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Yakima 728
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My Boys........

20150412_174249.jpg
 
GrogNerd said:
the Howdy waiting for his walk

and look what he dug up in the backyard! didn't hurt them, but was barking his fool head off at them. can't be mad at him; it's what he was bred to do

and, I'm sorry, any momma bunny burying her young'ns in a Beagle's yard isn't doing her species any favors and really shouldn't expect to contribute to the gene pool anymore.
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update: momma moved her babies out of the yard

good thing; yard needs some serious mowing
 
olotti said:
My just turned 14 yr old lab Molly. Such a sweetheart and while age has slowed her she's still without arthritis and doing well for a 14yr old lab. She's my brew buddy. View attachment 271208
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My parents have lab that turns 15 this year! She is such a sweetheart. Her litter mates all passed last year... But she is still chasing squirrels and patrolling the perimeter!
 
Highside,

What kind of dog is that. My ex-wife is dumping on me a dog that got dumped on her that looks a lot like yours.

Gus, the dog about to join our pack, is not a bad dog but I was hoping to get another senior giant breed. Gus does get along with the pack well and my younger dog (7) does need a playmate...it is just a that a beautiful 7-year-old Saint Bernard female popped up on one of my rescue agencies.
 
Onkel_Udo said:
Highside,

What kind of dog is that. My ex-wife is dumping on me a dog that got dumped on her that looks a lot like yours.

Gus, the dog about to join our pack, is not a bad dog but I was hoping to get another senior giant breed. Gus does get along with the pack well and my younger dog (7) does need a playmate...it is just a that a beautiful 7-year-old Saint Bernard female popped up on one of my rescue agencies.
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Im not an expert but I would guess bull terrior... Spudz MacKensie's breed.
 
CreamyGoodness said:
Im not an expert but I would guess bull terrior... Spudz MacKensie's breed.
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Well here is Gus in the fur.

Not sure if he is a permanent member of the pack or if I will just work on socialization, minor behavioral issues and try to re-adopt him.

Pretty good dog but needs to learn some manners and learn proper dog on dog interactions. Finally, he has toy aggression and a little bit of aggression to other dogs on leash. I have dealt with all these on various past dogs and in most case they are easily worked through.

IMG245.jpg
 
Onkel_Udo said:
Well here is Gus in the fur.



Not sure if he is a permanent member of the pack or if I will just work on socialization, minor behavioral issues and try to re-adopt him.



Pretty good dog but needs to learn some manners and learn proper dog on dog interactions. Finally, he has toy aggression and a little bit of aggression to other dogs on leash. I have dealt with all these on various past dogs and in most case they are easily worked through.
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Good looking pup.how do you train out the dog aggression? Are you using the NILIF method? My GSD has her good days and bad days listening and leaving things alone.
 
Onkel_Udo said:
Highside,

What kind of dog is that. My ex-wife is dumping on me a dog that got dumped on her that looks a lot like yours.

Gus, the dog about to join our pack, is not a bad dog but I was hoping to get another senior giant breed. Gus does get along with the pack well and my younger dog (7) does need a playmate...it is just a that a beautiful 7-year-old Saint Bernard female popped up on one of my rescue agencies.
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Only the Bull Terrier has an egg nose. It will love you if your heart is pure. As it does not understand contempt, if you hold that against it for some odd action then it will simply piss everytime it sees you.
 
onetoeddogbrewery said:
Good looking pup.how do you train out the dog aggression? Are you using the NILIF method? My GSD has her good days and bad days listening and leaving things alone.
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I had never heard that acronym before so I had to look it up. There absolutely is some of that in my training. Gus is going to need some changes in my normal practices because he is not as "damaged" as most of the dogs we have adopted in the past. He is mildly afraid of an open hand to the top of his head if I am standing (but not sitting) so someone has hit him before.

Gus is almost overeager to please so simple food and attention driven rewards should be easy for when we are training solo and pack behavior takes care of most of the rest. I almost never subscribe to negative reinforcement (though I have seen it work in combination with operant conditioning on very stubborn large breeds) and I do not have the make up to do it.

I forgot his most annoying, but harmless, behavior...he is a SERIOUS whiner. Even in the two days I have had him, ignoring the whining has lessened it considerably.
 
Moving the discussion from the What are you drinking now? thread to the dogs thread... Pit Bulls.

We've got Pit Bulls and Staffordshire Terriers (a very close cousin to the Pit Bull) all over this country where I live and they simply do not attack people.

Actually, I have only heard about one incident ever: two staffs were jumping up biting a lady's arms while she was trying to hold her little dog up in the air. One incident that could have been perpetrated by any breed, in fact a dog was killed a few years ago in my neighborhood by a loose German Shepherd while a girl was out walking it.

Every time I see people out walking staffs or pits, I go over to greet them. Not one time has one of them so much as growled or winced at me. Not once.

These are the same dogs that are sometimes attacking people in England and USA. So, what is the difference? Why don't they attack people here?

While local governments in much of the western world thresh futilely about searching for convoluted solutions to the growing problem of dog attacks, Finland has been quietly leading the way in canine legislation as it has been leading in so many other fields, such as cell phone manufacture and newsprint production. What it has done is neither sophisticated nor magical, being the product of simple practicality and everyday common sense. Briefly put, the Finnish solution consists of two elements: 1) Control the dog population, and 2) make all owners completely responsible for all consequences of their dogs' behavior.

A country, roughly the size of Minnesota (but having 160,000 lakes), with a current human population of five million, Finland gained complete independence in 1917 and struggled to establish its governmental and social institutions before the onset of World War II. Attacked without warning by the Soviet Union in November, 1939, her heroic resistance against the Red Army during the Winter War gained her the admiration of the entire free world before she attained an armistice with the USSR in March, 1940. Once again sucked into the vortex of war in June, 1941, Finland fought for her independence for three agonizing years before again achieving a separate armistice in October, 1944.

During the war years, Finns hovered on the very brink between existence and non-existence, resources strained to the breaking point. (Each Finnish citizen's monthly ration of butter consisted of exactly one pat, and Finnish women were called upon to donate their gold wedding rings to the National Treasury.) Under these most rigorous circumstances, all but the most valuable breeding dogs were humanely put down, for the others could not be fed.

Consequently, upon the termination of hostilities the entire nation possessed a mere handful of canines, so the Finnish government passed legislation to prevent a canine population explosion, taking into account that almost all urban and suburban Finns lived in multi-unit housing co-operatives somewhat comparable to condominiums. It mandated strict enforcement of a universal leash law to apply to any dog found off-leash, on the street or in the open. Further, owners were to be held strictly liable, financially and legally, for any and all damage or injury caused by their dogs, even when on-leash.

Strictly enforced by a vigilant constabulary, these laws insured that no crossbreds or mongrels were produced by uncaring or careless owners. They also insured that the value and price of purebred dogs could be stabilized and maintained. As a result, the nation did not need to employ dogcatchers or build dog pounds.

Dog fanciers, even those who originally felt themselves aggrieved by the restrictive nature of the legislation, soon realized its remarkable advantages and quickly became its advocates. Before long, they themselves became in effect an arm of the law, notifying the authorities of violations and violators because doing so was in their own best interests.

One can only consider the Finns a nation of animal lovers, for they have a native Finnish breed of milk cow, the native Finnhorse (world's fastest cold-blooded trotter), the native Finnsheep, and several breeds of native Finnish dogs including the Finnish Hound and two "export models," the Finnish Spitz and the Karelian Bear Dog. As if that weren't enough, Finns are continually importing non-native dog breeds from around the world.

One such breed, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, first arrived in Finland on April 4, 1964, and within two years its ranks swelled to more than thirty. Within ten years of its arrival, the Stafford had become the most popular terrier breed in the country (being of moderate size, smooth-coated, and having a Finnish-type tenacious temperament). Not long ago, total Finnish Kennel Club registrations of Staffords from 1964 to the present topped the 10,000 mark.

During those 35-plus years, not one authenticated case of a Stafford bite, much less an attack, has ever been officially documented despite the fact that every Stafford has lived with its family inside the condominium, Finnish winters being such that neither man nor beast can survive in the open. Yes, the very same Staffordshire Bull Terrier that strikes terror into the hearts of "good" Germans, the very same dog that Deutsch legislators have stigmatized as " an aggressive fighting machine" and "a threat to the public." No, not a different strain, not a variant bloodline, but the same strain and bloodline that derive directly from Staffords in their mother country, England, where this highly popular breed boasts an unparalleled record of accommodation and friendship with homo sapiens.

Given the evidence, one might reasonably conclude that German legislators do not fall into that classification. Well, maybe the "homo" but certainly not the "sapiens."
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podz said:
These are the same dogs that are sometimes attacking people in England and USA. So, what is the difference? Why don't they attack people here?
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I have two former co-workers who rescue exclusively Pits and whatever name they are using to "hide" the nasty Pitbull name. They gave me a lot of insight on this as their dogs are awesome!

I could go into the stupid statistics and dig up articles, etc but for the most part it is training and inbreeding for the NEGATIVE traits of the breed that has led to a few (but still far to many) serious attacks by Pitbulls. So in short, bad owners emphasized, on purpose, the traits that are inherent in all dogs but become suppressed through their interaction with humans, lack need to hunt or fight for survival, and pack behavior that emphasizes "can't we all just get along".

If you train a Golden Retriever to be aggressive, starting early enough, you can make them aggressive. Now compound that training with intentional breeding of traits that would exemplify this, add a pack environment that REQUIRES aggressive attacks on other dogs to survive and you will end up creating the ultimate fighting Golden Retriever. The difference between the Golden I just described and a Pit treated the same way is amount of damage they can do with their bite and how many generations of breeding and behavioral modification it would take to devolve a Pit (less) verses a Golden (more).

Most of the Pitbulls I fostered before I could no longer afford the modification to my homeowners insurance, were awesome dogs. If they have a flaw it is how strongly they can tend to bond to single member of the family if the owner/foster parents are not careful in mixing up the training and socialization. You often see this in Dobermans as well. For the most part I find fixed female Pits to be excellent family dogs and particularly good with younger children.
 
podz said:
Moving the discussion from the What are you drinking now? thread to the dogs thread... Pit Bulls.

We've got Pit Bulls and Staffordshire Terriers (a very close cousin to the Pit Bull) all over this country where I live and they simply do not attack people.

Actually, I have only heard about one incident ever: two staffs were jumping up biting a lady's arms while she was trying to hold her little dog up in the air. One incident that could have been perpetrated by any breed, in fact a dog was killed a few years ago in my neighborhood by a loose German Shepherd while a girl was out walking it.

Every time I see people out walking staffs or pits, I go over to greet them. Not one time has one of them so much as growled or winced at me. Not once.

These are the same dogs that are sometimes attacking people in England and USA. So, what is the difference? Why don't they attack people here?
Click to expand...

It's a combination of:

1) people buying pits as a status symbol for whatever personal image they're trying to cultivate, and then reinforcing aggressive behavior, as Onkel_Udo said,

...and 2) confirmation bias in the media where pitbull attacks get panicked high-profile coverage, while attacks by other breeds get a passing mention or none at all.

We suspect that our Sadie has some pit/staffy in her, but don't know for sure. She has never exhibited any aggressive behavior since we rescued her 2 years ago. She gets high-energy sometimes and likes to roughhouse, but she's a lovable awkward goofball most of the time. Here you see her in her natural habitat:

View attachment 1430828709357.jpg
 
This is my brewing Pit Bull, doing her favorite thing.
DqtYy0Z.jpg


This is her roughhousing in a room with FIVE dogs (3 of them pits) that she had just met one day previously. As you can see, a lot of wagging tails. That isn't to say that she never has any issues with other dogs, but in my (purely personal anecdotal) experience, I find that to be true with almost all breeds. I am always extremely careful with her, though, because it's true that she has jaws like a shark, and frankly I don't feel like giving her (or anyone around) the opportunity to perpetuate the "Pit stereotype"
0slE7te.jpg


People are a different story. She is an excellent watchdog, but unless a stranger burst through the door with genuine malice, a guard dog she is not. I took her to lunch on Saturday and she spent most of her time getting her ears and tail tugged by the little girl at the next table.
 
Howhownow said:
She is an excellent watchdog, but unless a stranger burst through the door with genuine malice, a guard dog she is not.
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Pits are not good guard dogs because they are so damned friendly. They'd let the burglar come in and load all the valuables into a sack. However, they might prevent them from leaving!
 
Ive never been bit by a dog in 35 years. Closest I've come is a nip from the neighbors teacup sized terrier, and that didn't break skin (I should have asked her if it was ok to pick her up. It is not).

I can say with relative certainty that a pit or a pit mix (true also for rotties, labs, and GSD) are incredibly easy to read. The only breed I have seen that I cant "read" by their body language is the Doberman. Their faces don't seem to move if they are happy, distressed, annoyed...
 
most pits i've known, including our neighbors, are great, friendly dogs, they got a really bad name mostly from the kind of people that owned them a lot. Dachshund on the other hand....i won't trust a dachshund until i've had a good week to see it's character.

Our keeshond won't harm a single person, and while she will bark if someone is in the yard, she'll just expect scratches, no guarddog there...
She has some issues with other non-neutered bitches, but that's hardly uncommon.
 
Kharnynb said:
most pits i've known, including our neighbors, are great, friendly dogs, they got a really bad name mostly from the kind of people that owned them a lot. Dachshund on the other hand....i won't trust a dachshund until i've had a good week to see it's character.

Our keeshond won't harm a single person, and while she will bark if someone is in the yard, she'll just expect scratches, no guarddog there...
She has some issues with other non-neutered bitches, but that's hardly uncommon.
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The only dog I have ever legitimately feared was a dachshund. There was no love in that dogs heart, at all, for anyone but my grandfather. I'm just a dog guy though, they all love me.

I've only been bitten twice, once by the aforementioned devil weenie, and by my grandparent's heeler mix. The heeler was a rescue, and had been abused. I leaned in to scratch his ears and he bit me on the jaw, hard. I bit his ear back and we were friends agan.
 
CreamyGoodness said:
Ive never been bit by a dog in 35 years. Closest I've come is a nip from the neighbors teacup sized terrier, and that didn't break skin (I should have asked her if it was ok to pick her up. It is not).

I can say with relative certainty that a pit or a pit mix (true also for rotties, labs, and GSD) are incredibly easy to read. The only breed I have seen that I cant "read" by their body language is the Doberman. Their faces don't seem to move if they are happy, distressed, annoyed...
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Between my aforementioned Pit-looking-mutt and my Sheltie, guess which one has nipped someone?

Although...I will say that it was because one of my friends walked in the front door without knocking or ringing the doorbell, and the Sheltie happened to be standing by the door and wasn't expecting a visitor. He nipped my friend on the thumb. He got scolded but I couldn't be too upset since he was trying to defend his property.
 
Kharnynb said:
Dachshund on the other hand....i won't trust a dachshund until i've had a good week to see it's character.
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More people get bitten by Jack Russells than almost anything else. Jacks are notorious for being feisty, stubborn and absolutely fearless. They easily take on dogs 2-3 times their own size, and win. They have no problem picking a fight with a pit, even though they have no chance of winning that one. Most people don't report bites from Jacks, though. As I mentioned, our Jack bit clean through my wife's hand when we first got her. It did get reported because the wife went to the doctor about it. I had to pin that dog down with force on four seperate ocassions within the first two weeks. Now, she is absolutely bonded to our entire family. But there have been cases of Jacks taking off kids faces, too.
 
drainbamage said:
Between my aforementioned Pit-looking-mutt and my Sheltie, guess which one has nipped someone?

Although...I will say that it was because one of my friends walked in the front door without knocking or ringing the doorbell, and the Sheltie happened to be standing by the door and wasn't expecting a visitor. He nipped my friend on the thumb. He got scolded but I couldn't be too upset since he was trying to defend his property.
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And I would say a nip on the thumb was a measured response... could have been much worse.

We dogsat our friend's huge rottie Reggie once years ago. We were in the kitchen while he snoozed on the couch, and all of a sudden we hear "hello!". Our friend Brett had opened the door and walked right in, past the snoozing dog, and came into the kitchen.

Reggie had the decency to look sheepish when I said "Thanks Reggie, we feel very safe."
 
I think we have gotten a bit off track but I will put in my two cents. I have adopted or fostered a lot of "unadoptable" dogs over the years. I have been bitten few times because we are talking about abused or neglected dogs and common fear response is quick nip.

The worst I ever had was nothing to do with my dog adoption addiction. It was a MiniPin when I was delivering newspapers as a kid. The Pin had escaped its fence, bit through my jeans and took a 1/4" x 1/4" hunk out of my calf. I just kept pedaling and finished my route because I knew the owners and figured I would come back for verification of shots. That little **** dove out of the door and bit me again (this time it was almost all jeans) before the owner had it open enough to see out!
 
Back a bit on topic, Gus is a puller with no real leash training (I curse my ex-wife for this...she knows better). He has a "nose collar" of unknown manufacture and he gets out of it way too easy.

Given his aggression on leash to other dogs I am tempted to go with and old school prong collar for the first few weeks until he learns some basics but I know how they look to the uninitiated. So I am thinking of trying one of the no-pull harnesses like the ThunderLeash or Halti Harness. I have used Halti's nose harnesses in the past but with three large to medium dogs to walk at once, the harness would be much easier as I do not have to "watch" Gus in case he slips behind me and paws it off. Again, less social stigma as well as the nose harnesses look like a muzzle to the uninitiated.

Anyone used one of the no-pull body harnesses with luck. I need to exert total control immediately if needed while also dealing with two other dogs. When I trained my Husky, the prong collar allowed a short sharp pull to gain her attention (85#'s of raw sled dog power) and with my 80# Newfie, the halti nose collar could accomplish the same thing. Gus is strong and compact but only 60#'s.

On the plus side, after just a 3-block (round trip so about 7 blocks) walk I had him (reluctantly) sitting at each corner.
 
Onkel_Udo said:
Back a bit on topic, Gus is a puller with no real leash training (I curse my ex-wife for this...she knows better). He has a "nose collar" of unknown manufacture and he gets out of it way too easy.

Given his aggression on leash to other dogs I am tempted to go with and old school prong collar for the first few weeks until he learns some basics but I know how they look to the uninitiated. So I am thinking of trying one of the no-pull harnesses like the ThunderLeash or Halti Harness. I have used Halti's nose harnesses in the past but with three large to medium dogs to walk at once, the harness would be much easier as I do not have to "watch" Gus in case he slips behind me and paws it off. Again, less social stigma as well as the nose harnesses look like a muzzle to the uninitiated.

Anyone used one of the no-pull body harnesses with luck. I need to exert total control immediately if needed while also dealing with two other dogs. When I trained my Husky, the prong collar allowed a short sharp pull to gain her attention (85#'s of raw sled dog power) and with my 80# Newfie, the halti nose collar could accomplish the same thing. Gus is strong and compact but only 60#'s.

On the plus side, after just a 3-block (round trip so about 7 blocks) walk I had him (reluctantly) sitting at each corner.
Click to expand...

I am currently training our new family dog, a lab we got at 8 weeks. She just turned 6 months old. She's literally the greatest dog I've ever had. I've taken her to classes from age 3 months. She's been easy to train, but she's been stubborn on pulling when walking and lunging towards people we meet.

I didn't want to go the prong collar route for the same reasons, so I recently bought a Good Dog collar. It has plastic prongs that are hidden by the collar. Two days with it and she has been great. I use 90% praise and treats and just a couple of well-timed leash "pops". The results have been perfect.

I bought it on Amazon for twelve bucks or so.

With the past five dogs I've trained, I was able to use just a nylon collar with most of them, and a normal choke chain on one. I'm a new believer in the Good Dog collar. YMMV
 
CadiBrewer said:
I didn't want to go the prong collar route for the same reasons, so I recently bought a Good Dog collar. It has plastic prongs that are hidden by the collar. Two days with it and she has been great. I use 90% praise and treats and just a couple of well-timed leash "pops". The results have been perfect.

With the past five dogs I've trained, I was able to use just a nylon collar with most of them, and a normal choke chain on one. I'm a new believer in the Good Dog collar. YMMV
Click to expand...

I like that it uses the same attention getting method of a prong collar. Most folks think it is punishment but used correctly it really does serve only to remind the dog you are there when they get distracted. The positive reinforcement is the real training tool. A little worried about the reviews of the difficulty involved with putting it on and taking it off as I will have to do this once a day with 170 #'s of other dogs jumping around ready to go on the walk, too.

Not sure yet what way I going.
 

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