[ExI] dogs again

spike spike66 at att.net
Wed May 21 00:12:20 UTC 2014


 

Those of you who have dogs or will get dogs will find this book fascinating.  I even used it in my Learning class:

Don't Shoot the Dog, by Karen Pryor (former dolphin trainer)… BillW

 

We have a new question, similar in some ways to how difficult it is to measure intelligence in humans.  It depends to a large extent on how you measure it.  A friend had a pure-bred Irish Setter, a beautiful dog, and intelligent in his own way, but perfectly useless as a watchdog; worse than useless.  He would welcome perfect strangers; wouldn’t care a bit if someone started to haul things away.  It never occurred to that dog that humans could possibly be bad guys.  He assumed all humans were good, and whatever they were doing was right.  He was a gentle beast; OK with cats, or probably even rats; we didn’t know on that one.  

 

I had a Doberman who chose all the opposite assumptions; everyone was guilty until proven innocent, and maybe guilty even then.  He seldom passed up an opportunity to demonstrate his disdain for strangers.  But the Doberman was not a hunter; there was nothing subtle about him.  He didn’t sneak around ever.  The setter wasn’t stupid; he just liked everybody.  The dobe wasn’t stupid, he was just very aggressive.  Both were excellent dogs.

 

spike

 

 

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