A man's dog: An old school A #$ hole. - Page 5

really not needed  Take a couple of weeks to think a little.

Western Rider

It's late the children should be in bed fast asleep so the childish talk should end now.

Heard a long time k9 trainer say GSD was ruined when lonely old feminist picked up dog sports and started raising and breeding them.. That rawness and aggression was bred out because non could handle it , unfortunately that's why you see so many soft , weak GSDs

Talking of remarks that just aren't necessary ^^^ ...

That rawness and aggression - Shawnicus

You do know that aggression is fear based right??? If pressure (regardless of the threshold amount) is applied to a dog and the dog reacts by turning and running OR if that same pressure causes a dog to strike at what is causing the pressure, both behaviors are coming from the same place of fear. Both behaviors are designed to elevate the pressure. A dominate dog is not the same as an aggressive dog nor is aggressive the same as confident. A clear headed dog can be dominate but an aggressive dog is not clear headed.

LOL@GossippyShaunicus
Don't blame the hens for the cock's shortcomings.

In all seriousness, I think plenty of dogs out there have aggression. Depending on the line and breeder it’s not hard to find a dog that has strong natural aggression. Even the dogs at the highest levels have aggression but it’s just balanced because truthfully too much aggression will lead to behaviors that will lose points in IPO. Some of these behaviors wouldn’t have any affect on the dog’s ability to perform real work (like partial grips) but the sport asks for what it does and that’s what people are going to look for.

Since people want to go there…I’ll tell you there is no reason a woman can’t handle a strong dog. Physical restraint and even physical correction will rarely work with the types of dogs that Mithuna speaks about in this thread. A man might be able to beat the dog into submission eventually but the work will show it and it won’t look like what we’re seeing this week at the WUSV. Truly man eating/handler aggressive dogs will have to be taken to a place where their drive/aggression doesn’t come out in the work in order to control them. If the control doesn’t matter, then the dog can be allowed to be himself and never see a trial field or work in a real venue. The breeder/owner can sit there looking at his dog in the kennel, breeding to him all he wants, and telling stories of how amazing the dog is. Only those like Mithuna will listen. The rest of us know the truth about such dogs.

So Cutaway
When a dominant dog becomes aggressive upon being challenged does it mean he is fearful?

BW

Cut, for me there are two types of "aggression" in dogs.

Some dogs seem to be aggressive, but in reality they are just dominant dogs, not willing to bow to others.
Old fashioned said they are very "alpha", but they need a reason to explode ( be it another dog, a stranger, a decoy, a weak and/or unfair handler ) - aggression out of self-confidence.
Dogs of this kind are pretty easy to handle, cause you know how they tick, and you are able to train them accordingly ( out of my experience dogs of this kind are mostly male - a lot of testosterone ...).
Most of them are not suitable as pets, simply because they do have problems to respect anybody besides their handler ( tolerate yes - respect no ), otherwise at least for me they are a lot of fun.

On the other hand there are dogs that are aggressive out of fear or insecurity - you never really know what will happen ( and when ). In the best case these dogs believe ( learned ) that " attack is the best defense " - most of them do have a very low threshold, but: too much pressure, sudden noises, sudden movements, and they do run. Difficult to train, cause you never really know what will happen next...

A lot of puppies are insecure, with strict training ( "you are the greatest, attack is always better than flight" ) they are able to become "well functioning" dogs, but I prefer the "bullies", the dogs that don´t even think about win or loss, because for them "loss" doesn´t even exist.

Maybe that´s the main reason why I always had the most success with males ...
Females ( at least most of them ) do act out of conviction / brain, not that much out of drives / testosterone...