This Is Your Mother Speaking, Nature, Nurture, Boy Howdy !

Pictured is Oreo with her first Newfoundland puppy, it was a learning experience for all of us.  Miss Priss came later,  by then Oreo was an old hand at rowdy dogs. Here, she was trying to bathe him, a good GSD would do that; a good Newfie would bite the tongue that cleaned him:
Why do people say a dog, is a dog, is a dog ?  There were some very good comments made about rehabilitation versus training recently on another blog.  JJ is the author and the title is Dogs And Tails. It made me think about the different solutions people find to get along with the dog in their life. Some people believe that the person must learn how to cope with the dogs dysfunction, and others feel, quite strongly that the dogs came to live with us. Here at Oreo's, we are aiming right down the middle.  If you have a resident dog with newly aquired problems, the answer is to work with the dog, but, how far is to far ? I came upon a wonderful blog post entitled  Lessons From Luke, the author is Layla; it was inspiring and yet, brings up the very concerns I have about todays shelter dogs. Feel free to read it and drop back here, it will clarify what I am going to address.  In Luke's story, the theme throughout the process was adapting to the dog, there was a mention of desensitizing Luke, but never any indication that it worked. The reason is ....taaa daaa, desensitizion will only work on a fairly stable dog with concrete reasons for the reaction.  With that mental set you can offer the dog different experiences  with the same stimuli, when the dog finds out the vet may have hurt once, but not every time, it should push the event further back in it's life.  Again we are talking about a dog with some balance.
  Dogs are more in tune with how we react than the average person thinks.  I am terrified of thunderstorms, survived a couple of tornados years back, but the fear remained. Even though we don't have twisters here, my apprehension lives on,  None of our other creatures reacted to them, until Oreo.  She was so sensitive we had her on sedatives briefly to prevent injury.  None of the traditional treatments worked, because she had nothing on which to base her fear, except my fear.  We bought thunderstorm CD's  , but Oreo wasn't reacting to the noise.....the vet thought maybe barometric pressure, she could feel before we could, never added up.  Her favorite movie was " Babe" ( yes the little pig that could ) and we started putting that on when the skies turned black.  And, we put ME on a "down stay"  It worked, and in a few month's she laid quietly and watched the news with us.  I'm citing this as my personal example of aquired disorders in the home.  The dog has learned to be afraid of something through experience.  In this case I was the leader and I was afraid, therefore reasonable fear.  We are not talking about that.
Dogs such as Luke are far to common, and the  owners caught in the jetstream of their collective disorders, suffer along with the dog.  BSL isn't the answer,  everyone knows a dog who was " perfect" until they weren't.  We use aggression more now than ten years ago, it is not a " catch phrase"  it is an appropriate description fitting many of the dogs adopted out from shelters today.  It does not matter why the dog is aggressive, only if it is. What is happening throughout the sheltering community is the rationalization of unadoptable behavior in this ongoing frenzy of the numbers game. Shelters offer a reason for the dogs aggression (ususally abuse) and then expect the new owner to deal with it.  News Flash, love does not cure aggression.... Nor need we waste anymore time on analyzing a behavior that does not respond to treatment.
" Live release"  should be a red flag  in the sheltering world.  it means nothing.  The dog may be going to the worst hoarder in the state, but it left the shelter "alive"   Live release is the precursor to dangerous dogs on your community playgrounds.  One person commented that an insane asylum for animals  will be next on the horizon.  Been there, done that, we call them No Kill Shelters.
 Forget temperment testing, it misses the unpredictable, idiopathic disorders.  Temperment testing is a tool, it's not the end all..  I have seen to many dogs pass a standard test then go out of control 3 days later.   Know why shelters don't do an " exit interview" anymore ?  most dogs would not pass.  Can the dog be handled, brushed, food dish given or taken, don't make excuses; yes or no ? Please put humane back into animal shelters, and that starts with admitting that some animals are never going to have a quality of life, and will be in and out of shelters forever.  Anybody think that is "humane"  we don't...
Back to Nature vs. Nurture.while Priss was raised by a GSD, she remains a Newfoundland, She has certain characteristics she learned from Oreo,ex:  I was surprised to learn Newf's don't do the play bow, mine learned it from Oreo, I didn't realize it was unusual until I got several comments on a You Tube video we made.  On hikes, Oreo kept an eye on us, the Newfs could care less, just not their nature to herd us. They return to the whistle, but they don't have the protective nature of the GSD.. If a dog is bred to certain  performance standard, they have a purpose, ignoring that purpose is insanity.  I don't see a lot of other breeds making excuses for why the dog does what it was bred to do, we know herding dogs herd, and protection dogs protect; it's a surprise that fighting dogs fight ? Genetics people, if aggression has come upon the animal take it out of the system.