dogs have something in the order of 1500 times the sensitivity than we do in smell. Some breeds, such as Bloodhounds have extremely acute senses of smell and find the sent of a person even after a rain storm.

My dog which is a Lab Pointer mix has both good eye site and smell. He has spotted rabbits in the grass at dusk when I can’t see it at all.

I for one think they are amazing animals and offer us unconditional love. They are loyal, and loving. What more can one ask.

It’s hard to believe that you haven’t talked about the theory of dogs being neotnic–arrested in puppyhood. It explains so much of the difference between wolf and dog behavior.

I think they understand us better than we understand them because they are not distracted by the symbology of language. It’s useful to us to generalize, but not necessarily for dogs.

Finally, dogs are pack animals and they do treat us as the alpha in the pack. Even if they serve us and play with us, they still see us the boss…or vice versa and that’s when there’s trouble.

Read (or listen to) Billy Collins’ poem “The Revenant” (on “Billy Collins’ Live”)

Alexandra is brilliant. This show is exactly what I was hoping it would be. Fantastic topic, well discussed. Have her back to talk about anything!

In the case of my dog spotting rabbits at dusk and in the dark, I have also noticed how he smells them first, and then gets them in his sight. What is fascinating is how a hounds sense of smell is able to hone into the exact direction that the rabbit is in and how fast he does it.

When we first moved into our house I found my dog moving around the back yard in a strange and what seemed to be erratic. He had his noise to the ground and was moving in fast zig zag patterns and digging small holes. As I watched him it was clear what he was doing was smelling moles in the ground. In the next few days he rid the yard of about 6 or 7 moles.

Some of what Cesar Milan is okay, but with my pup, I found it ludicrous to establish an alpha position, when he was just a baby, completely under our power. I dropped this reading and study right there as I also feel it is a little cruel. For generations we have had dogs, and very few people I have known with great human dog relationships have been alpha. So time to de-mystify that.

I grew up with cats and never thought I’d own a dog until my wife and I adopted a Shiba Inu we named Yuki a couple months ago. It has been a life-changing, perhaps a life-evolving experience, as I now find myself completely head over heels for the new addition to our home.

In Brooklyn, nobody really talks to their neighbors, but with our new puppy, we have become part of a circle of animal lovers and have befriended most of our block and the surrounding areas. I walk Yuki around and people come up to me and say hi, ask to pet her, and often know our dog by name. Our little puppy has made so many people around us happy and broken down the barriers between worlds that keep people separate and alone. Never mind all the love she gives us directly from one moment to the next!

I never thought of myself as a dog lover — more a cat person, until Yuki opened up my eyes. Learning to communicate with her has been a challenge of course but we found a puppy school that has taught us a lot how to read her signals. Although she can’t speak, her noises, her little growls, the way she walks and the looks she gives us often clearly tell us what she wants or needs.

It amazes me that my dog will come tell me when it’s 6:00 pm. She gets her dinner at 6:00 and invariably comes to let us know that it’s time. Almost without exception, it is within 5 minutes of 6:00.

The “alpha” concept is misunderstood. Alpha dogs are merely leaders, the dog that other dogs look to for leadership. Other dogs either accept or challenge their leadership. Alphas need not be aggressive in the least, merely confident and consistent.

Confident and consistent – that should be the take home message for any dog owner.

The dog “midwife” may well have been a livestock guardian dog. It’s not always easy to know if you have an LGD, but the surest sign is a complete fascination with infants of any kind. LGDs not only guard herd animals, but they will reliably clean newborns and are compelled to investigate any young animal. My dog alarmed more than one parent when he stuck his nose into strollers to check out their baby. Only babies, though. Toddlers were of no interest to him.

True story. About 35 years ago I was working security for a concert promoter at a Grateful Dead concert. The stage manager from Vermont had a German Shepherd with him. At about 1:00 in the afternoon he walked around the stadium with the dog. He looked directly at the dog and said “Everyone here is okay. No one new. And no uniforms.” I swear, throughout the day, sound crew, union workers, hangers on, whoever had been cleared by the command could walk in and out of the security perimeter and the dog just lay there. Any one new, the dog stood alert and barked. And no uniformed personnel could get by without the dog raising an alarm.

Came into this program late so I couldn’t call in but I read the Time article online so I know what is being said. I am not a behaviorist but I have worked and played with dogs and they are an important part of my life. I have to disagree often with the experts that seem to be seeking to impress with oversimplification.

It is the dogs who end up misunderstood at the end of it by people who buy everything the next “expert’ says.
The bottom line is that no one dog is much like the next. Like all intelligent, social animals they are all individuals and anyone who tells you that all dogs do that or pretend that they have all the answers for every dog is wrong.

I have had mostly “soft” dogs my whole life. Breeds do have tendencies to be certain ways although this again is never a hard rule. Collies and Irish Wolfhounds tend to be the easy going cooperative and non confrontational types.. Now I have a Corgi and all that I learned with the dogs before went out the window. This dog pays close attention to dog rules and if you are not in the dominant position he will try to assume it. What I am saying is that the way I approach dealing with the Corgi HAS to be quite different. Cesar Milan could work with this dog. He would have been VERY over the top extreme for my last Wolfhound.
It also sounds as if they are trying to say that when a dog or puppy licks your face he is trying to get a meal out of it. I believe that your dog would be very surprised if you puked for him. (pleasantly so probably.) If you believe that he is kissing you you are much closer to the truth than the current experts seem to be. The licking may have evolved from the wolf pack puppy thing.. but it has become a social bonding ritual over time.. much like the play bow behavior that a dog does probably evolved from getting up and stretching. It means. “Lets go!” It doesn’t mean “I need to stretch.”

The experiment with scolding a dog drew the wrong conclusions as well. If a dog is only behaving in a submissive way he knows will deflect wrath with no sense that he has done wrong then why is it that you can walk into a room with no idea that he has torn up your shoe and be tipped off by the guilty way he acts before you have any idea a crime has been committed?
I need to see better reasoning behind the conclusions that I am seeing presented as “fact” before I give any credence to these particular researchers.

Good question Susan. My dog is the opposite, he wont even walk on it when we are out and will jump over it high grass if he comes to across it.

I also think that all dogs can be trained to stop bad behavior if their owners have the will and patience to follow through.

Our dog can use some more training, but we did train him to sit before he can eat. Now he’s does this naturally without asking most of the time.

My wife gets him to do all sorts of tricks before he can have his food. Food is the best way to train dogs from what I have read. They seem to focus when a treat is in front of their noses.

The german shepherd story is a great example of what guarding breeds are/should be capable of if they haven’t had the brains bred out of them. Breeding for conformation gives beautiful dogs, but if you don’t breed for intelligence and temperament, you may end up with a gorgeous dog that is stupid and bad tempered – and useless.

“All dogs want to please their masters.”

Perhaps “All dogs want their master’s attention.” is more accurate. The less responsive breeds will not wait on their master’s every whim, but will pursue their own interests instead. Hunting dogs will hunt, guarding dogs with guard, watch dogs will watch, and so on. Dogs which are very devoted to their jay-oh-bees can be quite challenging to get to respond to do what their masters want them to do, especially when their masters want to do it. A running joke for livestock guardian dogs is that they don’t come when called, but take a message and get back to you.

The key to training these dogs is early, consistent training with emphasis on positive reinforcement. Don’t rely on food treats because some dogs won’t respond to them. The books are written for the Average Dog and I was fortunate to have a dog that was beyond average.

“All dogs want their master’s attention.” If you don’t pay attention to your dog you don’t deserve to have one.

They are social animals and need a lot of interaction.

Cats are far more intelligent than dogs, I’ve never seen a cat eat it’s own vomit like dogs do. People who own cats are also more affluent and better educated than dog owners, that’s why I own a cat and not a dog.

Louise, you’re hilarious! I always laugh at your comments, but today you’ve outdone yourself.

We also had a West Highland terrier that did the television watching thing. Of course, everyone said it was just the sound or the motion, but one of the things that made him attack the television was when someone held up a poster of a dog on Antiques Roadshow.
He liked watching a variety of things, sometimes just sitting in front of the TV watching the news. But anything with an animal drove him wild, and we would have to turn it off (which infuriated him). None of our other dogs would watch, but would bark at him when he barked at the television.

A few years back i had a gold lab/rott mix. when we were living with my aunt, every day 15 mins before she got home from work he would sit in the picture window and wait for her. now, some days my aunt would not want to cook and would stop and pick up some chinese food or mcd’s whatever. no rhyme or reason to when she would be late coming home. didnt matter. 15 min before she got home he would go to the window. the dog was never wrong about this.

Alexandra,

Thank you for a terrific hour.

I find the journey into the minds of our furry friends always fascinating. All too often I see dog owners humanize their canines. I strongly feel it is our repsonsibility to learn more about our best friends, as if we understand them better we can be better best friends to them in return.

Tony my dog does this as well, I think it has to do with wanting to claim the turf and marking it with their smell.

My dog went through a poop-eating period — the vet said it was a normal reaction to some kind of nutrient deficiency, and told us to put Accent on her food for a while. I think he also may have given us something in a bottle for her. She went back to normal (for her!) in a couple weeks.

Never could get her to refrain from attacking the neighbors’ garbage cans though. When caught, she would seem to laugh in an embarrassed way. Unfortunately, most people thought her laugh seemed more appropriate to a hyena; people were sometimes a bit scared by it.

Hyena’s are not related to dogs. Hyenas bear some physical resemblance to canids, they make up a separate biological family that is most closely related to Herpestidae (the family of mongooses and meerkats), thereby falling within the Feliformia. From Wikipedia.

Your dog sounds like Dick Dastardly’s dog Muttley.

My dog eats grass which the vet said is related to something missing in his diet. He likes cucumber and squash so I have started to feed him this and he stopped eating grass as much as use to. He also loves apples.

What a fascinating point to consider.  We have a wire fox terrier who we worked hard to socialize very early to strangers, children, dogs & (our) cats.  He loves meeting new people and dogs (& would love to meet cats but they strangely do not reciprocate his enthusiasm).
But he’s just nutty about babies.
He doesn’t have to go up to them, he’s content to worship from afar.  Clearly, though, just seeing a baby really makes his day.
I thought maybe it was that babies smelled like food?  Never considered a hard-wired protection function.  He would love to lick them but we try to keep him for overwhelming people.  He thinks he’s Mr. Irrestible to dogs & humans everywhere.
He doesn’t prefer puppies over dogs, but babies really send him.