Canine Corner

Here's a story for dog lovers that makes one wonder whether or not it's the smarts or the bite one ought to be concerned about when thinking about a dog. See

http://writingfrontier.com/2008/10/12/smart-dog/

The statistics are just that numbers. No puppy is born vicious, they are a product of their environment. I always ask one question when there is an attack what did the person or child do to the dog?, particularly if the dog has never bitten before. If I were a dog I'd like to bite some people and kids too. Dogs can't stand on their back feet and punch you in the mouth. All they can do is bite. People use common sense when around dogs, its not their fault. It's humans failing to do the right thing.

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Betty

http://smallpet.info

Stanley Coren writes of "...immanent death" [sic]. I wonder, "Is his Ph.D. from a diploma mill, or a puppy mill?

As the owner of a Bull breed (a four-year-old neutered male Staffordshire Bull Terrier rescue) I'd question the extent to which breed genuinely determines aggression. What the statistics cited in lists of attacks per breed typically fail to take into account is the reason that members of a particular breed may attack more frequently. Is it genetics: or is it conditioning?

Here in the UK we have a terrible problem with people acquiring Bull breeds as 'status' dogs. Anyone who acquires a dog because they think it gives them a particular macho image is clearly unfit to keep a dog. But Bull breeds have far more than their fair share of eminently unsuitable owners, who actively train their dogs to be aggressive, or at best fail to check dominant or inappropriate behaviour. Therefore one could reasonably expect these dogs to show a higher level of aggression.

Is that behaviour proof that aggression is somehow hard-wired into the genes of these dogs, and that particular breeds are aggressive per se? Not at all. It simply means that some breeds are more prone to irresponsible, and frequently abusive, ownership than others. Anyone who seeks evidence of this need only look at the population of abused and abandoned Staffordshires in UK animal shelters compared to that of other breeds.

After all, we don't look at the rates of criminality among certain human racial groups, and from that data try to claim that some races are genetically predisposed to crime, do we.