Doug Miller wrote:

In article , Rick Cook wrote:


Doug Miller wrote:

In article ,
(Greg) wrote:
The most popular breeds
tend to be overbred and thereby create some nasty animals.

Truer words were never spoken. Bad dogs are caused by bad breeders ans bad
owners.

Up to a point, yes. The fact still remains that some breeds are much more
easily made into bad dogs than others. You'd have to work at it a *lot*
harder
to make an attack dog out of a golden retriever, than out of a pit bull.

Well no. Or not nearly as much as you think. Retrievers aren't terriers, but
they can be
trained to be just as nasty and aggressive as any other kind of dog. They don't
have the pit
bull's reflexes or strength so they wouldn't be quite as much of a threat, but
it absolutely
would not be for lack of trying.

I did not say that goldies could not be made "nasty and aggressive".
I said that it's much harder to do with that breed than with pit bulls.
Not impossible, just much more difficult.

Not nearly as much more difficult as you think. I have friends with goldies too and I know they're
also eager to please their owners.

If you dispute that, if you really believe that a golden retriever can be made
into an attack dog as easily as can a pit bull, then your comments on this
subject do not deserve to be taken seriously.

Why? They're both dogs and they both have the same sets of instincts. Do you know what is involved
in attack dog training and how it is done? It simply involves reinforcing the instincts in any
dog. (And yes, I have worked as a dog handler -- not a trainer! -- for a company that had both
guard and attack dogs.) In principle it's no different than teaching a dog to chase a stick --
which is what it looks like in the early stages.

Training an attack dog not a matter of finding a dog with some special 'killer instinct' waiting
to be unleashed. It is simply a matter of conditioning the dog to apply its natural behavior in a
particular way in a particular situation. And in fact In fact one of the reasons some breeds are
preferred for attack dog training has nothing to do with an aggressive temperament. Quite the
opposite. For attack training you want a dog which is extremely stable temperamentally.

Now if by 'attack dog' you simply mean making a dog vicious, that's also the same for any breed.
Fundamentally you drive the dog crazy by mistreatment until it is deathly afraid of people and it
takes out that fear as aggression. You may or may not let the dog bond to you, but you end up with
a very mentally ill animal.

--RC





--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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