Things you think are 'wrong' with wolfy type crosses/new 'breeds'? Discussions

Score 1 for the Mals eh Louise

I'm, surprised that labs are common? I don't think I've ever heard of an aggressive one of those.

I think you will find I said the most common dogs I work with .....I don;t just deal with aggressive dogs. However, recently I have dealt with 2 dog-dog aggressive labs.

When I mentioed the Wolfy type, and the Northern breeds I wasn;t just looking at aggression was looking at all the problems...

And I have just remebered a Malamute that came to training classes in Norfolk.........(Sorry...it was a few years back !

Ah, OK, sorry, I miss-understood. I did think it odd.

Just for my curiosity, how difficult would you say collie's are to train? Fiercely intelligent, but can be stubborn in my experience, need a strong owner.

No problems

Err...*Runs for cover* I don;t think Collies are that intelligent. They are do'ers not Thinkers (its why I love 'em) - which is - in my experience - the crux of the problem, they get trained the wrong thing and then it is Really hard to teach them the right thing! I think as long as collies have a job they are Ok. I'm not sure that Strong owner is the right term.....depending on how you take it (I am assuming you don't mean physical stregth?) I think they need consistancy, but so do all dogs, I just think its more important for collies as its SO hard to reteach them.....

Ooops...bit off topic...sorry

That kinda makes sense. I wouldn't really know as I only have limited experience with them. You're right I didn't mean strength

The last dog I had was a rescue collie, got him when he was 11. He'd been in the centre for over a year, been re-homed twice, but brought back. He was one stubborn, grouchy dog I'll tell you. Took a lot of patience, and shin guards, to stop him nipping. I always say I must have good friends, because that dog nipped every single one of them, yet they still came round. The only person he didn't nip was my mother in law!?! Some dogs have no taste

The reason I asked the question..is because..

NI are meant to be a mix of GSD, Mal & Sibe.. The reason the GSD was put it was to make them more trainable than the latter two..

My thinking is..It never worked

Well i can't speak for Mals but my NI has been much easier to train then my Husky ever was.

She loves to learn and is happy to do whats asked when asked, rather then waiting to see whats in it for her. Her recall is great (we are having a bit of an issue with her having just discovered boys but we are getting there with that. Little mare!), and if Cassie runs off (she has a mad 5 mins and runs flat out in circles) Ela would rather stay with us then run off.

Seems to be more issues with sheep etc in NI than in Mals or husky's..Or maybe the mal and husky owners are just more aware of what they own..

There seems to be more instances of the use of shock and prong collars in the NI too..is this because the owners refuse to beleive their dog has prey drive and wishes to control it..rather than manage it..

(my meaning of control..is to ignore it and use the devices and treat the dog the same...manage means to work with the dogs drive and keep it on a lead etc)

It's true, alot of NIs have problems with sheep chasing, but IMO this is because of a failure on the owners part to prevent the problem developing in the first place. Certainly my own dog's sheep-chasing is my own fault. NIs can be trained to be fine with sheep, but it does take some effort in training/socialisation at an early age.

I think NIs tend to have much better recall than Mals or Huskies though, so maybe the GSD did add some trainability. It's important to remember though that the dogs used to start the breed are of unknown heritage, Mals, Huskies and GSDs were then added to these, so the whole make-up of NIs is not based ONLY on the pedigree dogs used to develop the breed.

ETA: I was made well aware of the potential in my dog to chase livestock when I discussed buying him with his breeder and the breed club. The reason this became a problem is because I let him enjoy the thrill of the chase at a young age (of course I didn't do this on purpose - but it was still totally my fault and I can't blame 'not being made aware').

We were also made aware about the NI's prey drive before we even put our name down. This didn't bother us as we have a Husky with a Cow obsession and a working lurcher. Ela seems a bit intimidated by sheep and Cassie just ignores them in favour of smaller fluffy things so i don't see any problems occuring.

well I can only speak for my own dogs, one has a high prey drive but also excellent recall. So he does chase rabbits but comes straight back when called. One doesn't have a high prey drive, her recall has improved a lot recently and now she does come back when called. I don't let either of them anywhere near livestock, I wouldn't take the risk to find out.

I can only speak for my own dog. She loves to chase rabbits but no more so than my lil collie x did. Her recall is as good as my lil collie's was & she has no interest in sheep, cows & horses which we see plenty of whilst out walking.

That's what I'd heard too. Would they be harder to train without the GSD mix?

I know exactly how you feel, my fella is just discovering girls. He was fairly easy to train, but I've had a lot of experience over the years. He is a bit mad for the first 5 minutes of being let off, but then his recall is pretty good after that.

But then he is hitting the adolescent stage. I had read somewhere that the police only start proper training when a dog is 16 months.

Cor 2 pages of pleasant discussion of opinion, is this a record?

My fella doesn't chase sheep or cows, he seems curious but I don't have to expend much effort in controlling him. Mind you in Suffolk there's not too much livestock, mainly foodstock.

Given that this thread seems to be winding down I thought I'd put down my conclusions and opinions, for any who may be interested

I'd like to say thank you to all the posters, any information is better than none I think.

I'd have to start with that there seems to be very little facts available about wolfy dogs, either to prove or disprove peoples opinions. This is down to, I believe, bad record keeping, and the blame should be laid at the original breeders.

There seems to be extreme views on both sides of the fence, some screaming that the whole breed is doomed, others seem to be in denial that there are any problems. I think the truth maybe somewhere in the middle.

Yes there are some dogs that have been used to breed from that have genetic health issues, and these need to be stopped from breeding. Can we do it? Probably not, there are always going to be unscrupulous breeders who just see pound signs.

But optimistically there do seem to be some breeders that are addressing some of the problems, health checks, hip scoring, even DNA profiling. I think one way to help the breed would be to positively advertise the good breeders whilst warning against the less than good.

Dog's health is a very emotive issue for anyone who cares about them. I feel that we have a responsibility to be careful about how we express our opinion. I really feel sorry for the owner of a new dog (sorry I can't remember which poster it was, it's a long thread), who now seems to be in a state, worried that her healthy dog is going to die from any one of half a dozen diseases, yet at present there's nothing wrong with her dog. This is because some have told her that her dog probably has all those diseases. That just doesn't seem right.

In conclusion, I will keep an eye on my fella for any symptoms of the health problems that are around, but I'm not going to start worrying about what might happen now.

lol
ill have to go over google again should have kept the link but i didnt! ill pm them to you when ive found em again!

was also a big report on tv a couple of years ago about the spaniel so ive always known it was them, a guy who owned /bred rottis was sick of people telling him how aggressive they were so he did years of research and found it to be the spainel. but its all on the links (a few of them) ill pm you when ive found them!

I have found my own Malamutes to be very trainable. Every dog is different, but I do think some NO type websites advertise the dogs as super easy sounding dogs which would encourage the wrong type of owner ...

Some Police dogs are in active service not long after 16 months ! But I am sure it differs force to force

Aye you're probably right. But I think it goes across all breeds, there seems to be far too many breeders just in it for the money. I don't have a problem with the money part, as long as they are responsible, but then I doubt there's an industry in the world that doesn't have it's own bad practitioners.