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- #11
Thanks again for the reply, you appear to have the kind of experience I was hoping to find in someone willing to take the time to share it. I don't care if you're able to make paragraphs or not, I just do it to help people read through if they're inclined, as I'm pretty aware of the dyslexic population. Myself, I love literature and information, and will happily read through umpteen thousand proverbial brick walls of unparagraphed text. 
I do agree with what you think on the subject in question, her greatest problem-making behaviours are certainly due to her unfortunate environment and lack of adequate stimulation and descipline, i.e. she ought to be herding or doing agility or even working as a service dog. She does have us somewhat trained still, though we've woken up to most of her tricks. For almost any other dog doing the same things I would think it benign and as you called it, survival skills honed to a fine degree, but in her case she's never had any adverse experiences with threats or punishments or excessive attention or food/treats given in reward to the behaviours. The only thing that used to happen was that the kids would ignore the 'naughty' dog, so she might get more attention, but that wasn't a guarantee. It could have caused a lot of the problems though. She doesn't like children much, wants attention from adults more.
She just seems to enjoy stress in her environment, and when it's all peaceful, she makes stress happen. I know, stress is also stimulation. Dogs would rather be told off than ignored. But she gets other dogs told off. Maybe it's her making a game for herself. Perhaps this is relevant, perhaps not, but neither of her parents were trained nor workers, and came from strictly pet stock, and so did their parents. Apparently she's the spitting image of her mother. So maybe her behaviour's due to coming from a line of over-smart and under-stimulated worker dogs being kept as pets by people not wising up to their manipulative tricks. I don't know. She thinks she's a pig dog. She's not loyal, not willing, deliberately (but only behind your back) anti whatever she is taught. I firmly believe one of the primary criteria for defining what a good pet dog is, (or a herder, hunter, or service dog) would have to be the presence of at least some trustworthiness. She's not trained to a high degree, but she is better trained than most pet dogs, and I think if she was willing, that'd be enough. Clearly her behaviour shows that to be a halfway decent dog, she needs an experienced owner who can keep her on her toes, brain humming, etc. basically 24/7.
Thanks again for replying. I've been discouraged concerning my dogs whenever she's living with us because of the trouble she makes, and the constant threat she poses to all our other pets. She's been a constantly troublesome burden on an already overstressed situation. I'm still figuring my way through the swamplands of information with dogs, most of what I knew was true for the dogs we had before, but this later 'generation' has just blown it all out of the water...
Thanks for the link and your time. I'd be keen to hear how you worked with caracals and foxes, etc, they're fascinating creatures.
I do agree with what you think on the subject in question, her greatest problem-making behaviours are certainly due to her unfortunate environment and lack of adequate stimulation and descipline, i.e. she ought to be herding or doing agility or even working as a service dog. She does have us somewhat trained still, though we've woken up to most of her tricks. For almost any other dog doing the same things I would think it benign and as you called it, survival skills honed to a fine degree, but in her case she's never had any adverse experiences with threats or punishments or excessive attention or food/treats given in reward to the behaviours. The only thing that used to happen was that the kids would ignore the 'naughty' dog, so she might get more attention, but that wasn't a guarantee. It could have caused a lot of the problems though. She doesn't like children much, wants attention from adults more.
She just seems to enjoy stress in her environment, and when it's all peaceful, she makes stress happen. I know, stress is also stimulation. Dogs would rather be told off than ignored. But she gets other dogs told off. Maybe it's her making a game for herself. Perhaps this is relevant, perhaps not, but neither of her parents were trained nor workers, and came from strictly pet stock, and so did their parents. Apparently she's the spitting image of her mother. So maybe her behaviour's due to coming from a line of over-smart and under-stimulated worker dogs being kept as pets by people not wising up to their manipulative tricks. I don't know. She thinks she's a pig dog. She's not loyal, not willing, deliberately (but only behind your back) anti whatever she is taught. I firmly believe one of the primary criteria for defining what a good pet dog is, (or a herder, hunter, or service dog) would have to be the presence of at least some trustworthiness. She's not trained to a high degree, but she is better trained than most pet dogs, and I think if she was willing, that'd be enough. Clearly her behaviour shows that to be a halfway decent dog, she needs an experienced owner who can keep her on her toes, brain humming, etc. basically 24/7.
Thanks again for replying. I've been discouraged concerning my dogs whenever she's living with us because of the trouble she makes, and the constant threat she poses to all our other pets. She's been a constantly troublesome burden on an already overstressed situation. I'm still figuring my way through the swamplands of information with dogs, most of what I knew was true for the dogs we had before, but this later 'generation' has just blown it all out of the water...
Thanks for the link and your time. I'd be keen to hear how you worked with caracals and foxes, etc, they're fascinating creatures.
