Breeding philosophy - Page 6

bzcz... like susie stated, all of the dog's drives combined = temperament.  A dog with low drives would have a diminished working ability, not NO working ability.  When you say that a dog has a good temperament, I assume that you are speaking of a dog with a stable temperament.  The stability of a dog's temperament is not the "whole" of the temperament.  For example, I have a young male with high drives, but he has a very low threshold with new people and will react aggressively out of too much defense.  So, he has a lot of working ability and looks amazing on the field, but he lacks stability in his temperament.  So, his temperament is made up of both his drives and his threshold combined, not separate from one another.  On the other hand, a dog with a high threshold and low drives will often be the dog that lays there and does nothing when a threatening stranger approaches.  Again, it is not that the dog has no working ability, but rather that his working ability is quite diminished.  The temperament is still made up of the drives and threshold in either case.

K9gsd78,

Read what you wrote objectively.

Has a lot of working drives, looks amazing on the field, but not stable in his temperament.  Temperament is a part of his working drive.  Not the other way around.  When you describe his temperament, you describe it individually as not stable.  His working ability you describe collectivly (as a group), and then you break it down into the components.  Low threshhold to strangers, not stable temperament.  THEN you switch them at the end of the paragraph and say that his temperament is his drives and thresh hold combined.  How does that work?  You already described his temperament as not stable.  When you put him on the field, he looks amazing because his drive overpowers his unstable temperament.  The drive can't overpower the sum of all the attributes (temperament). It can thought because temperament is only a part of it just as drive is.   I could explain it mathematically but I don't think that would help.  I feel like you are close to understanding it but you are just missing something and I feel like I'm not explaining it correctly enough for you to see it.

The second dog you describe as high threshhold, what are you really saying?  Honestly, I want you to put it into more detail.  More adjectives.  Same with his low drive.  Drive to do what?  Then you state that his working ability is diminshed because of these.  Again you yourself put the working ability as the sum of some of the parts.  You appear to then interchange it with temperament.  So I would then ask you to describe what you believe are different types of temperament?

I'm in a rush to get out the door, so I will go into more detail when I get back.  I don't think I'm putting my thoughts into words well either.   Temperament is either stable or unstable.  A stable temperament is just that... stable... even keeled, has appropriate responses to stimuli.  An unstable temperament can be sharp (jumpy), sharp-shy (fear-biter... which for all intents and purposes is what I would label my boy since it is his extreme defense that is causing his reaction, although he has enough aggression to not look like a fear biter), over-aggressive (those dogs that get stiff legged and glassy eyed and won't snap out of it when they go after something), submissive (think submissive urinators), or hyperactive (not high drive, but can't settle down, shaking all over, hyperactive).  So first it must be determined whether a dog has a stable or unstable temperament.  Then you can look at the other parts that make up "temperament" as a whole.

I'll finish my thoughts when I get home. 

seems everyone is assuming that the single purpose of a GSD is to perform at IPO, some of these temp flaws mentioned aka diminiished working ability would seem desired for non IPO work ie herding, SAR, seeing eye dog......

I agree that others are trying to define temperament as IPO work and I don't think it is.  That's what I'm trying to get across.  I'm eager to read what k9gsd78 has to write. 

^ my apologies for interrupting.

I want to back up a little and mention what I take for granted that others may not understand:  Temperament is 100% genetic and it cannot be changed.  You can cover things up, but given the right situation, a poor temperament will rear its ugly head. 

Ok... once it has been determined whether a dog has a stable or unstable temperament, you must look at the other parts that make up the temperament as a whole:

1)  Stress level - how much psychological pressure can the dog deal with, without exhibiting a physical reaction.

2) Character (for lack of a better term) - is the dog hard , medium or soft.  What is his pain tolerance, how does he respond to a stressful situation.

3) Drives - Prey, Pack, Defense, Aggression - These can all be low, all be high, or vary in degree in each drive.  The intensity of each drive is also part of temperament.  Intensity would be different than just being high or low... it is the power behind the drive. 

When you look at all of these things together, you get the whole picture of that individual dog's temperament. 

I also should mention that  I evaluate every dog to see what his temperament is before starting any training with that dog, regardless of what type of training I will be doing with that dog.  Otherwise, I won't know what training techniques will be effective for that particular dog.  Because temperament is genetic and cannot be changed, I cannot use a cookie cutter training philosophy.  Some methods just won't work with some temperaments.

noun

1. a person's or animal's nature, especially as it permanently affects their behavior: "she had an artistic temperament"

 This is my starting point for discussing temperament.  Many are taking the term and adding in more tests or stressors that are focused towards working dogs and using that as temperament.  I.e. pain tolerance as a measure of temperament. That's a working dog metric and is used for working ability.

 In fact there is so much added in there that there is no way to describe the temperament of the dog now.  

 Consider the dog who is calm, low key, great pet, stable, no aggression, no real nerve issues, just no drive to work.  What is their temperament?   Look at all the areas that have to be evaluated under this definition.  And yet this is being equated with working ability.  Where is the resiliency, bidability, nerve and hardness just to name a few that are missing. These are needed for working ability but are not temperament.  

 How would you evaluated the temperament on a dog who won't track?  Our on the earlier example of a dog shop is great on the field but a fear bitter of the field.  Under these metrics what is his temperament since he can clearly do the work?

I believe that interchanging the two terms is incorrect.  You can have good temperament dogs that don't work.otherwise by definition there could be no good temperament chows, poodles, pugs, pick your non working breed.  

 working ability is a complex matrix of many variables. Temperament is only part of the picture, it is not the sum of all the parts.  If it was, then our earlier example dog, the fear biter is a good temperament dog. His work on the field is amazing therefore his temperament is as well.  

 I'm willing to bet that most don't think he has good temperament.  But if temperament is working ability and he's amazing on the field doing the work, how do you reconcile the differences? other than realizing that temperament is a subset of working abilityy.

For me:

Nerve strength

Health

Tenacity / heart / courage

Drive

Form always follows function.  You breed dogs that have proven they can work to dogs that come from healthy dogs that also have proven they can work you will be fine.  Forget angualtion and all that other nonsense...just excuses made up by people that want to breed black and red pets and call it a working dog.

I have had some very pretty dogs that had no courage, to me that was ugly.