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So's one of my boys. Fortunately, I have a mobile groomer who has kept me on her list of clients. Sparky gets his haircut next Tuesday. Just in time. We're having a bit of a heat wave up here at 7,000 feet.
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Dax the shepherd took awhile to figure out. He had some tactical training, but it was in German so I couldn't always communicate.
He was a little different, but a good dog once I got his vibe.
Don't remember the hounds names, but they pulled like a freight train.
- Dec 21, 2007
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Two very good looking dozers. Love the dark brindle. What are they? If Mr. Wirey is a wolfhound or deerhound, Mr. Brindle is a pretty big bull-type dog...
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I remember a couple of news story about cops or animal control officers dealing with loose (big) dogs, and routinely trying German commands with success (when English didn't do the trick). Of course in L.A., dogs who responded to Spanish were also common. One story involved a dog who responded to commands in Korean. Stuff you never think about, until you do.
When I was a kid our family got our first dog, a German Shepherd, as a reject from the Buffalo Police Department K9 training (the backstory on him flunking the academy is hilarious). He was so bonded with the training officer that the department waited until the officer was out of town on vacation to actually put him up for sale. So for 2 weeks we thought the dog was just stupid and not well trained. Turns out the training officer taught him most of his key commands in Swahili. He briefed us on the commands when he got back from vacation and also gave us the backstory. I've owned German Shepherds ever since.
Hers is also a mobile groomer but she is collecting so no time sooner
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Combo the Grey is half bull arab (EBT, greyhound, pointer, teeth and wheels pigdog mix that hopes to become a breed one day) and half pointer ( gotta be German and wire haired) . Got him from a farm. Working dogs everywhere. I guess one jumped the fence.
Tinkerbell supposed to be a bandog. A mediaeval guard dog replica that's never gonna be a breed cos nobody can make the ideal mix breed true. Neopolitan and pitty for ferocious and loyal. 2nd generation. Mum was 60 kg. Dad was 80. She's 40. Lovely personality with a profound sense how things ought to be. Couple of asymmetries make me think she's from litter mate parents. I'm of the bitches get 1 litter to calm them down persuasion. But Tinkley ain't viable, so at 4 she's still a bit puppyish in nature.
When they're walking or in the ute people just stare. Forever getting compliments on how they look.
[QUOTE="malthumb, post: 24043328, member: 15540]Turns out the training officer taught him most of his key commands in Swahili.[/QUOTE]
I've done something similar when we lived in the drug belt. Didn't actually work for me because doggy taught himself English. Funny cos the only time we got burgled I was home asleep from night shift and they saw me and scarpered. While doggy was going nuts in the back yard cos he couldn't do Jack about it.
I've done something similar when we lived in the drug belt. Didn't actually work for me because doggy taught himself English. Funny cos the only time we got burgled I was home asleep from night shift and they saw me and scarpered. While doggy was going nuts in the back yard cos he couldn't do Jack about it.
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@factory presets "Bandogge" is an idea people like, but it was probably not ever a breed, more like "junkyard dog", e.g., big mean dog in Olde England, so they were probably of a type but not really a "breed".
They both sound pretty cool.
They both sound pretty cool.
This was in the mid-70s. We used to spend a lot of weekends at the waterfront (LaSalle Park?). That's where they would train the K9 corps. The obstacle course was visible from the park. The way the obstacle course was set up, each dog had a doghouse. They had to sit in front of their house at attention. Then they would be called to run the course. It involved going up, across, and down a ladder, over a wall, through a tire course, there was some sort of a jump over water or sand or something. Anyway, when each dog finished there run, they were s'posed to go back to their house and sit attention. Shep (very creative name) would finish his run, sit at his house, and wait for the next dog to get to a certain part of the course and then he would bumrush and knock the other dog off the course. They said the first time he did that he knocked off a dog before he got to do his own run and got put in isolation and didn't get to do his run. After that he was smart enough to wait until he had done his run before misbehaving. They couldn't get him to stop. So he flunked agility training for being class clown.
The training officer trained some really strange traits into Shep. He never barked at the door. He'd let anybody in. But we had to let you out. Found that out when a friend of my mom's came over and was going out to her car to get something. Had my brother and I not been watching him as she reached for the doorknob he might have killed her. Worked out great the time our downstairs neighbor's boyfriend broke into the apartment. We lived on the second floor. When we came home one day, we noticed our stereo missing and lunchmeat all over the kitchen floor. Idiot broke in, figured since he knew the dog he could get in and out no problem. Apparently tried to bribe Shep with lunchmeat, but Shep wasn't having it. When we found him he was sitting on top of the toilet tank with the window open, as if he'd consider jumping. Our stereo was on the floor and Shep was laying in the doorway so that he couldn't close the door. Now you may get why I am so partial to German Shepherds. Shep was legendary.
Whatever they used to be, there was no Pitbull in the mix. But who really knows what mediaeval dogs used to be. Even wolfhounds went extinct and were later recreated in the style of the day.
Edit. And the English bulldog about halved in size after bull baiting was outlawed. In the blink of an eye by evolutionary time. AKC standards, not so much.
Edit. And the English bulldog about halved in size after bull baiting was outlawed. In the blink of an eye by evolutionary time. AKC standards, not so much.
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Shep sounds like a great dog.
Reminds me of a story - I used to do Obedience trials with my rescue greyhound (got her a CD and then burned out). We just did it to have fun - like her "return to heel" position was a "flip", she'd jump straight up in the air and flip herself around to my left side, facing forward. You get the greatest looks when you show up at an obedience trial with a greyhound (because they're not typical obedience dogs). Out of 200 (with, IIRC, 170 being the minimum to count toward a title) points, the top 3 dogs (almost always border collies or goldens) would have scores of 198, 197, and 195 respectively (or much like that). Super consistent dogs. Whereas Fawnie got a 195 at one trial and 140-something at the next - it was all based on her mood that day.
Anyway, at one of her non-qualifying shows, there was a kid eating a hot dog just outside the ring. During her recall, she started toward me, detoured to the edge of the ring, took the kid's hot dog from his hand, and returned to me.
She did not get max points that day...
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Yes. Closest thing to the old bulldogs are some of the bulldogs in the southern US, which are now being turned into breeds - "American Bulldog", "Alapha Blue Bulldog" and some others. But there's so much variety in how people are breeding them. "Working farm dogs" kept the breed alive, not being bred to look like anything particular but good working dogs. Then interest outside of the region developed and people started breeding "American Bulldogs" with Bullmastiff mixed in to make 'em bigger, etc etc.
People do crappy things to dog breeds, and English Bulldogs are a prime example. Sweet dogs who cannot reproduce without C-section, to satisfy human vanities...
I'll stop now.
