Going on a tangent because it grabbed my attention, do you all have ideas for what would be a good way to "prove" a dog bred to be an exceptional pet? I was having this conversation with my sister a while back, who will soon be in the market for a new pet dog. I was talking to her about what to look for and what to avoid in a breeder, and some of her questions got me wondering why I was jumping on the dog-person bandwagon so-to speak. For example, I brought up the idea of "proving a dog" before breeding that dog. I said that a good breeder will do
something with their dogs to prove that they are worthy of adding to the gene pool. My sister is interested in labs, so I mentioned field trials, obedience, conformation, or other dog "sports." Her response? "I just want a pet. I don't care if my dog hunts or is exceptionally obedient."
So... do we even have a dog activity out there (with the possible exception of therapy work) that really "proves" a good pet dog?
In a lot of ways, I think that breeding for a good "pet" dog is a much loftier goal to achieve than many other reasons that dogs are bred. After all, being a good pet involves an array of different behaviors and traits, not one single behavior that can be honed and perfected. I'd like to think that the average person's ideal pet dog probably fits roughly into this list:
- quiet
- biddable
- extremely temperamentally stable (i.e. pain tolerant, adaptable, and bombproof)
- conformationally sound, so as not to run into huge health issues down the line
- playful, but not hyper
- ready and able to engage in physical activities, but content to sleep the remainder of the day
- good with other dogs
- good with small animals
- good with children
- good with strangers
- does not require intense grooming procedures
- long-lived
- watchful when necessary, but not loud or overly alert
I think it would be cool if there was a sort of "three-day eventing" of dog events. Maybe a combination of something like rally-o, CGC and therapy dog testing, and structural soundness conformation.
What do you think? If you could invent an event (or pick an event) that would best "prove" a dog as a good pet, what would it be?
My largest concern would be that if everyone was breeding for good pets following the above criteria within all of their respective breeds, we would begin to lose the qualities that make each breed unique. Eventually, I wonder if we might lose breed type altogether... An extreme example - is a fila still a fila if it has been bred to act like a lab?
In some ways, I don't have a problem with shifting breeding away from a breed's original intent if the original intent is no longer desirable. For example, I don't believe that dog aggression should be a trait that is selected for in bully breeds. In a lot of ways, I would actually like to see it selected against. The issue is that traits don't exist in a bubble... selecting for just one thing can alter all sorts of other traits (as can be seen in the Russian fox experiment). Would selecting against just that one trait end up morphing the breed entirely?
It's all really pretty interesting. But anyway, my apologies for drifting almost entirely away from the doodle-dog discussion.
