Big Dog

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1 DAW Molossers

DAW: Developmental Arrestment in Wolves.

A dog is basically a tampering of developmental stages in a wolf. That’s what domestication often is. We did NOT create new genes for the dog. We tampered with what was already there. This is why most of the stages of dogs are all hunting stages of wolves.

Change in animal species over time is NOT through mutations alone, (like you were taught in school), but by a shifting of the amount of time which is spent in various stages.

Are we domesticated cavemen? Remember Freud’s “Oral, Anal, Genital” stages?

He said that shocking events got people stuck in stages of development. Maybe. But much easier to understand is that through selection, we have modified domestic animals to stay in certain stages. Maybe there are more than just two ways to get stuck in a stage?

Like the canine equivalent of raising frogs that breed while still tadpole, and never really become frogs.

1. MOLOSSER DOGS:.

A) FLOCKBONDER CLAN:

Hardware: large to giant dogs, heavy coat in winter, often white coat if used with white sheep, so the sheep accept the dog as one of them.

Software: most of the hunting software from the wolf deleted (but can still be activated from the recycle bin if the situation calls for it).

Use: to be raised with livestock, to bond with livestock, and protect them from predators.

Bio: the fetal stage of growth. Passive, open to bonding with whatever raises him. Becomes protective with maturity. .

B) GIANT MASTIFF CLAN:

A war dog of this size with intact instincts to kill people, would get his owner put in jail for using a lethal weapon – like what happened in California in the Diane Whipple case.

But while some people are attracted to giant dogs, other people are attracted to giant MEAN dogs..

Hardware: bigger or giant dogs, a strong build.

Bio: a cusp clan between Flockbonders & Bulldoggers, with some dogs in each group, and most a blend of the two.

Software, traditionally a war dog bred to bond with the family and defend them, or the generalized desire to bite and latch onto the victim.

Software, modern: very few instincts are desired, preferred that they be more like flockbonders.

Use: These were war dogs when men fought with swords. They fought people or calvary. People made amour for them to wear..

Today “war dogs” are a profession, not a physical type, our war dogs find mines, search for hidden people – they don’t rush onto a battlefield; there are guns now, so our modern war dogs are not so large, and are more agile, they are often from herding dog breeds, not bully breeds..

C) BULLDOGGER CLAN: Hardware: medium to giant dogs, strong build, medium to huge head, often short haired.

Software: to bite into flesh and hang on to it even when all 4 of their feet are lifted from the ground, and they are shook by the bull. “Locking jaws” is an instinct – the instinct to grab with the mouth, bite, and not let go; it is a failure to switch off, of the instinct of the newborn to latch onto the nipple.

Use: to catch feral hogs or feral cattle, for slaughter, to hang onto the feral animals until the hunter can kill it.

Bio: the birth stage of suckling from their mother – the stage to hang on with their mouth does not delete after weaning like it normally would, this instinct to latch on and hold stays active..

D) PITBULL CLAN:

Hardware: small to giant dogs, strong heavy build, medium to huge head, often short haired.

Software: “Locking Jaws” and “Terrier Shake” programs both active even after adulthood.

They are a cusp category, having both the software to bite and hang on like the previous stage, and the software to shake their head while biting and hanging on with their teeth from the next stage.

They also have the pecking order fight software from the next stage, and it persists after adulthood, not just longer during the puppy stage.

They may fail to have some of the other social software activated, because this would be programming activated stages ahead from here.

Use: to fight other dogs for sadistic people to watch.

Bio: a short stage where the blind puppy suckling and holding on to the nipple stage, and the earth den dwelling fight for position and rank stage, overlap.

It is like they have one copy of each activated at the same time, instead of two copies of the same stage.

It is possible for them to produce some puppies more in the previous stage or some puppies more into the next stage, but it doesn’t work out in Mendelian ratios, rather it seems to be a change of the blend..

next terriers.

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Happy Rio

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2 EARTH TERRIERS

DAW – Are dogs proof of how epigenetics works in wolves?

. . . continued from pit bull clan..

2. EARTH TERRIERS:

A) TRUE EARTH TERRIER CLAN:

Hardware: small dogs, or sometimes the larger of the tiny dogs, who can fit into the burrow of their prey, without getting stuck or blocked by the twists of the tunnels..

Software: no fear of dark dens, willingness the enter and scrap in total darkness.

Traditional biting software may vary:

Draw Earth Terriers: will bite & hang onto their prey and drag it out of the burrow.

Rocky Earth Terriers: will go into a burrow & kill their prey below ground.

Bolt Earth Terriers: will go into a burrow and yap and nip at their prey, trying to force it to bolt out of the burrow..

Uses: to draw, bolt, bay, or kill varmints in a burrow.

Bio: The software to fight comes from the stage where young puppies work out their pecking order within their litter. In the wolf, this would be the stage where cubs sleep in a wolf den and first start on solid food..

Ancestral lines:

Earth Terriers often have a mixture of bite software. Most of the breeding stock have not been field tested for so many years, and some of the ‘purebreds’ are not really purebreds but have had other breeds crossed in for show coat.

Dachshunds are another line of Earth Terriers, a bit different from the British Earth Terriers; some people believe Dachshunds trace back to dwarf sprinthunds of the Egyptians.

Even if their hardware resembles a dwarf Saluki, their software has been terrier, with some tracking hound software being common. Dachshunds have many slightly different lines..

B) DASH TERRIER CLAN:

Hardware: small or medium dogs with an cat like agility, good at short sprints, but able to snatch up small rodents from the ground.

Software: the desire to dash small animals; the fighting head shake of the previous category and the quick head shake of the next category.

Use: to see small rodents, dash after them, and kill the rodent by shaking it. To kill rodents that are too big for a cat to kill. Sometimes used on game bolted by Earth Terriers..

Bio: The expression “to shake it like a terrier does a rat” refers to the instinct used during the stage where puppies in a litter work out a pecking order – the fight instinct where a cub would shake his littermates during a fight (when they are still to small & weak to harm each other), and for the Dash Terriers if they grab something too large for the quick shake.

This is another cusp stage, an overlap of the true ground going terriers and the sprinthunds. Dash Terriers usually lack the speed of whippets, and the ground going skills & desire of true terriers. Dash Terriers have their own speciality – to kill rats. A rat catcher (person) moves things around, the rats dart away the Dash Terrier kills the rats.

.. . . next the sprinthunds.

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1915

Still looking like they did?

See:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wy%C5%9Bcigi_chart%C3%B3w_Szombierki_2009_azawakhi_8p.jpg

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3 SPRINTHUNDS

DAW – does DAW go back to before there were dogs, to when wild canines began to radiate out after on ice age?

.. . . continued from dash terriers..

3) SPRINTHUNDS

A) TRUE SPRINTHUND CLAN:

Hardware: medium to bigger dogs.

The hardware of sprinthunds is more important for them to succeed than with most other categories.

The dogs must have good eyesight both to spot a moving rabbit at a distance, and to run full speed through the woods without running themselves into trees.

They must have an ectomorphic form with long legs and a long neck. This usually produces a long muzzle, long but not wide head, long tail, and long toes – because a major switch has been thrown which elongates the total form.

The dog should not be so over elongated that it a caricature, or like a stick figure..

Software: the desire to sprint after small things that run away. The instinctual skill of the ‘quick kill’ where the prey is killed with one quick shake..

Uses: to catch and kill rabbits, hare, and small prey like antelope.

Bio: the stage of growth in wolf cubs where the long bones grow. The cub stage where the cub hunts little things for himself, like grasshoppers, mice, young rabbits..

B) STAGHUND CLAN: (includes deerhunds, wolfhunds & boarhunds)

Hardware: bigger or giant dogs. They differ from the sprinthunds in being larger, a bit heavier built, and having a heavier neck which is not as elongated as a sprinthund’s..

Software: the same as that of sprinthunds, but a willingness to hang onto a large animal as well.

In the US, most of the desire to hunt big prey has been damped down in these dogs.

A dog with strong instincts will look for something to use those instinct on – this would be too dangerous in a dog of this size, bred to go after large animals, so it is rare to find one with old instincts fully on..

Use: Traditionally used to hunt deer, elk (moose), wolf, and boar, from the time people hunted these animals with spears. Some varieties retain both the form and the instinct to enable them to course and catch hare, coyotes, or kangaroo..

Bio: these are a cusp category, really mostly a giant sprinthund for large prey.

Today some of the show varieties sometimes almost seem like an attempt to be a cusp breed between the non-adjacent categories of Bulldoggers & Sprinthunds – a dichotomy that can’t balance in the breeding over time – instead of an overlap of sprinthunds and tracking hounds.

.. . . next the tracking hounds.

(Cusp breed here is the Great Dane)(note: the Great Dane is an interesting breed, not one easy to pigeonhole).

Built like a sprinthund, mannered like a tracking dog, but heavy and jowly headed like a mastiff.

Unlike today, where dog breeds are usually kept sexually isolated from each other, in the past, any breeder could cross any dogs that he thought might make for better working puppies.

Of course, it isn’t just which dogs reproduce, it is which puppies find homes, survive, and raise puppies of there own..

There is an excellent photo of the kind of Great Dane that I like. The photo shows Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis when she was a very little girl with a Harlequin Dane that looks very nice.

I don’t like the head and drooly lips that are on today’s show Great Danes in America. And today’s Great Danes are too large. A big dog is one thing, but let’s not overdo it please. .IMO, the old 28 inch (on females) measure was good.

. . .next the tracking hounds..

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Bavarian Mt.

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4 Hound Dogs

DAW

.. . . continuing from sprinthounds..

4) TRACKING HOUNDS CLAN:

Hardware: small to bigger dogs, usually with short hair.

Good hardware for all the groups within this family are the same – a well balanced dog not extreme in anyway – except the basset varieties which have shorter legs but should be otherwise the same..

Use: tracking the trail left by an animal or person.

Bio: starting with the friendly stage where puppies beg food from the adults. Through the stage where puppies follow the adult pack as they leave the den, following migrating herds.

A long stage, lasting through where older puppies help chase the prey in the hunt..

Software: all the tracking hounds share the instinct to follow scent paths left by animals. They hunt with their nose. They usually bay (howl) while tracking. They have a variety of other instincts and can be grouped according to what other instincts they have:.

A) Tree Hounds: the software to run full tilt down a scent trail, these dogs race to get there first. Used on raccoons in America, and called “coon dogs”, they can be used where the hunter wants the dog to bay at the treed prey – not to get the the end of the trail and then wonder off because the track ends at a tree or a hole in the ground..

B) Pack Hounds: the software to stay in a pack, a faster pack hound will not pull away from the slower ones, if walked alone with a person, they wont run off to the next county – they stay with their pack or their person.

Used on predators where it would be fatal for a fast dog to arrive at a bear, mountain lion, or feral hog herd alone. .

C) Rabbit Hounds: a variety of pack hound used on rabbit or hare. They are bred to stay way back from the rabbit so the rabbit can be shot without the dog getting into the line of fire, and without the hound frightening the rabbit into going to ground or the hare running far off. They try to help you hunt – not to kill the rabbit themselves..

D1) Blood Hounds: used to tracked wounded animals, like where a hunter has shot a deer with an arrow, and the deer has run away. The hunter wants the dog to follow that one particular deer – the wounded one, even if it is fleeing with a herd of other deer. A hound with the wrong software will not differentiate between individual deer, and when the wounded deer breaks off from the main herd to die, the non-blood hound might continue to track the un-injured deer in the herd, while a bloodhound will follow the scent of fresh blood to where the injured deer has laid down.AND

D2) River Hounds: a slower variety of hound with an instinct called “cold nose” meaning that they are good at working out old scents, faint scents, cold scents, and broken trails. Used to hunt water going animals like otter, the dog may be asked to sniff faint scents that drift to the surface. River Hounds have a different use, and sometimes a different coat, but are very close to blood hounds, and IMO should be interbred do to the rare nature river hounds, and the over abundance of too heavy for land show type ‘bloodhounds’.

.. . . next the bird dogs.

Have you ever thought about how much foxhounds and smooth coated pointing breeds have in common?The difference between tracking hounds and bird dogs is that hounds track scents on the ground, while bird dogs go after scents in the air.

Okay, there are a few other differences, like bird dogs like to watch birds..

The same divisions that are found in hounds are found in bird dogs, it is just that one clan looks to the ground, the other to the air. .

This is because bird dogs, as we know them now, are very new. You can’t really have a gun dog until after you have the invention of the gun, it’s being small enough to carry hunting, and accurate enough to shoot a bird with, and a small enough shot to not make a pile of feathers out of your fowl dinner. .

Before the gun, bird dogs were used with falcons, hawks, or nets. They were often noblemen’s dogs, sporting dogs, not working dogs.

But the hounds have been everybody’s dogs, the wealthy with a pack, down to the farmer with one beagle.

It has been common, for each farmer to have one beagle, and then for a group of farmers to meet and each bring one beagle, which makes up the pack. (Don’t bring two beagles from the same yard into a small pack with singles- it has been know to cause a fight, where they can gang up on a single dog).. . . next the bird dogs.

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Poodle Duck

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5 Bird Dogs

DAW

.. . . continuing from hound dogs..

5) BIRD DOG CLAN:

A) Curly Water Dogs:

Hardware: usually medium to bigger dogs. They have curly coats which keep out the water, and keep them warm. Dogs naturally produce an oil, like the slick oil you wash off your own face.

This oil on a dog’s coat, helps repel the water – if you wash the oil off the dogs coat, the dog coat looses the ability to keep the water out. Poodles have been bred to no longer make much of this oil.

Needs to have good eyesight..

Software: varied – strong instinct to swim, all these dogs are birdy (have inherited the desire to go after birds), but vary in their instincts to fetch, point, rush AKA flush (spook into flight).

But they should all be soft-mouthed (have the instinct to handle the bird gently), be able to mark falls (watch where each shot bird lands, remember it’s location, and fetch them one by one), and not be gun-shy (not be frightened by the sound of gunfire).

Many of them are more of a generalist than the bird dog specialist listed below..

Bio & Use: used to hunt birds. From a stage similar to Tracking Hounds.

With the instinct to carry things with the mouth. Instincts to like swimming (much like River Hounds)..

B) Spaniels:

Hardware: usually medium or large sized dogs with warm water-tight coats. Must have good eyesight..

Software: birdy (attracted to follow things that flutter or fly), not gun-shy (major switch thrown to make the dog not jumpy even to gunfire a few feet away), desire to carry things in his mouth, a good nose, not a ground tracker – sniffs the air, love of swimming, the instinct quarter a field, to stay in front of the gun, soft mouth instinct, bird sense, biddable.

(Like Pack Hounds but more responsive to commands)..

Use: to spook birds into flight were they can be shot or caught by a bird of prey.

Bio: from a social stage where they are still dependant on food from their parents and older siblings, but where they hunt and stalk small things, look for bird eggs, forever a spring puppy..

C) Duck Retrievers:

Hardware: medium to bigger dogs. Good eyesight, warm waterproof coat..

Software: not gun shy (does NOT startle to loud noise), strong instinct to catch things with his mouth and carry them, unselfish urge to bring back what he has caught, birdy but not hyper, good at marking falls (remembering), instinct to stay by the gun (not to go hunting by himself – to stay near his person, to hunt as a pair), soft mouth instinct..

Use: to wait in a hunter’s blind or boat, to swim out and fetch shot ducks..

Bio: a social stage of puppyhood, like where a cub would stay near an adult, but with much tinkering of finer details of instincts. .

D) Pointing Dogs:

Hardware: small to bigger dogs. Good eyesight, keen nose. Waterproof coat..

Software: to creep up to birds without rushing them, to freeze on point, to follow air scents, to ignore ground scents of animals, to quarter a field with energy, to venture away from the gun but not too far away, to be birdy, to not be gun shy; usually to also have a soft mouth, fetch, mark falls, and swim..

Use: to point birds, sometimes to fetch shot birds as well..

Bio: same social stage but a bit older to include beginning to watch the herd that the rest of wolf pack is hunting, but not to burst into the hunt, while still hunting small game near the pack but a bit independent of the pack. Like all the bird dogs, this group is a newer group with much tinkering and fine tuning of instincts. .

E) TOLLER CLAN: (tolling means luring the prey back toward the hunter, included here are dogs that use some herding of the prey towards the hunter)..

Hardware: agility, good eyesight..Software: a series of software that allows the dog to find the prey, tease the prey into charging it, and to retreat toward the hunter. a variety of instincts that vary for dogs that lure birds, hogs, or other hoofed animals..

Use: to lure animals to a hunter or pen..

Bio: a nearly adult stage. Wolf packs have more adult sized members in the winter (the cubs of spring are nearly adults) and so can co-operatively hunt deer better. The snow can give a wolf pack an advantage over deer in some situations.

The baby small animals of spring are grown and harder to catch, the fawns aren’t fawns anymore. The tolling stage is the start of the stage where the cubs start to help intelligently help hunt large prey with the adults – not to just chase the prey.

An Autumn stage..The edges of this stage can blend with the next stage too. .Ever notice how much one instinct of field bred Setters have in common one instinct of Border Collies, (and cats)?

They are very different dogs, and make very different kinds of pets, but they both have that eye to watch, and cat like creep forward. The pointing dog is suppose to freeze while he starts to creep, but Border Collies pause in their creep too..

. . . next the herding dogs.

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Am. Shephard

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6 Herding dogs

DAW

. . . continued from the Bird Dog Clan.

6) THE HERDING DOG CLAN:

Hardware: agile form.

Software: some drive by nipping, some grip, most use their presence to move the sheep, some turn the stock by getting close to their head, other move sheep better from afar – some herding dogs are geared to work tame sheep, others are geared to work wilder sheep.

Lots of software needed: to gather sheep into a bunch, to move the bunch without scattering them, to sort lambs from ewes, and rams from their flock, to cause the sheep to freeze or move when the dog is told to.

To always obey the handler, but to learn the ways of the sheep. .

Use:

Cattle Dogs: to herd cattle, usually by biting their heels.

Shepherd Dogs: to work sheep, often by rushing at the sheep’s head..

Bio: this is a continuation of the tolling stage, but with herding deer into drifts of snow where the deer can not run well, or herding deer back towards the rest of the pack after it has been tired out a bit.

This stage takes intelligence to pull it off well..

Remember this is still a modified form of a wolf hunt, but everyone with sheep & dogs probably has seen that.This is an early winter stage..English-European (Old World) domesticated dogs tend to be highly specialized.

Some bird hunters even have one dog to point birds, and a second dog to fetch the shot bird. There are sheep dogs that herd by nipping heel, sheep dogs that herd by rushing at the sheep’s head, sheep dogs that work sheep by eyeing them, and then a whole different kind of dog to flock guard..

The American Indians who have sheep, have dogs that work sheep, guard sheep, and hunt their own rabbits. These dogs look something like a cross between an Australian Shepherd (who doesn’t come from Australia), and a husky.

They are one of the do-it-all ranch dogs..I personally listened to a campaign by a ‘humane’ society wanting to get American Indians to have their dog’s operated on. Why? It was the purebred breeders who were cranking out the puppies, not the people on the reservation.

Because, at that time, (and maybe still?) the people who ran the local ‘humane’ society were dog breeders. They bred and sold purebred puppies from breeds accepted in one kennel club..

I still don’t like the idea of a government so cheap, that it lets a private group of wannabees carry guns and badges to enforce law.

Particularly, when this group is untrained, and paid through a group that has it’s own interest. At least the police have training in laws and rights..

I knew some of these people, and for them, it was a simple: get others to spay and neuter their dogs, so they won’t compete with us.

People would rather get a less expensive, less inbred, less specialized at- a- task- they- wont- ever- use- it- at- dog. This was a campaign.

California’s bill# 1634 would have been the ultimate end to this campaign, and a loss to everyone but a handful of show breeders and puppy mills..

Listen People. When somebody sends a person to tell you to have your dog operated on, it is often so that their own dogs can make more puppies to sell.

Why do you think 1634 would have given purebred show breeders an exemption that would have made other people get their dogs fixed?.

Why would PAWS (USDA) have negotiated to let one organization that has dog shows etc, to be exempt?.

Sounds to me, like another unfair case of: You neutered your dog, so I can breed more of mine..

If you don’t have sheep, don’t breed what you call sheepdogs, because you won’t know if they are any good at working sheep. .

If you are just breeding dogs who look like what you think a sheepdog should look like, then breed the ones that would make the best pets – that’s where you sell most of your puppies to – people who want a dog that’s good with their children..

Sheepdogs (herding dogs), like musicians and artist, they are not recognised by what they look like – they don’t all look the same. They are sheepdogs because they work sheep well.

.. . . next group, Arctic dogs.

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Arctic dogs

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7 Arctic dogs

DAW
. . . continued from herding dogs..

7) THE ARCTIC DOG CLAN:

Hardware: endurance, long speed running, good winter coat.

Software: the desire to run with a pack. Lead dogs need ice smarts and snow sense.

Use: to pull sleds, sometimes to lead sled teams, to find seal breathing holes.
Your dogs find the seal’s breathing holes or you and your family starve to death in the winter.

Today’s sled racing dogs, do they know how to find the seal’s place in winter, or do they specialize in running fast?

Bio: from the late first winter stage through the second winter stage. Where young grown wolves would drive large game for the pack, and help the parents hunt large game. They might be full grown at this stage but have not dispersed.

Wolf cubs stay with their parents for two years, and help raise their younger siblings from the second spring, before leaving the pack to form their own pack.

Running in front of a sled is not the same as running with the pack after a running elk, deer, or caribou, but it is close..

With the Arctic dogs, it is almost like they have started to diverge into so many little groups (like Darwin’s finches did), that you could almost have the Arctic version of herding dogs, the Arctic version of bird dogs, the Arctic version the pit bull, the Arctic version of long distance running hounds, the Arctic version sprinters, the Arctic version a Guard dog, the Arctic version of house dog etc. .

Maybe when you read that, you picture the same breeds that I do..

Arctic dogs are one edge of the horseshoe’s gap. They are where the tail joins the Q’s circle..Their group flows into, and over laps with the wolves, but it also flows into the Turkish Flockbonders.

High in the mountains the winters are cold, just like where the Arctic dogs live..The Arctic dogs travel, they are more agile, but the dogs of snowy mountains are heavy. But they have much in common.

Think of the Akita, the Alaskan Malamute, think of the original Alpine Mastiffs..

The Arctic Dog Clan is almost a complete group in itself, dogs that look alike because they endure the same winters, but inside of the dogs, they are different because they have been bred by different people’s who want the dog to do different things.

Some people want their dogs to herd, some to hunt, some to pull..It is too hard for me to try to separate these breeds by looks – I don’t think I could. I don’t personally know the Arctic breeds well enough to sort them.

What would I be adding, that you could not have read in a 100 year old book?.

But I will say this:
If you sell Arctic Dog puppies to people who want sled dogs, then only bred your dogs if they are good sled dogs.

If you sell your Arctic Dog puppies to people who want pets, then only breed your dogs who are healthy and good pets.

If you breed Arctic Dogs for dog shows, I think you ought to raise fish or rabbits instead..I am getting too edgy? I get tired of repeating the same thing.

People were saying how dog shows are ruining dogs since I went to my first dog show.

People have said “Mutts are healthier than purebreds” since before I was a little kid. .

If you inbreed a little group of dogs, letting mother & son, grandfather & granddaughter, and brother & sister mate with each other – then the puppies start to have health problems.
__________
Those were the traditional stages of arrestment in domestic European dogs…. next wolves, coyotes, dingos, foxes, dholes, jackals, and the wild dog clan..

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9 Horse Shoe

If you are happy with groups in a list, that is fine, it will work for you..

If you want to dip into the waters of the abstract and dry off with a bit of theory on the theory, proceed.

If you are not into theory, skip the rest of this post – it is not necessary to know how to produce electricity to turn on a light..

Remember that people didn’t add to the wolf instincts.

People deleted various instincts in different breeds, and magnified others.

Major stages of developmental arrestment make the major categories of dogs:

Molossers – Terriers – Sprinters – Gundogs – Herding dogs – Northern dogs – Natural dogs;

but it is a continuum where clumps of breeds can be put in their place within and between the stages like connecting the dots to make a whole picture..

Like many continuums, it is not really a straight line, but more like a horse shoe shape..

The Northern Dogs flow into the wolves, but they are not the end of a continuum, rather they are like the end of a horse shoe – a little jump across the gap and you are at the beginning again with the flockbonders. .

Think of the Alaskan Malamute – are they not the breed most in the horse shoe’s gap? – the link between the two ends of continuum?

Yeah, they are a sled dog, but, picture the continuum like a horse shoe (_) with flockbonders at one tip and sled dogs at the other.

Then think of it the a “Q” with the wolves being the tail of the Q, and then leading into Northern dogs and working back around the circle, like hands running backward on a clock, until you get back to the Q’s ‘wolf tail’ where the flockbonders are on one side of the tail, next to the Northern dogs where the count back started. That’s my theory on it, that’s how I see it.

We are not slaves to our instincts – although the heads of the porn industry might argue otherwise.

We learn. The habits we make in ourselves are our own new instincts.

For example: I use to always turn at the same street to go home, but I found that it was easier to make a left turn if I turned a short distance before I got to the place where I was in the habit of turning.

Do you know how hard it was for me to remember to turn a bit early?

I’d think “turn at the new turn” while I was sitting at the stop light, and forget it again and again.

I had watched to same thing when riding with someone who had lived on the street near mine, he could never remember to go one more street, then turn to drop me off, he would almost always forget, drive by his place, then go to mine..

Whatever you want a dog for, it is always easier if you get a dog which has inherited all the instincts for the task you want him to do, and no instincts for anything you don’t want him to do.

Instincts are like programs. Puppies are born with programs running, and others that automatically turn on for a while, then turn off as the puppy matures – this is sometimes called “going through stages”.

A puppy will learn some task easier during certain stages, and other task better at other stages – like children learn languages best at a certain age (about 7 ?).

Trying to teach a dog something when he is not in the stage to learn it, is called “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” It can be done, but it is fighting uphill.

It is hard to unlearn a habit or forgo an instinct.

Sometimes it is easier to learn a new habit that interferes with an old habit, instead of just giving up the old habit. Like instead of just giving up smoking, “Chew gum, instead of smoking”..

People who breed show dogs to win at shows, usually don’t breed for instincts or against instincts – they breed for looks.

I’d flunk breeders who breed for looks.

Pet dog owners need dogs whose instincts let the dog easily fit into his environment, where he will be loved, not tied on a chain, taken to the pound, or put to sleep..

And the idea that any dog show judge can select the best herding, sledding, hunting, or pet dogs by looking them over and watching the dogs trot in a circle – is an idea stupider than any other in the dog world..

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