Dog Breed Matters If You Want To Communicate

Researchers who make generalizations about the effects of domestication and dog-wolf differences in the utilization of human visual signals, take note; a new study says dog breeds selected to work in visual contact with humans, such as sheep dogs and gun dogs, are better able to comprehend a pointing gesture than those breeds that usually work without direct supervision.

In a series of tests, Márta Gácsi from Eötvös University, Hungary worked with a team of researchers to examine the performance of different breeds of dogs in making sense of the human pointing gesture.

You are right. The German Sheps are very intelligent. Our last one died at the age of 15 from cancer. It was a tough time in my house. She was such a smart girl and I miss her.

We were only looking to get one dog (we have two other dogs), but under the circumstances, we just couldn’t take one and not save the other. I’m really looking forward to raising them.

I know some people swear by labs, but in my experience they are one of the dumbest dogs out there, its not that they don’t have intelligence as much as their frontal cortex just can’t override their basic instincts most of the time. Or in other words, they just can’t help themselves from doing stupid things.

Thanks so much for all of your advice. She has been with us for a week now and is doing really well except for one thing. She gets wound up and extremely agressive towards us. She bites and scratches me and my wife in most all parts of our bodies and pulls and tears at our clothing. I have tried to consistently correct her with the Cesar Millan method (saying no in a forceful but calm voice and giving her a pinch when I do it) as has my wife. I have also tried holding her down on the floor to establish dominance but it only seems to make her worse. I started out trying to give her a toy to throw around and that didnt work either. I took the last week off from work and have taken her for 2 or 3 walks around the neighborhood a day to try and focus her energy, again without much result. This is extremely worrisome to us because of your first point about not allowing her to put her teeth on a human. It seems that once she wakes up from a nap, it is all she wants to do is tear around and roughhouse and bite stuff until she gets tired and goes to sleep again. Once she gets that out of her system she is sweet for a little bit and then falls asleep for a couple of hours.
She is 9 weeks and 4 days old as of today. She was the largest of a litter of 13 and seems extremely smart. Is this just high spirited puppy behavior or a real problem developing? My wife is home this coming week so we can continue to socialize her and we would really like to get her under a little more control if we can. I just dont want this to go on for a couple of months until she weighs 40-50 lbs and is impossible to control.

Again, I really appreciate any insight you could give me. We are getting worried- Thanks, Big Red Clay

That does sound very worrisome. I’d have a big rope knot toy to put in her mouth whenever she comes toward you in an aggressive manner.

We were told never to hit our dog, and we were fortunate that because of his temperament we never thought about it. It sounds as though you have one of the mastiffs with an “off” temperament, as they are not normally aggressive as puppies. For instance, we never had to establish dominance by putting him down on the ground.

Speak with your vet, and ask him/her what their opinion is. Seriously, I can see why you are worried. I would be too. A hot-blooded mastiff is a dangerous dog, and there’s no way to expect her to grow out of it. I wish I could say something encouraging, but this is worrisome. My dog came with a lifetime temperament guarantee, did you get any sort of assurance from your breeder?

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