Where I talk about dogs.

If you really want a pile of comments and a whole lot of conversation talk about a dog, not just any dog though it has to be the Pit Bull or more precisely the American Pit Bull a dog breed banned here in Australia.

Ice  is a Stumpy Tail Cattle Dog

Now don’t get me wrong I love dogs all dogs are DOGS first though, they instinctually will go “can I eat it?”, “is it mine?” and “I am pack leader”

Now there is the main problem PACK LEADER or who is the boss of the house, if your dog thinks or in some cases knows it is the boss you are going to have a problem with it.

That front gate is as far as the dog is concerned “theirs” and they are going to protect their territory that sandwich that that child has is “theirs” and they will have it. YOU are theirs and they will stop anyone else from coming near you. Its instinct if you look at wolves they will do the same thing the boss dog the top dog goes first when it comes to food, has the best bed the top position it gets more and gets it now!

If you are top “dog” and train your dog properly, so it knows that you are the top dog, YOU go first, YOU eat first, YOU go to the door first then you are the boss.

Your dog doesn’t need to be nor should it be afraid of you neither should it be fearful of children, you see a child will put its arm around a dog, it will have food and it will put a large object like a bat/stick/tennis racquet above its head, they will do that they are children after all and if your dog is afraid of those things it might just be fear aggressive.

What’s fear aggression? When afraid you have two choices, run away or stand and fight, fear aggression is stand and fight.

The other thing a dog might do is give a warning yip and sometimes a warning nip if a child does something to the dog that the dog doesn’t like, maybe come too close to the tail “don’t touch the sore spot on the tail” or sit in the dogs favourite sunny spot “that’s my spot get off” after all the child is lower ranked in the pack than you are so to the dog the child is lower than them so can be told off that’s the way dogs are.

The problem is when you have a big dog, a Labrador, an Alsatian, a Cattle Dog or an American Pit Bull if it bites it does more damage than a tiny dog would, a Mini Fox Terrier isn’t going to do much damage at all it can’t its small and there is your main word there SMALL, all dogs and I mean all dogs don’t know size, ask one if it knows if its small or not, don’t ask the Chihuahua tho unless you can understand Mexican but they will say to you “What is this small you speak of? All dogs are the same size” they have no idea absolutely no idea that they are small neither does a bigger dog know it’s big, a big dog will still try to get on your lap and still try to squeeze under the coffee table.

Bundy

The problem is when a big dog gives a warning nip its mouth is as large as a child’s head so when that child goes into the dogs territory or yours and the dog doing its instinctual job of protection goes to tell that child off who comes off the worse for it? The child of course.

I’ve had many dogs, big hairy ones, small yappy brown spotted ones, there is one at the moment around here somewhere possibly on the bed she’s what you call a herding dog (see pic above). See dogs can be herders, Cattle Dogs, Corgi’s and Old English sheep dogs are herders.

Or they can be bred for catching things like rats and pigs the terrier whether it’s a Bull Terrier, Pit Bull, Staffordshire or a Fox Terrier those are all terriers they are all tenacious, will not let go of something once they have it. My Mini Fox terrier could be lifted up whilst holding onto a stick a full two metres off the ground which was around 10 times his height, which was fine by him it was a fun thing to do a “dog” thing that he was bred to do and he was by all accounts little but not by his standards (dogs don’t know size).

The problem is if you’ve got a dog which has “Terrier” in its breed name you are going to get a dog that is determined, stubborn one that will NOT let go, imagine if that stick was an arm and you had a Pit Bull Terrier attached to it or a Staffordshire either dog doesn’t matter they are both terriers they will not let go.

Before I go repeating, myself again again if you look at the statistics on which dog bit who (you know where Google is go look yourself) you will see there are 10 breeds there that are the worst biters, the most aggressive, Boxers are in those statistics (see pic) but Bundy wouldn't do any more than knock you over or tail whip you. Some are there just because there are more of them than any other dog they are popular  so obviously the statistics will be high, others are there not because the dog breed has aggressive dogs but because the dogs person is hopeless at being pack LEADER they just let the dog be like that and in some cases encourage it.

It’s not the dogs fault, it’s not the breeds fault its people, people breed dogs to be what they would like the dog to be, people encourage dogs to behave in a way that they want them to behave, so don’t blame the dog blame the person.

Put the blame on the person who is afraid of dogs, the one who couldn’t tell you what breed it was that barked at them because it sensed their fear or was just a happy dog that knocked them over because “dogs don’t know size” and hurt the person accidentally.

I believe that dogs that all dogs can be made aggressive, but also can be made great hunters, herders and protectors it’s there its instinct they will do what dogs do ..... if you let them.

Thunder the chook killer
with Fasto the cat

PS: My Mini Foxie apart from being a grand total of 2kgs and a height of 30cm was a killer; we just couldn’t stop him once he started from killing chickens, a dog that size is impossible to catch, he killed six of next doors chickens before I could catch him. I didn’t let him, nor encourage him he just did as terriers will do and that’s hunt. We just kept him away from all chickens after that because we knew he was like that. If he had been a big dog and couldn’t help biting people well you know what happens there.

Images taken by myself, Ice is ours and Bundy is the FIL's

Thunder (1987-1996) Fatso (1997-2004)