From the Introduction to her book

'HOW TO GET STARTED IN OBEDIENCE COMPETITIONS'

By kind permission of the author Jane Ellen

People often ask how to get into Obedience Competitions

Competitive Obedience has been a major sport in the dog world since the early fifties.  There was a boom time during the sixties and the shows got very large. But during the last few years venues have been hard to find and help to run the shows has been a major problem.  Many more dog training clubs have come into existence with dedicated trainers who are now able to take specialist courses in Instructing.  People are far more aware of the need to train their dog and socialise new puppies at a young age.

Having fun with your dog is what Obedience is all about. 

If you have seen the highly trained Border Collies, Working Sheep Dogs, German Shepherd dogs and sometimes other breeds working in the Big Ring at Crufts, you may think these are the only breeds capable of working.  This is just not true.  Nearly everyone began training with their pet dog by joining their local Dog Club.  From there the Obedience bug bit, and some people have fallen for Collies, believing them to be much easier to train.  This is not necessarily the case.  You need considerable experience to train a Collie successfully.  For every Collie that reaches the dizzy heights of the Crufts Obedience Rings, thousands will be working all the other classes with no hope of ever reaching the top.

Not all Collies make good pets, unless they have some training. They are a working breed that is generally very active and boredom in the home can cause all sorts of problems, not just for you as the owner of this breed, but for the poor dog as well.  The Border Collie Rescue Centres are full to the brim with unwanted Collies with all kinds of problems that were bought as pets.  Stick to the breed you know and enjoy the sport of ObedienceRemember the National Canine Defence League slogan: 'A Dog is for Life......not just for Christmas.'

Jane Ellen

For books on all types of dog training, from just basic pet training to dog sports training, visit the website http://breakawaysflyball.co.uk/id20.html

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What Ann Millington has written here applies to all dogs, not just IRWS, and before condemning our canine friends for their behaviour and/or temperament, read this and think very carefully before blaming them for what is basically our  fault and our problem for not understanding.

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A LOOK AT TEMPERAMENT

by Ann Millington

April 2003 

Temperament is constantly on the lips of owners and is a primary consideration of all serious responsible breeders when contemplating a litter.  However, defining temperament is no easy matter, it conveys different things to different people

Temperament, or disposition, is deeply rooted in the essence of the dog and is constantly subject to influence and change, according to individual circumstances.  It is not strictly true that a dog is born ‘bad tempered’ or has inherited a ‘temperament problem’ – the dog only reacts to its experiences and to strategies it has learned. 

The dog evolved as a relatively small mammal, lacking the strength and ‘weaponry’ to survive on its own – unlike the cat family.  So many thousands of years ago the dog resorted to strength in numbers and close co-operation – living in family groups that expanded into packs.  Pack life, although providing safety and successful survival, carries a heavy burden of social behaviour and individuals need to learn and learn quickly what behaviour was and was not acceptable to pack members.  What may look to the casual observer like a peaceful, laid back atmosphere in the pack habitat is, in reality, one of structure, protocol, taboos, strict obedience, a complex interaction to accomplish successful hunting, scavenging, defence or acquisition of territory, opportunity to reproduce and the ultimate leadership of the pack – a tall order indeed.  Leadership is usually taken by the Alpha female aided by her choice of Alpha male – both needing to be strong exceptional characters to ensure that their strengths are passed on to the next generation.

None of the successes of wild packs could have been sustained without the development of a highly refined inborn system for alertness; canine hearing and scenting is as we know far superior to that of humans and sight, though not far reaching, is able to detect minute nuances that would bypass any human.  It is no use having such excellent senses if the reaction time is too slow – there would be no future in that!

Dogs have a very rapid reaction time, for about 75% of need is to react to danger.  The instant danger is detected, brain chemistry floods dopamine to stimulate adrenalin – the hormone that fires muscle and nerves for flight, or if that is impossible, fight.  Should the situation be a false alarm, the body pumping adrenalin is a disadvantage so dopamine is ‘turned off’ and seratonin ‘turned on’  Seratonin is the hormone that calms, replaces tension and gives a feeling of security and well being.  Otherwise the dog would be constantly in a very heightened, nervous state – not one that is healthy or sustainable.  Although the heritability of brain chemistry is little understood, it is not inconceivable that sharper than usual perception and reaction may be passed on along with other traits – particularly in the performance range.

Dogs have honed their communal living for thousands of years and could have continued very well, as has been seen with indigenous wild packs today, but for the interference of humans.  Humans learned some 100,000 years ago that this sociable animal could be advantageous to them; they took puppies into their homes, finding them companionable, trainable and useful.  So it has remained since those days – dogs fitted in with humans and humans nurtured dogs – until the second half of the 20^th century.  Even within our living memory, dogs were an unremarkable sight around our dwellings, they rarely moved far from the area they were born into, they roamed the home environs, met up with other dogs, scavenged the streets together, were petted by children, went ‘home’ to be fed table scraps and given shelter.  The type of dog able to cope with this lifestyle was ‘bred for’. – the selection was for biddable, docile animals that kept their natural alertness.  Dogs with specialised talents like hunting, herding, guarding were perfected over the centuries, but the underlying character had to be docility – to be gentle with children, to live in the home, to be obedient etc.  However, all the selective breeding by humans has not diminished the basic rapid reaction that dogs possess, indeed it is prized and humans have ensured by their own sometimes brutal, irrational, incomprehensible behaviour that the dog still very much needs to rely on it.

The dog is naturally a very wary, fearful animal.  Dogs have their own lives to lead, they have their own agenda – it does not always automatically synchronise with ours.

The second half of the 20^th century saw a dramatic change in the way dogs are kept.  Increased traffic means streets are no longer safe for dogs to wander, socialising with their own kind.  Today dogs are kept prisoner in escape-proof gardens, pens, cages or chained.  More often than not, the family is out at work or school for the whole day and the dog, a highly social animal, is alone for long periods of time.  When the family returns at the end of the day, the relieved dog can be somewhat effusive in its welcome – which is either condoned or punished according to the whim of the family.

Even when out with its family, the dog is kept on a short, tight lead and strangers often present a threat to the dog and its ‘pack’ either by their excessive fear of the dog or by their inappropriate invasive behaviour – the dog misunderstands.

Added to this, dogs are more often than not, expected to fulfil their owner’s ambitions in the various pursuits open to them.  So they are driven out of their own territory into alien territory to ‘perform’ in somewhat stressful situations.  The niceties of canine ‘introduction’ behaviour are ignored by the undiscerning owner, intent, as they are, on their own social interactions.

Another element worthy of scrutiny is the effect of modern feeding regimes.  Dogs are omnivores – they eat anything.  Modern food management means there are less and less let-overs for the dog from humans’ meals and leftovers have been the staple diet of dogs for millennia.  Fifty years ago, pet shops sold only biscuit meal and the occasional canned dog meat, but today most dogs are fed from an ever-increasing range of ‘complete diet’, that, if nothing else lacks in variety of form!  It is convenient for owners, but not necessarily suitable for every dog all of the time, for if the protein content is too high for an individual, hormonal imbalance can occur, resulting in ‘hyped up’ reactions.

It is amazing how adaptable dogs are to the demands and expectations loaded upon them so suddenly and how they struggle to understand what it is we want of them.

So do IRWS have a temperament problem?

It really depends on how ‘problem’ is defined – could it be more accurately described as ‘unacceptable behaviour’?  The question is, “unacceptable to whom?â€�  The answer is unacceptable to us, the owners.

Unacceptable behaviour would range from excessive timidity to excessive aggression – but both are based on the very natural instinct for self-preservation and are, therefore, perfectly acceptable to the dog.

The IRWS was catapulted from its centuries-old existence in Ireland into the frenetic turmoil of the UK only some 20 years ago – at most 10 generations.  The genetics of adaptation does not work fast.  What has taken the native population of UK dogs countless generations to achieve and is still developing, was unrealistically expected, if not of the early imports, certainly of later generations.  The focus for breeding in Ireland was for working performance rather than the show ring, pet docility was incidental and therefore this undemanding lifestyle ill-prepared the breed for the culture shock.  Many of the first IRWS imports were notably nervous. They were unwilling to be handled by strangers, fearful and timid – flight or total submission was their only refuge and, if this was not an option, then growl, bark, bite might work.   Obviously this caused much concern among owners and concentrated efforts have been made to eliminate this trait with some success.

Being an intelligent, sharp-witted dog, the IRWS has also contributed to coping with its own temperament ‘problem’, has found strategies that work to make a fear-filled environment one that it is possible to live in comfortably.  Every dog is different, every problematic behaviour has its own particular story; it is impossible to go into individual case so our survey gives only a basic generalised picture – the vast majority have settled into endearing, affectionate companion animals.

The hereditary nature of temperament is a very grey area; we have not been able to pin down a gene or set of genes or even a theory to substantiate that problematic dogs produce problematic children through a simple gene inheritance.  However, if a dog’s excessive reactive impulse is due to hormonal imbalance or super-awareness, this pre-disposition could be passed to the next generation just like any other trait e.g. working ability.  Also, if a bitch has developed a strategy for overcoming her own insecurity, she may well display it with puppies in the nest and therefore teach it to them.  There are some strategies we humans find unacceptable, such as the aggressive barking, the unprovoked ‘flying out’ and the fight, but, if the dog gains its objective by these methods, it is very difficult to dissuade it.  The dog may well always be on the lookout for opportunities to demonstrate dominance over others - usually other dogs, but occasionally humans too.  What was a desperate defence born out of fear has been changed by success into dominance aggression.  This is the situation with a few dogs in the breed – both male and female, but it has not been found that there are any more now than there have always been.  Females present an unacceptable behaviour problem possibly more often than the very public ‘sparky’ performance of males.  It is thought that the female is even more aware of the surrounding environment and is quick to react rapidly to what she perceives as a threat, while males are generally on the lookout for a challenge from another individual.

The trouble is that dogs learn from each other – from their mother and siblings and later from other dogs and the humans in the now loosely structured ‘pack’ – a pack that more often than not lacks a strong ‘leader’.

Human owners play a crucial part in moulding the dog’s temperament, perhaps a bigger role than they realise.  The careful, responsible breeder may well have given a great deal of attention to socialising puppies, handling them gently and often, accustoming them to a variety of sounds and situations in the home, preparing them for independence out in the big world on their own at a very tender age.  The trouble arises when the new owner does not know the ‘language’ of smells, sounds and touch that the puppy has grown up with and proceeds with their own agenda.  Taken from its familiar world into one of unfamiliar smells, lack of mother or siblings to snuggle up to, strange hands and voices and a bewildering barrage of new rules and expectations, it is no wonder the puppy is stressed.  Stressed puppies make mistakes and the new owner often compounds the mistake with over-zealous ‘training’  The fact is that puppies become completely muddled by the signals that humans are now giving and worse, the humans could well be completely ignorant of their own shortcomings and of the signals the puppy is trying to give.  This emotional maelstrom often results in insecure dogs; insecurity begets fear and fear produces a dog that is constantly on the watch for threatening situations to be avoided one way or another.

Our dogs are just being dogs.  It is we, humans, who have the problem – a society that has no time for animals and has forgotten how to live with them and owners who do not give the attention to, do not ‘listen’ to, are not in tune with, do not understand their own dogs.  If we take a dog into our ‘pack’ we must be prepared to take on the role of ‘pack leader’ – for the behavioural problems we might have in our dogs can so often lie in our own hands, even though their origin may lie decades ago.

Dogs are thinking, feeling, living beings and they behave as nature has instructed them; we would do well to consider this.

Ann Millington

April 2003