If dogs were as smart as people, and could talk, a bird dog, with the instinct to point, could tell you how he felt when he smelled birds, but a greyhound would have to watch pointing dogs, and analyze how they must feel to freeze up like that.
The pointing dog could “look within” his own ‘heart’, the greyhound would have observe, think, observe more, analyze, report.
Instincts matter.
Dogs that are bred to herd sheep, usually have an urge towards sheep, like bird dogs have an urge towards birds, and hounds want to track, and fighting breeds have the urge to be top dog or fight.
Yes, you can train dogs that want to herd sheep to ignore sheep, and train bird dogs to leave all birds alone, hounds to not run off after a scent, and fighting breeds not to fight.
But, if you are a dog breeder, and you sell purebreds puppies as pets, your responsibility is to breed dogs that don’t have to be trained to repress their instincts because you have bred most of those instincts out of the dogs.
Pet sheepdogs who want to herd sheep but live in a city with no sheep, will often chase cars, kids on bikes, or other moving beings. Pet herding dogs should have the urge to chase and nip bred out of them.
Pet Pit Bulls and other fighting breeds should have the urge to fight bred out of them. The people who buy a puppy might not know how to repress aggressive instincts in game-bred dogs.
Unfortunately, what the current infrastructure has, is lots of dog breeders who ignore breeding against un-civilized instincts, and who keep unsocial dogs in crates, or kennels.
The vocal fraction of breeders are often breeding for appearance, mostly antique rural instincts, or as a tax shelter.
You would be surprised how few dog breeders are breeding dogs that actually live loose in the house, live around children, and are bred from the goal of producing good pets. Even fewer of those dogs come from long lines of dogs specially bred for traits that make for healthy dogs that are good pets.
Many dog breeders breed to try to win dog shows, or to try to win sporting events. They breed dogs to win in a competition that uses dogs.
Some dogs are bred for a use, like guide dogs, military dogs, some few of the herding dogs.
Many of the home-bred dogs are where someone went out and bought two show bred dogs, and then breeds them in her home. This is another case of dog trained to be well behaved, not bred to be naturally well behaved. Her results depend on her knowing how to raise and handle these dogs, or her natural ability to project dominance, or not spoil dogs.
Dog can be bred to be naturally tolerant of children, to have a low drive to bark, and to be friendly.
A working Border Collie puppy, a show Golden Retriever puppy, and a game-bred Pit Bull puppy, can be bought as a pet, but they all carry a different mix of traits.
A working Border Collie puppy is very likely to grow up too active for most people.
A game-bred Pit Bull puppy is apt to grow up too aggressive for most people.
And, while Golden Retrievers are very popular, and the show variety is NOT breed to have hunting instincts, neither are the puppies growing up to each having one litter, then being fixed. Many of the puppies still come from dog breeders who breed from show winners.
When you see a person fall off the top of a tall building, do you have to wait for him to hit the ground before you realize what his chances are?
People have been looking at dog shows and seeing what the end will be since dog shows started – but no one could stop the disaster before it was too late, and it is too late.
We can’t go back to a time where it could have been done right and give it a good outcome.
We can make for a better future, but it is like waiting until most of the giant old trees are cut down before starting to try to save them – yes you can replant, and in a hundred years, replant again with shade tolerant forest trees . . . but it would have been so much easier to do it right to begin with.
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