One form of negation of educability and thus social influenceability, alongside ” … from animal welfare, ” is the largely false dogma that a dog’s behavior is (unalterably) determined by its breed. And thus, that by establishing “listed dogs,” problems in human-dog interaction can be eliminated.
One often hears from dog owners of uneducated dogs that this is a dog of the xy breed, and that they are just like that, or at least difficult or impossible to educate. Here, too, the racial obsession serves to conceal the lack of competence and/or willingness to train one’s dog.
And:
If Labradors and Golden Retrievers were status symbols of people from shady backgrounds, they would be on the lists!
However, these “fighting dogs” have the misfortune of being favored by this group, which has a high proportion of people with severe sociopathy, a social behavior disorder, based on their appearance.
“The aim of the study was to determine whether there is an association between the personality of the owners of English cocker spaniels and the expression of aggressive behavior by their dogs. …
Analyzes of the data using unpaired t-tests revealed that the owners of high aggression dogs were significantly more likely to be tense (P<0.001), emotionally less stable (P<0.01), shy (P<0.01) and undisciplined (P<0.05) than owners of low aggression dogs.” (Podberscek, A.; Serpell, J. 1997)
The behavior of dogs is determined by two components: nature AND nurture!
Instinctive behavior is essentially the same across all dog breeds. The differences between dogs within a “breed” are much greater than the differences between “breeds.”
Anyone who has ever observed puppies from the same (!) litter has also seen the differences in the behavior of the individual puppies. Reproduction through sexual reproduction is not cloning, but is always accompanied by variability between individuals.
The second major influence is the dog’s sociogenesis , the presence or absence and type of upbringing .
Some more quotes:
“From the beginning, the dog fancy was characterized by tension between the divergent goals of aristocratic (usually rural) and middle class (usually urban) owners and breeders. On the whole, middle-class pet owners were more anxious about the public standing of their dogs, and they wished to have their excellence proclaimed as loudly and as frequently as possible. Urban fanciers were apt to be more exclusively concerned with appearance than gentry whose dogs were at least supposed to participate in outdoor sports. And appearance was both more easily manipulable through breeding and a more reliable index of pedigree than behavior.” (Ritvo, H. 1986)
“Because the quality of the animal implicitly reflected the status and standards of its owner, it was essential that the hierarchy embodied in pedigree and show awards be meaningful and secure. Thus the fact of careful discrimination became more important than what was being discriminated, as dog fancying was allowed enthusiasts to express, in a partially concealed way, their opinions, hopes, and fears about issues like social and occupational status, and the need for distinctions between classes.”
(Ritvo, H. 1986)
“By contrast, the modern dog breed, emphasizing conformation to a physical ideal and purity of lineage, is a Victorian invention. Before the 1800s, dogs were primarily selected for functional roles such as hunting, guarding, and herding—heritable behaviors derived from the wolf predatory sequence.”
(Morrill, K. et al. 2022)
The names of the few “breeds” therefore also referred to the tasks for which the dogs were bred.
“Dr. Caius’s list of Tudor dog types was meant to be exhaustive – he compiled it as a favor to his contemporary Konrad Gesner, the Swiss author of the compendious Historia animalium – and it bears little resemblance to modern schemes of classification. Caius recognized only sixteen varieties, far fewer than existed in the nineteenth century: “Terrare, Harier, Bludhunde, Gasehunde, Setter, Water Spainel or Fynder, Spainel-gentle or Comforter, Shepherd’s Dog, Mastive or Bande-Dog, Wappe, Turnspit, Dancer.” Some of these names anticipated those of nineteen-century breeds, but it is unlikely that they referred to identical, or even very similar animals.
Caius’s classification was based on function rather than physical appearance. He grouped his types under three larger categories, all unmistakably utilitarian: hunting dogs, pet dogs (this category included only the spainel-gentle), and dogs that did menial work. Any large dog would have been called a mastive; any lapdog a spainel-gentle. A dog that chased hares was a Harier; “one that helped the cook was a turnspit.” (Ritvo, H. 1986)
“The prize-winning pedigreed dogs of the late nineteenth century seemed to symbolize simply the power to manipulate and the power to purchase – they were emblems of status and rank as pure commodities.” (Ritvo, H. 1986)
“Our findings, like those from other groups (Horisberger et al., 2004; Overall and Love, 2001; Rosado et al., 2007), do not support the use of an attack record in developing mitigation strategies. We found that all dogs can bite and therefore one should always be careful when interacting with a dog, even a family dog and during play. If we were to base mitigation strategies on the attack records, this would not lead to the establishment of feasible actions to take.
Removing the most common biters would also imply removing the most common breeds; for example, we found that the Jack Russell terrier was responsible for approximately 10% of bites, and 8/10 of the most popular breeds were the most common biters (including the highly polymorphic group of mixed breed/mongrel). (Cornelissen, J.; Hopster, H. 2010)
“ Study results supported previous recommendations for multifactorial approaches, instead of single-factor solutions such as breed-specific legislation, for dog bite prevention .”
(Patronek, GJ et al. 2013)
In a multi-dimensional approach, the different influences become clear.
“Major co-occurrent factors for the 256 DBRF*s included absence of an able-bodied person to intervene (n = 223 [87.1%]), incidental or no familiar relationship of victims with dogs (218 [85.2%]), owner failure to neuter dogs (216 [84.4%]), compromised ability of victims to interact appropriately with dogs (198 [77.4%]), dogs kept isolated from regular positive human interactions versus family dogs (195 [76.2%]), owners’ prior mismanagement of dogs (96 [37.5%]), and owners’ history of abuse or neglect of dogs (54 [21.1%]). breed reports, breed differed for 139 (40.2%). Valid breed determination was possible for only 45 (17.6%) DBRFs; 20 breeds, including 2 known mixes, were identified.”
(Patronek, GJ et al. 2013)
” Of the factors related to dog bites reported in the media as well as in scientific literature, the breed of dog has come to dominate public policy discussions about prevention and control. The undue emphasis on breed has contributed to a lack of appreciation of the ownership and husbandry factors that more directly impact dogs and the complex genetic factors that work in combination with husbandry to influence a dog’s behavior and responses to a given set of stimuli. ” (Patronek, GJ et al. 2013)
The biggest problem is humans and the environment they create.
The importance of social interaction for the development and socialization of dogs has been emphasized here several times already. This insight isn’t new.
“ A family dog was a dog whose owners kept them in or near the home and also integrated them into the family unit, so that the dogs learned appropriate behavior through interaction with humans on a regular basis in positive and humane ways. ”
(Patronek, GJ et al. 2013)
