is my baby a bully? - Page 2

Rcollins · 05-12-2010, 04:55 PM

ooooo great Idea i know Abby loves both, and if she will eat it he HAS to have it. so far another accident free day. on a side note I've also washed all my tile floors with a vinegar water mix, other then my house smells like vineger it seems to have helped

Mikey T · 05-13-2010, 03:29 AM

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I used the advice and let them play, but if it gets too heated i clap my hands to take them out of the zone and they stop and look at me like I'm a buzz kill, and then pout for a little bit.

This is not necesarely a good thing. IF there are no injuries there was no intent to injure. Human intervention often justs messes up dog v dog relationships

seePuppy license and adult behavior–STOP SEPARATING PLAY.

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Humans are REALLY bad at reading what’s happening with dogs. We ignore really bad stuff and we stop, even punish, perfectly normal behavior. This is true even when you’re really experienced; I have spent thousands of hours studying this stuff and I am more convinced that I am an idiot when it comes to dog behavior than I was when I began. Maybe when I’m sixty I’ll start interfering, but right now I know perfectly well how dumb I am.
One of the reasons we screw up interactions has to do with the fact that, just like we humans do, dogs have communications that have beginnings, middles, and ends. The beginning is the series of behaviors that initiate the interaction, the middle is the interaction itself, and the end is when the dogs resolve or end the interaction and move back away from each other.
That entire cycle is VERY important. If it is not completed, the next time the dog or dogs tries to interact the “transaction” won’t go as smoothly. Some of the social lubrication will have been lost.
If interactions are routinely truncated, two bad things happen: First, the dogs involved don’t get to finish the conversation, so they get out of practice in how to finish interactions. This is a lot more dangerous than it sounds–every dog interaction is a finely honed and subtle meeting of two animals perfectly prepared to kill each other. Predator-to-predator transactions are not exactly natural, and dogs have evolved an incredibly complex series of behaviors to keep things from escalating into an attempt to physically harm. If they are bad at those behaviors–if instead of suave and smooth talkers they’ve become awkward and tend to say the wrong thing–they are in genuine danger of falling from normal transaction into a situation where one or the other of them will make a move toward a killing attempt.
The second bad thing that happens is along the same line, but it involves those two dogs in particular. If they cannot finish the conversation they began, they do not have a chance to do all the appeasement/backing up behaviors that they would normally do. The conversation is cut off just when things are getting tense. So when the dogs see each other again, they will be more heightened in their interaction than they would have been if they’d been allowed to complete the cycle. This makes them even more likely to need to have a conversation that gets tense, and when they are again separated the stakes get even higher.

This does not mean on should never interfere but I personnally stay on the sidelines unless I have good reason to suspect physical harm is likely to occur to one or more of the participants.

hig4s · 05-15-2010, 05:46 PM

I'm not really sure what is right or wrong with interfering, and just go by feel. but I generally do not interfere unless one is yelping and the other is not stopping. With the notable exceptions of when their play threatens to damage furniture. Also if one sneaks up on the other and grabs an ear or tail I usually stop that, but then let them continue.

Mikey T · 05-15-2010, 06:23 PM

Quote:

I'm not really sure what is right or wrong with interfering, and just go by feel.

The risk with interfere to much is the dogs rely on the interference and it alters ther behavior. Just like that jerk of a sibbling that keep needling the other until it provokes a response. The parental unit intervenes and disiplines the one that was provoked into responding. This is a major reason for any dog v dog disipline not to try an only punshish the percieved aggressor. It takes two dogs to have a fight at any time one could back down, If both are equaly punishished it is less likely to promote the low threshold aggresive acts the go unnoticed by humand but not other dogs. The other porblem with intervening is a dog may never become fluent it its own language which can create a life time of problems when it encounters other dogs.

Failure to intervene could result in catistrauphic injury or death, So their is alway a bit of "feel" to deciding when and when not to intervene. And know one on a forum like this can begin to make even an educated assertion as to where it is better to ornot to intervene without actual seeing the dogs interact in all the contexted. What I try to provide is info for other to consider when deciding what that threshold should be for themselves

One will find that individuals that are inheirently good with dogs have very good feel those that don't do not, and sometimes reevaluating what they are doing and why can help come up with a criteria for them to use that helps.

hig4s · 05-15-2010, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikey T

This is a major reason for any dog v dog disipline not to try an only punshish the proceeved aggressor..

I generally don't punish either of them, just make them stop if I think it is getting out of hand.

What is sort of strange with my current two, is neither shows hardly any Alpha tendencies toward the other.

Mikey T · 05-16-2010, 09:03 PM

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t is sort of strange with my current two, is neither shows hardly any Alpha tendencies toward the other.

That is because dogs do not form linear pack hierarcies. there is little to suport "pack behavior" in dogs at all. The alpha dog is more myth than reality.

The Social Organization of the Domestic Dog

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The theory that a hierarchy based on dominance relationships is the organizing principle in social groups of the sort canis lupus is a human projection that needs replacing. Furthermore, the model has unjustifiably been transferred from its original
place in the discussion of the behavior of wolves to the discussion of the behavior of domestic dogs (canis familiaris). This paper presents a new, more adequate model of how familiaris organizes itself when in groups. This paper is based on a longitudinal study of a permanent group of five randomly acquired dogs living in their natural habitat, as they interact with each other within the group, with newcomers of various species who joined the group, and with fleetingly met individuals of various species in their outside environment. This study shows that the existence of the phenomenon "dominance" is
questionable, but that in any case "dominance" does not operate as a principle in the social organization of domestic dogs. Dominance hierarchies do not exist and are in fact impossible to construct without entering the realm of human projection and fantasy. The hypotheses were tested by repeatedly starting systems at chaos and observing whether the model predicted the evolution of each new system.

...The dominance hierarchy model violates the rules of parsimony. No broad, comparative study has been done, for example, comparing the incidence of "dominant" aggression between domestic dogs raised and trained using positive reinforcement and those raised and trained using negative reinforcement and punishment techniques designed to elicit avoidance behavior. This should have been done before behavior was attributed to an internal, inherited need to operate within a “dominance hierarchy”, presuming the animal is thinking about "rank" in its interactions with humans, etc. Statistical analysis has shown that food guarding behavior in domestic dogs correlates with the development of "dominant" behavior toward humans (Overall 1997). Thus, it is assumed that food guarding is an early sign of a "dominant personality" in a dog (Overall 1997). In fact, this correlation is a result of operant conditioning. In guarding food, aggression may be
reinforced by the other (human) animal's withdrawing to a greater distance. The reinforced behavior emancipates itself and, reinforced in other situations, becomes a generalized behavior. This is an example of the way in which statistical analysis
can produce trivial information and serve to mask rather than reveal the mechanisms which are, in fact, operating. It is also an example of how a model, once adopted as a persistent belief, can act as a filter distorting perceptions to the point that observations lose all value and enter the realm of fantasy.

hig4s · 05-16-2010, 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikey T

That is because dogs do not form linear pack hierarcies. there is little to suport "pack behavior" in dogs at all. The alpha dog is more myth than reality.

The Social Organization of the Domestic Dog

Hmmm, interesting.. following up with a little research on the subject I found this. The Myth of Alpha Dogs : Life As A Human Also interesting.

lunchbox · 05-23-2010, 04:43 AM

Hard to picture a basset as a bully--but as a boss, yes. My brother has a female basset and a female golden retriever mix. Even though the basset is half the size of the other dog, she is the queen. She adores my brother and doesn't like to share his attention with his wife or the other dog.

We had a female basset when I was a teenager, and we also had several cats. She loved playing with them, but she was such a big klutz after awhile (she reached 60 lbs her first year) that the cats would attempt to frame her--"accusing" her of bullying by hissing and spitting at her when she got too rambunctious, even when they started it. Poor Alice. She got her revenge on one of them, though--we had a sliding glass door to the backyard. The alpha cat used to sit inside the curtain and stare through the glass. Alice would come up and lean against the curtain, pinning the cat to the door and nearly squashing her. "Moosh the cat" became her favorite game.

SophieB · 05-23-2010, 09:06 AM

I love that word 'rambunctious' as the sound of it describes my Bassets really well when they either drag or push our old Cocker Spaniel along with them when walking or if they're going out into the garden, whether or not he wants to go with them!!!

05-12-2010, 04:55 PM	#11 (permalink)
Rcollins Junior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Englewood Colorado Posts: 10	ooooo great Idea i know Abby loves both, and if she will eat it he HAS to have it. so far another accident free day. on a side note I've also washed all my tile floors with a vinegar water mix, other then my house smells like vineger it seems to have helped __________________ Abigail and Montague's Mommy

05-23-2010, 04:43 AM	#18 (permalink)
lunchbox Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Denton TX Posts: 56	Hard to picture a basset as a bully--but as a boss, yes. My brother has a female basset and a female golden retriever mix. Even though the basset is half the size of the other dog, she is the queen. She adores my brother and doesn't like to share his attention with his wife or the other dog. We had a female basset when I was a teenager, and we also had several cats. She loved playing with them, but she was such a big klutz after awhile (she reached 60 lbs her first year) that the cats would attempt to frame her--"accusing" her of bullying by hissing and spitting at her when she got too rambunctious, even when they started it. Poor Alice. She got her revenge on one of them, though--we had a sliding glass door to the backyard. The alpha cat used to sit inside the curtain and stare through the glass. Alice would come up and lean against the curtain, pinning the cat to the door and nearly squashing her. "Moosh the cat" became her favorite game. __________________ Bryan http://www.bryanwfields.com

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05-15-2010, 05:46 PM	#13 (permalink)
hig4s Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 112	I'm not really sure what is right or wrong with interfering, and just go by feel. but I generally do not interfere unless one is yelping and the other is not stopping. With the notable exceptions of when their play threatens to damage furniture. Also if one sneaks up on the other and grabs an ear or tail I usually stop that, but then let them continue.

05-23-2010, 09:06 AM	#19 (permalink)
SophieB Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 256	I love that word 'rambunctious' as the sound of it describes my Bassets really well when they either drag or push our old Cocker Spaniel along with them when walking or if they're going out into the garden, whether or not he wants to go with them!!!