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Post by masha on Jul 29, 2005 10:18:49 GMT -5
I was reminded of this by Willows post on fighting dogs:
There is a woman at my dog club with a Boerbull - he is a lovely dog, about 8 months old and already HUGE.
She has him there with two muzzles on, one over the other and a choke chain. I try to be friendly with the people who seem left out at the club, but everytime I go near her the dog would start eyeballing me and lunge and try and jump me. It would take all her strength to restrain him, and she is a fairly large lady.
He does not make a sound, just gets this horribly bussiness like look on his face..
I asked the woman who runs the club about this and she told me the dog is extremely aggressive. Just the previous day he had broken through a glass door in an attempt to attack the owners husband, and he always attacks geusts. He apparently has an ongoing campaign to get at the husband. The club recommended that she have him put down. Apparently there have been other dogs at the club from the same breeder, also uncontrollable.
The owner did not want to have him put down - but its been several weeks since she has been there so either she gave up on training him at our club, or he has been put to sleep.
I was wondering. Is it possible to train a dog like this to be more civilized? The owner also seemed very soft spoken to me, and quite polite with the dog. She obviously loved him, and I often saw her crying at the club.
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Post by Richard on Jul 29, 2005 14:35:01 GMT -5
Based on what you've written, I would say no.
The dog sounds like he's got a genetic flaw somewhere in his DNA and if you have to take a dog out with not only one but two muzzles on, that doesn't sound like a pleasant time for the dog nor the owner.
Not to mention the aggressive posture towards the husband? Why? And plowing through a glass window to get to him too? That doesn't sound like a normal dog, nor one that will loose that attitude anytime soon with any amount of training.
The fact that there is a history of malfunctioning dogs from that particular breeder begs the question: what the hell is he doing releasing dogs like that into the community??
And people wonder where breed bans start from.
The answer here is as plain as the nose on your face.
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Post by sibemom on Jul 30, 2005 9:10:44 GMT -5
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Post by Aussienot on Jul 31, 2005 2:22:24 GMT -5
I guess I'd have to ask why they chose that particular breed for a household pet? To quote from The South African Boerboel Breeders Association web site: "The development of the breed as the protector of homestead and family has naturally enough led to the Boerboel being very territorial and protective of his or her family, and home against intruders both animal and human."
I'm thinking the dog lacked any meaningful outlet for what it was bred to do. Without a defined protective role the Boerboel thinks it's zone of protection extends to wherever the owner happens to be at any time, and an area protected by him is regarded as being off-limits to those who are not family.
I'm not against the breed. They are awesome protection dogs and massively loyal to loved ones. But they are not a dog to take to the local obedience club or up to the shops.
I guess I'm just at the end of my compassion with people who select a completely inappropriate breed for their circumstances (usually because they like the look), and then blame the dog because they can't make it into what they want. If you don't want an extreme dog, don't get an extreme dog.
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Post by masha on Jul 31, 2005 3:18:33 GMT -5
Aussienot, thats interesting - The Boerboels I see around (and there are quite a few at the club) range from dogs like this one, to aggresive but not out of control, to many of them that are incredibly placid and lazy. Most of them seem to fall in the overweight lazy category.
Here in South Africa most people get dogs for their guarding skills. This does not neccesarily mean the dogs are not pets as well. Many of the dogs at our club are of this type, Rotweilers, Bull Terriers, German Shepherds, Dobermans and so on. I am sure this woman got a boerboel because of their reputation as protectors, and their fierce looks. So it is quite ironic, I guess.
I agree that something should be done about these breeders - just by chance, a student of mine recently told me that his young Boerboel (less than a year) has such bad hip displasia that they might have to have him put down. I wonder if this dog could be from the same people?
Most of the replies here seems to agree that the problems could be genetic. Is there a way, when choosig a puppy, to see whether the dog will turn out hyper agresive? I mean apart from asking around about the breeders other dogs.
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Post by Aussienot on Jul 31, 2005 21:56:35 GMT -5
I probably should have added in my first post that I agree with everyone else that it sounds like this particular dog is non characteristically overly aggressive and a result of extremely bad breeding. The breeder should be put out of business. If the dog is genetically flawed, usually there is not much training or management can do about it. As to selecting a puppy are to be both a pet and protection dog, you are walking a very fine line. The same things that make a great protection dog also can make the dog a great liability if not trained and controlled to a very high level. You want a dog with good fight drive with a high threshold and low defense drive. You need high pack drive with a low threshold and medium prey drive.
I suspect very few average owners have the know-how do select for this, and how to foundation train such a puppy if they found it. I think that is a specialized skill.
There are certainly puppy selection tests that can be done which provide a rough guide as to the potential of the puppy, but the best test is to see how related dogs turned out as adults. I'm not aware of a way to screen for potentially 'overly-aggressive' behavior in a puppy that's meant to have a serious edge, other the the obvious signs of inappropriate early aggression.
The best predictor is adult dogs from the same breeder, and checking customer references to see how earlier puppies turned out at maturity.
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