W
I don't understand how you think that dogs who have had positive interactions with people view them all as playmates, Whatz. My dog was extensively socialized and FED by strangers from day one. I can walk him in the middle of a crowd and he doesn't even bother looking at them. If someone initiates contact and there's nothing better for him to do, he'll greet them.
I do train my dog to "submit to" (I call it tolerate) people who stand over him. The alternative would be never allowing this to happen and having a dog that may snarl and bite if someone does that. Hmm, yeah, that's really what I want to represent working dogs.
My dogs do get jumped on, ears pulled walk thru tons of crowds of people and know when a threat is a threat and when kids are just rambuctious. The training or type of socialize we do in now way shape or form, makes these dogs unstable or dangerous. If you've never trained one, why do you claim to know what I somehow end up with??
Interaction with people cannot be avoided, I feel that the dog should be prepared for it. My dog is protective and drivey as hell, but I'd feel perfectly comfortable turning him loose in a room full of excited children. He's been taught that people standing over him IS a neutral event. It's happened so much in his lifetime that he no longer thinks anything of it. He knows the difference between a true act of aggression and normal human behavior because he's observed and interacted with them for 2 years.
Just as you don't understand where the idea that working people lock their dogs away, I don't understand the notion that all dogs that have been socialized are obsessed with interacting with random people on the street. I also can't help but wonder if keeping a dog from having positive interactions with people is a lazy way out of training good manners around people.
You tell me where the positive interaction is when 65 year old lady asks if she can pet your puppy and you say yes and she grabs and twists its ear?? where's the good in that? That happened with my older dog, I wish she would have bit the bitch, she deserved it, but she knew she wasn't a threat. Or the positive interaction when 250 lb man towers over and grabs your puppies cheeks or pushes its head to the ground and rolls it over?? The pup is so scared it pees itself?? where's the positive interaction with that?? What good is that going to do when you want that same puppy to grow up and be able to confront a man like that?? some it doesn't affect, others it does.
Sure people and kids do pet and even play with my dogs, AFTER i've trained them and we're thouroughly bonded. The things I ask of my dogs are much different than what you ask of yours. All the hard fast rules, I break, but the difference is I know when and how. Give people the exception, they make it the rule. That is why things are posted on leerburg like they are. As I said before I can see the dogs that are raised a certain way, or what changes they've made at home with a growing dog from week to week, just the way it behaves on the field with pretty good accuracy. If you want to tell me I'm somehow mistaken, i'd love to hear why