Dog rant...

[summer_jackel]

OK, so basic dog etiquette, which everyone in control of one should know, is that you never let your unleashed dog run up to someone's leashed dog, at least without permission. She's probably leashed for a reason, right?

I wish I had a dollar for everyone who has, to my typical "can you please leash your dog? Mine aren't always friendly," chirped out, "oh, my dog's fine!" as a big, clueless lab bounces towards us and my three wolf/huskies prepare to determine its place in their pack hierarchy by rubbing its face in the ground and gashing open its muzzle a few times. These people often look confused when I growl (after yelling at their dog to go away, which usually works), "OK, but mine are NOT friendly. Please leash yours!"

Yesterday while walking, we ran into a teenager with two of the neighbor dogs, a father and daughter pair of pretty little Jack Russel terriers. I cross the stream, get completely off the trail and make my pack sit quietly. The terriers, being feisty (the term "feist" is an archaic term for terrier) hackle, snarl and act like they want to fight. I ask the kid to leash them, and he does...with these retractable bungee leashes that are like 8 feet long and in no way deter the dogs from getting to mine. The kid (who bears a vague resemblance to Napolean Dynamite) appears to be watching with dull interest as the male bounds across the stream, barking, right at Pryde. I ask him to leash again, explaining that I don't want to see my dogs bite his.

OK, would any of you let your 20-lb yapper pick a fight with THREE 90+ lb wolf-things whose owner just told you they weren't friendly?! I saw a pair of JRTs at my vet's who had scrapped with (one) German Shepherd. Not pretty. Those little short-haired dogs were gonna have some pretty amazing scars if they lived...

Add to this, I come home today and my neighbor is standing there chatting while her rottweiler fence-fights with Pryde. True, dogs will be dogs, but I would never let Pryde do that. Way to reenforce agression in both animals, yo.

And on another tangent, what irks me even worse than the above 'how stupid ARE they' types are the people and, more and more frequently, publications, that assume that any dog who isn't 100% friendly with other dogs and ready to go in a dog park is poorly socialized, poorly bred or abused. It just ain't true.

All dogs are neotenic wolves, neoteny defined as a trait seen in a young/developing organism that persists even when the creature is sexually mature. This is one of the major factors in natural and domestic selection, a very important idea for understanding how evolution and speciaton work. Wolf pups are tractable and young adults easily learn to create new packs with strangers (wolves disperse from the natal pack if they're going to at around 1-3 years, rarely later). Fully grown wolves, which mature emotionally at around 3, tend to be very skeptical of strangers. ("skeptical" here defined sometimes as "will kill and eat.")

Some domestic dogs have the behavioral neoteny of being friendly to everone, like a pup, throughout life. It apparently has to do with a pituitary hormone called thyroxine. Many breeds, however, especially working types like Akitas and Malamutes, retain the adult trait of needing to establish dominance firmly and (if necessary from their POV) violently. Meeting a stranger is a tense thing for most dogs. Terriers, btw, have neotenic size with the mature agression and then some, because they have been deliberately bred that way.

Pryde loves meeting new females (duh) and the girls love a romp with a boy of a cute breed (even if they are spayed) but Pryde will kick the tar out of any unfixed male, 100% of the time...and I can never be sure who they'll decide needs a good thrashing otherwise. So my pack dosen't play with strangers much. Because in that particular, they are more like grown wolves than puppies. They were all socialized exhaustively as pups.

And honestly...the most agressive breed? To dogs and people, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax? Chihuauas. Seriously. I've never met one that didn't offer to remove a finger or cower in abject terror, which traits would eliminate them from almost anyone's pet home or breeding program if it was even a slightly larger dog. Sheesh.

Well, there's my whole dog rant. That felt nice.

Comments

[sophiedoph.livejournal.com]

People are soooo dumb sometimes....

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

never underestimate the power of human stupidity!

[nesting.livejournal.com]

AMEN woman!!! While I rarely have to worry about hobie going after dogs, I'm always on the lookout for stupid folks who bring their aggressive dogs offlead to the beaches I go to. There's this one photographer who goes to the beach almost every day, and his 150 pound akita goes after almost every dog it meets. he attacked hobie about a year ago when hobie was more submissive and i yelled "GET YOUR DOG OFF OF MY DOG, HE'S AGGRESSIVE!" and I got the classic reply "No he's just trying to play!" I was infuriated and yelled at the guy again and he finally called his dog off.

My best friend stacie also has an old boxer-rottweiller girl who is hardcore leash aggressive towards other dogs. I've been with Stacie countless times where someone with a friendly offlead dog will approach her, and "Angel," her dog, goes bazerk at the friendly dog. The approacher almost always says "Mine's friendly!" and stacie replies to that "Mine's NOT!", etc etc. It's like, duh, if a dog is on a leash, there's a reason for it! Occasionally stacie lets angel just go after dogs if their owners don't call them off after a while because it gets ridiculous.

[summer-jackel.livejournal.com]

yep. If mine are going to be offlead, it is when they are alone or with dogs that they've been proven friendly with. (Which is usualy when I have just one of them with me). If I see another dog at the beach getting close, I leash. It is part of the responsibility that goes with having this kind of dog.

And an Akita? Sheesh. With huskies and mals, some of them stay super friendly and some are really scrappy, it's kind of the luck of the draw. But Akitas are like the classic dog-agressive breed.

As for Stacey and her situation, it's good, sort of, to know that I'm not alone. :/ I've been known to set mine loose on dogs in really bad situations. Usually Fen because she's gentler.

[demonvaska.livejournal.com]

It's irritating where I am because a lot of the beach is off limits to dogs entirely or they have to be on a leash. But there's always some nimrod with the dog running loose that requires a good threatening before they get the damn point.

[sabledrake.livejournal.com]

Little anxious-hyper overbred dogs bite more often. But they gots little teeth and less powerful jaws. Big dogs can do more damage when they DO bite. So they get all the negative attention and bad reputations.

-- C.

[the-twf.livejournal.com]

Call me an evil bastard, but I think toy dogs are vile ill-tempered abominations that more deserve to be on the chopping block then any large dog. Only the Russian attack foxes are worse, and they were deliberately bred that way.

I’ve seen pictures of hand-maulings that look like someone stuck their hand in a wood chipper…

On a related note, I'm glad to see you don't "humanize" your animals of think they think on human terms.

[joreth]

It just infuriates me when humans accept responsibility for the lives of another creature and they don't understand that creature's nature, nor do they accomodate for it, and that creature has to pay the price for the humans' egocentricsm (sp?). We are inviting these creatures to live in OUR world, but they are still them, not us, and we need to learn the compromises that go with co-existing with such creatures.

I find it the height of irresponsibility to just let a dog run wild without a leash, approaching any other human or animal as it sees fit. Letting a dog have time to run around and be a dog is great for the dog, but as you so correctly point out, there are unfriendly elements in our environment, including other dogs, and it should be the pet-owners' responsibility to protect their pets from these dangers. And a leash on a dog should be a clear warning sign that this dog, for whatever reason, deserves to be on a leash ... hence, probably not a good idea to let your fun-loving, friendly, puppyish dog come bounding up trying to make buddies with it.

People piss me off. But that's why I'm in a job that allows me to forget I ever learned any customer service skills.