Show Your Spoiled Dog Pictures.

[factory presets]

"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.

Having said that, people adding new genes in an old breed are generally doing the dogs a favour. Can help to get rid of genetic side effects. I like my mongrels for that reason. Tend to steer away from purebreds and vet bills in one move.

A doctor once looked at my name, then my face and asked if I was mixed race. On my affirmative, she launched into a speech about the advantages of the wider gene pool. Turns out Hitler was wrong.

 

[58kites]

A kiteboarding buddy of mine grew up close to the Gulf Coast here in Texas and he has done a lot of ranch-hand type of work.
Removing bobcats, mountain lions, alligators, rattle snakes and feral hogs who are interfering with ranch business.
He uses dogs for hog hunting.
For catch/holding the hogs after the hound dogs lead the way to the hogs, he uses Pitbull-ish dogs that are common in Texas.
They are Pitbulls sort of, but these guys don't care about specific physical standards being correct/perfect, it's all about the prey drive.
He tried to recruit my Loki many times and I turned him down every time, Loki is a very docile dog in most ways but his prey drive is high.
He has no interest in fighting with other dogs but will go after anything from a house-fly to rabbit, coyote, deer, duck, goose, a giant plastic moose decoy, kitty cat, rattlesnake, squirrel, etc, etc.
He does not care, if it's a critter and it moves, he's after it.
I think farm dogs here are mostly PitBull/Pitbull mix, not many overly thick ones that can't move well.
Our shelters are full of sweet Pits of various shapes and sizes...too many irresponsible dummies.

 

[Hypercaffium]

I’ve been watching YT vids of this guy that uses tame minks and dogs to control rat infestations. The mink goes into holes and small spaces and flushes the rats out. Then the dogs just go to town on them. It’s kinda gruesome but in a satisfying way.

Nothing personal, but I would NEVER use my dogs to kill the rats (or any other animal by the way). Rat's bite can be very dangerous for your dogs and the "show" would be gruesome, like you said. I can't see anything satisfying in that, to be honest. It's psycopath material, imho.
Call a professional, instead.

 

[kesslari]

Nothing personal, but I would NEVER use my dogs to kill the rats (or any other animal by the way). Rat's bite can be very dangerous for your dogs and the "show" would be gruesome, like you said. I can't see anything satisfying in that, to be honest. It's psycopath material, imho.
Call a professional, instead.

It's what people used to do. Cats and dogs to control rodents.
Back before Jack Russell terriers got popular (think mid 80's) I worked, for a time, at a pet store. One day I was bored and straightening out the book rack, which was mostly filled with the "Know Your (insert breed here)" books (e.g. "Know Your Maltese"). There was an odd paperback book about Jack Russells - they weren't popular enough to have a mainstream book.
They were originally ratters (as was, predictably, the Rat Terrier, and many other terriers - terrier comes from the Latin word "terra", earth, indicating a dog who would "go to earth", e.g. go into an animals den to kill it).
It was filled with pictures of dogs next to their freshly killed piles of rats. Stuff like "Ben's dogs 'Ol Jock' and 'Molly' killed 114 rats in a day on the Stone's farm in Welchdale". It was a very, very weird contrast to the more wholesome "Know Your Cute Doggie" series.

Of course it's a lot more dangerous now because of people using poison to kill rats, and wind up poisoning cats and dogs and wild predators who kill the rats.

 

[SJLee]

Of course it's a lot more dangerous now because of people using poison to kill rats, and wind up poisoning cats and dogs and wild predators who kill the rats.

That right there is enough for me to not want my dogs going after mice. We have lost a family dog due to him getting a hold of a mouse poisoned by a neighbor.

 

[Stewie26]

That right there is enough for me to not want my dogs going after mice. We have lost a family dog due to him getting a hold of a mouse poisoned by a neighbor.

We have also been losing our local fox, red tail hawk and owl population due to rat poisons.

 

[SJLee]

We have also been losing our local fox, red tail hawk and owl population due to rat poisons.

 

[Inky13]

Nothing personal, but I would NEVER use my dogs to kill the rats (or any other animal by the way). Rat's bite can be very dangerous for your dogs and the "show" would be gruesome, like you said. I can't see anything satisfying in that, to be honest. It's psycopath material, imho.
Call a professional, instead.

I’m not shilling for the guy or his channel, but he IS a professional. He gets called in to control vermin populations, mostly in agricultural areas that don’t want poison or other toxins introduced into the environment. Sometimes we forget that these animals were originally bred to perform specific tasks. Protection and guard duty. Hunting. Herding livestock. To early people, a bountiful harvest could literally be a life or death scenario.
Cats and ratting breeds have been used for centuries. We want to anthropomorphise these wonderful creatures that we’ve invited into our homes, but long before that, they performed valuable services.

 

[Hypercaffium]

I understand your point, but many thing could go wrong in a scenario like that, and it's dangerous imho. Rat poison ingestion, mouse bite (which can cause serious fever and infection) and other incidents.

 

[Inky13]

^^^^Fair enough.

 

[Downunderwonder]

I understand your point, but many thing could go wrong in a scenario like that, and it's dangerous imho. Rat poison ingestion, mouse bite (which can cause serious fever and infection) and other incidents.

By that logic you wouldn't have police dogs either.

 

[Ryno1330]

I’m not shilling for the guy or his channel, but he IS a professional. He gets called in to control vermin populations, mostly in agricultural areas that don’t want poison or other toxins introduced into the environment. Sometimes we forget that these animals were originally bred to perform specific tasks. Protection and guard duty. Hunting. Herding livestock. To early people, a bountiful harvest could literally be a life or death scenario.
Cats and ratting breeds have been used for centuries. We want to anthropomorphise these wonderful creatures that we’ve invited into our homes, but long before that, they performed valuable services.

I understand your point, but many thing could go wrong in a scenario like that, and it's dangerous imho. Rat poison ingestion, mouse bite (which can cause serious fever and infection) and other incidents.

As a veterinarian I agree with Inky. A vermin bite to a working dog is extremely unlikely, and if or when it did happen most times would heal without incident or in a rare case need a short course of antibiotics.

A very good point was made that many breeds were purpose bred to do a job and do it well. Often as a veterinarian I see working dogs that people struggle to make good pets of because of this fact, simply because they didn't research the breed and it's background and activity level first.

Also, I'm not trying to start a debate but many people live in cities where dogs only sleep in beds and on couches and see grass once in a while, and those owners have a hard time imagining working dogs doing their thing, but I promise you the dogs that are bred for these purposes flourish when they do them (whether hunting, ratting, working sheep/cattle, etc).

 

[GregC]

There’s always that one kid.

 

[GregC]

14 pets with unique features.

 

[factory presets]

many people live in cities where dogs only sleep in beds and on couches and see grass once in a while, and those owners have a hard time imagining working dogs doing their thing, but I promise you the dogs that are bred for these purposes flourish when they do them (whether hunting, ratting, working sheep/cattle, etc).

You left out fighting and running. Both contentious where I live. But there's no getting round the fact that those dogs love doing it. Well... Unless you buy into the notion they are beaten into doing it.

Little Tinkles spends her walks nose down, going footprint to footprint. So I try to include as much long grass, stinky alleyways and general grime and seediness as I can find. Combo seems to be more about the visual cues. Best I got for that is variety. Different route every day.

 

[Stempelloos]

By that logic you wouldn't have police dogs either.

A story about a police dog and his boss. Back in the early eighties I visited a community center on a Friday evening. It was disco night. One of the guys had smuggled in a bottle of spirits, that he poured into the beer-glasses of his friends. They were getting drunk fast and started to behave as obnoxious youngsters, throwing with glasses. The management stopped the music after that and indicated that everyone should leave the attic and go to the hall. Shortly after that the police arrived with a German Shepherd.
The guy with the dog ordered me to go outside. I told him that I wasn't the one that was causing the trouble. They were still upstairs, so he'd better have a look there.
The cop started to act more intimidating sort of pushing the dog towards attacking, saying I had to move out. I kept my eyes fixed on the dog, telling his boss that he didn't need it to convince me to go outside. He pushed his dog again. Instead of attacking me, it attacked his boss. Causing me to burst out in laughter and getting kicked out.
I guess German Shepherds are friendly in their core.

As a veterinarian I agree with Inky. A vermin bite to a working dog is extremely unlikely, and if or when it did happen most times would heal without incident or in a rare case need a short course of antibiotics.

A very good point was made that many breeds were purpose bred to do a job and do it well. Often as a veterinarian I see working dogs that people struggle to make good pets of because of this fact, simply because they didn't research the breed and it's background and activity level first.

Also, I'm not trying to start a debate but many people live in cities where dogs only sleep in beds and on couches and see grass once in a while, and those owners have a hard time imagining working dogs doing their thing, but I promise you the dogs that are bred for these purposes flourish when they do them (whether hunting, ratting, working sheep/cattle, etc).

I remember visiting a mansion in West Cork in the late eighties with a friend.
We were shown around the place by an acquaintance of the friend. While visiting the stables, he had 2 Jack Russels and a couple of cats walking beside him.
When he opened a stable-door, the Russels and the cats sprinted towards the rats fleeing into the corners. They all seemed quite happy doing that. And the Jacks were really good at it too. I'm pretty sure the guy didn't throw venom around. It apeared very unlikely that those dogs and cats were going to be bitten by the rats and mice.

 

[SJLee]

There’s always that one kid.

Hilarious!

 

[Downunderwonder]

My Mum's miniature fox terrier chihuahua bitza had the anything smaller was fair game thing going on. Loose chooks got wrangled by the neck until someone saved the day. I don't think any chook became dinner on dog's account.

Bees were good comedy. Dog comes inside looking a bit sorry for herself, one side of face all swollen up from munching a bee. ''Silly dog don't eat bees!" Half an hour later dog is back with the other side swollen up to match.

Cats were seen off. Dog got swiped in the schnoz once, after that a cat spotted sunning itself would get a surprisingly gruff for such a small dog warning bark, cat would duly jump up and take off up the drive and only then would dog let fly with the banshee howls and take off in ''hot pursuit''. So some smarts but not enough to learn not to eat bees.

 

[58kites]

You left out fighting and running. Both contentious where I live. But there's no getting round the fact that those dogs love doing it. Well... Unless you buy into the notion they are beaten into doing it.

I agree sort of, I'm not sure that very many domestic canines want to fight another domestic canine to the death, it's not practical for their survival.
Only one Pitbull I've had here wants to truly scrap, the rest have all enjoyed what we call "wrestling" which looks and sounds bad to some folks but is clearly just rough play.
I believe even those "dogmen" that breed Pitbulls to fight, it's only the few that turn out to be killers.
I don't believe dogs are beaten into doing it, but strongly encouraging a dog that was bred to please it's owner can get the result they are looking for.
That's how German Shepherds and now the Belgian Malinois dogs do what they do in military work.

 

[factory presets]

I agree sort of, I'm not sure that very many domestic canines want to fight another domestic canine to the death, it's not practical for their survival.
Only one Pitbull I've had here wants to truly scrap, the rest have all enjoyed what we call "wrestling" which looks and sounds bad to some folks but is clearly just rough play.
I believe even those "dogmen" that breed Pitbulls to fight, it's only the few that turn out to be killers.
I don't believe dogs are beaten into doing it, but strongly encouraging a dog that was bred to please it's owner can get the result they are looking for.
That's how German Shepherds and now the Belgian Malinois dogs do what they do in military work.

Flat out don't believe fear gonna produce the domineering attitude that wins fights everywhere. The bad news is apparently live baiting is the SOP for developing said stance. Common in greyhound circles as well. Shocking exposes have given that industry a bad name round my way.

I think dogs by and large just want to fight till they are 4 points clear at the top of the table. After that keeping the pack intact is in everyone's interest. Also suspect a lot of dog play is about looking for heirarchy opportunities along with the bonding and practice components. Full time competition and hostility surely can't make the best hunting companions.

I've seen docos saying dogfighting matches tend to go to submission as well. But after a loss doggie is no use to the owner and gets put down.

Guess I brought it up to point out that dogs don't understand civilised human values. But people can get the results they want by trying to understand and manipulate little puppy's base instincts. Much like marketing people do to the rest of us.