Skidboot the Dog

Just wonderful.

Schäferdachshund: ein zweiter Post

He's baaack...! Tiny, but oh, so determined:





Here's a wider crop of an earlier photo:



Photographer Kerry Maloney writes: "Couldn't tell how he started because the sheep were a good ways into the trip across the field before we could even see what was moving them. He wouldn't have had to do an outrun because they were moving the sheep from the exhaust pen to the set up field in prep for the next days trial. (These sheep had very little desire to stay as a herd.) Luckily the sheep that thought to stray were in the back --- he would have had no chance of catching one farther up or even a close one that decided to make a true run for it. It was funny to see him running as fast as he could on his little legs --- talk about heart."

What a great little worker: "He was mostly wearing back and forth with one or two runs to get a few that thought they could break off." He could clean up on the AKC "A" course, I'm telling you.

Thanks to Kerry for sharing her photos and write-up.

Rhodesian Shepherd

Pit bull Hagrid and the anonymous Canadian dachshund are proof that just about any responsive dog with sufficient prey drive can be used to move tame stock in a controlled environment. Why the American Kennel Club doesn't open its "herding" contests to all breeds just beats me.

One of the handsomest dogs I know is a friend's AKC CH. Rhodesian Ridgeback, a top lure courser, pictured here during his first time on sheep:



Notice how he covers the ewe that breaks away:



That's prey drive. The great challenge with "non-traditional" breeds is maintaining their interest in the work. Working drive --- the will to keep at it come hell or high water --- is so low in so many cases that pointing a crook at a dog's shoulder can make him say, "No more of this for me."

ISDS: International Sheep Dachshund Society

First Hagrid, the Herding Pit Bull, and now a dachshund bringing in the flock at the end of the day at the Canadian Finals:



Prey drive is a wonderful thing. Give that dog a "herding" title! The sheep at this trial were from a farm on an island in the St. Lawrence River. Photographer Kerry Maloney writes that the dachshund appeared to be from the same farm as the sheep, and adds that a border collie was "sent out for the fine-tuning."

"The Physical Impossibility Of Death In the Mind Of Someone Living"

Shades of Damien Hirst's Natural History:





Family dog kills owner in back yard
Officers and paramedics were called to the home, where they found a "surreal scene," Coral Springs [Florida] Police Capt. Rich Nicorvo said — [Shawna] Willey dead, covered with blood, wounds on her torso, arms and legs.
The 120-pound dog was standing over her body. Nicorvo said it was "acting aggressively," and police shot and killed the animal, which fell or jumped into the pool before dying. [Palm Beach Post: August 18, 2006]

From a Palm Beach Post editorial: "[This] was a preventable tragedy that spotlights the potentially lethal trend of making family pets of fighting-type breeds. Though companionship rather than fighting may be owners' objective, the nature of the dogs cannot be ignored."

This tragedy was preventable, all right --- but what shouldn't have been ignored was the dog's poor temperament, not an imaginary "nature" shared by millions of dogs with broad heads.

Editors, this just in: the most important factors involved in preventing dog attacks are socialization, training, and informed, responsible management. Dog trainers, veterinary behaviorists and all knowledgeable owners know that patterns of negative or abnormal behavior precede most dog bites and attacks. The Pomeranian that killed a baby in Los Angeles had tried to bite other children. The Presa Canario in Florida growled at Ms. Willey so often that friends and family begged her to get rid of the dog. She told them he would "outgrow it."

He didn't.

Temperament issues exist, to some degree or another, for the life of the dog. This means that if you have a dangerously aggressive mastiff, it's imperative that you find a veterinary behaviorist or animal behaviorist to evaluate the dog and help develop strategies for dealing with its aggression. (A skilled, experienced trainer could advise you as well --- but you may not be able to determine whether a trainer is competent if you don't know much about dog behavior yourself. Board-certified behaviorists aren't everyone's first choice, but they offer the advantages of verifiable experience and a professional standard of ethics.)

Some dogs, due to irresponsible breeding, neglect, abuse or lack of training, become too dangerous for anyone to manage safely. If specialists tell you that they believe humanely euthanizing your dog is necessary to protect you, your family and members of the community from harm, then arrange for your dog to be euthanized before someone is injured or killed. Growling and snapping at people are red flags that a dog needs exceptionally responsible training and management. Banning dogs based on their appearance "will not make you safer," writes Karen Overall, "and the illusion that [breed-specific laws] will do so is dangerous to humans and unfair to dogs." Education --- furthering the general public's knowledge about dog care and dog behavior --- is the best way to protect children and adults from attacks by abused, unsocialized, badly managed dogs or dogs with unsound temperaments.

(And what do you do if you're covering the story of a woman killed by her Presa Canario? Mention pit bulls, of course: "Pit bull-like jaws." "Akin to a pit bull." (A reporter e-mailed me: "I didn't write that ['akin to a pit bull'] sentence; it was edited in after I filed the story and went home.") When experts talk about "media-driven portrayals of a specific breed as 'dangerous,'" this is what they mean.)

That List of Links

This blog is about dogs, but you'll note that the list of links includes sheep, reptiles and my favorite earthquake site. I've spared you news sites, food sites, more food sites, a YouTube link for the two people on earth who haven't been there yet, California links, and so on.

The purpose of this blog is to provide accurate information about dogs. So Chez Pim is out. No roses, no bagpipes, no link to the Grizzly. No travel. No trees. No distant Iowa cousins. This blog is about the genus Canis.

Dog sites will take precedence in the list of links, so help me. If I have to share another, non-dog-related link, I'll put it in a post.

[Yeah, I know Birdchick doesn't write much about dogs, but she's a bud of Chet Baker's --- and any bud of his is a bud of mine. (That weasel I scraped off the road to save for the local museum? Birdchick would understand.)]

Back from Wyoming

Anna Guthrie is a stockdog trainer from Valley Center, California. I've been driving down to work my collies with Anna this week. Here's a view of her place in the spring:



[Left to right: sheep, cattle, Peggy Sue.] Walking across a pasture just about anywhere in Southern California these days is like standing on a griddle --- the temperature where I live hit 118 degrees F. last month, and it's warming up again this week. The California countryside is still the most beautiful on earth, though, if you ask me.

Anna and her good stockdog Riddle just got back from Wyoming's summer cowdog trials. They'll be setting sheep at Soldier Hollow and the National Finals (on the Nursery field) in September. Here's Riddle, checking out a friend's rig back in June:



Riddle won the Laramie County (sheep) & Cattle Trial in Cheyenne and finished second in the WSDA Cattle Dog Series Finals at the State Fair in Douglas.

On a related note -- kind of a tenuous tie-in, really, but I did launch this enterprise with a post on prey drive -- here's a YouTube video of a pit bull working sheep. Well done, Hagrid! Happy boy, and you can see his sweet bully temperament.




Link: Hagrid the Herder