Doing Dogs Right

I was browsing through retrieverman's blogroll, when I came to a link to something in terrierman's archives. I followed the link to this:

http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2005/04/guide-to-breeding-old-fashioned.html

Why would anyone want to breed "old-fashioned html"?

Jokes aside, this is a good article, although I haven't ordered the book.

At first, I read it, thought it had good points, but was not what I was looking for, and clicked to go back to the blogroll on retrieverman, but while waiting for the connection, it dawned on me that this actually was what I was looking for.

What I thought at first was "This is about breeding better working dogs, and right now, I am looking for something to help breeders of showdogs to understand how to breed better pets".

But then I realized that breeding for the right instincts in working dogs, is about the same thing as breeding to delete wolf and hunting/guarding/activity traits in pet housedogs!

Thanks for the link retrieverman, thanks for the article terrierman, and thanks to the author (Guy Gregory Ormiston) who wrote the book, and all the people between.

But I disagree with his idea on inbreeding. Instead of inbreeding because nobody near you has a purebred dog who looks like yours AND works like yours - be willing to travel far away to find what you want, or cross breed to a dog that doesn't look like yours but works like yours.

I do agree with him that most people lack what it takes to train a dog, so breeders MUST breed dogs who already have the necessary instincts included and the unwanted instincts deleted.

It is even more true for housedogs than working dogs, because people who work their dogs often know something about training behaviors in, and suppressing unwanted instincts, but most people buying a pet do not understand. And they should not have to learn, because the breeder, who sells puppies as pets, should have bred them to be pets - dogs with the unwanted instincts deleted.

Which is exactly the point I was trying to make, that if you keep your dogs in concrete kennels, keep them all chained to dog houses, stack them in crates against a wall, or keep your dogs in cages in the basement or garage, then you don't even know which dogs would be good housedogs, because the dogs don't live free in the house.

You are raising dogs in one environment, and breeding them for that environment, but then advertising and selling the puppies as being good in an different environment that you don't keep them in, and don't know if they would be good in that environment or not.

Just because a dog is a good show dog or sheep herder, does NOT mean, that it is a good pet.

How do you know if your dogs are really good with children if you have 24 dogs in cages in the basement, and 8 more in the garage, and the dogs basically live in the cages?

A dog might be aggressive, but not bite when he is first let out of his cage because it is so rare for him. Or a usually friendly dog might bite when rarely let out of his cage - because everything is so new to him.

To judge if a dog is good with children, and if he would be a good house dog, the dog needs to be part of your family.

You say, you can't let your dogs loose in the house because they try to kill each other, can't be housebroke, tear up the furniture the moment you turn your back on them, and are not safe around guests or children? Then how can you sell their puppies as "pet quality"?

Maybe, although you have 20 or 30 something dogs, you don't have any pet dogs, and don't even know what a house dog is?

If you are looking for retrieverman's blogroll, it is here:
http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/