The research goes on

Hi Kaye,

Thanks for letting me know about those pups. Too much likelihood of 'nose on
the ground and off' for me.

I came across an interesting man, Tully Williams, who has a lot to say about
working dogs. I am going to try to meet him sometime. He breeds particular
strains of leggy short haired 'border collie' types, for their natural sheep
and cattle working attributes. He articulates very nicely what is obvious,
and that is that many breeds are so 'bred' for non practical purposes they
have very few remnant characteristics. How would long hair on a border
collie help it for instance, specially here.

Poodles are probably one of the greatest disasters in this regard in that no
body works them any more. I wonder if that is true?  They are probably one
of the most shown of breeds.

I'm particularly interested in this instinctive 'offering' style where
behaviour is in the dog and it is just a matter of setting up conditions
where it reveals itself, and can be captured. Williams doesn't want to spend
a lot of time training. He has work to do. He believes working dogs should
'just have it'. I wonder if a true working dogs instinctive behaviour can be
successfully adapted to training outside a stock working context. I wonder
if there are strains of dogs that 'just have it' for trick training for
instance.

My butcher mentioned he was taking his stag hounds to some sort of killer
dog meet with mostly stags and Jack Russells. I asked if he is interested in
dog training. He said he just trains them to kill. I bet there are some
happy dogs in that lot. A lot of questions arise in the current climate of
'extra' domestication for companion animal and showing needs.I guess it
means some serious 'dumming down'. It is easy to see the physical
abominations...I guess the psychological and emotional elements are harder
to ascertain. Of course these adaptations are only a problem if we want more
from a dog.

I am enjoying this time of preparation. It is frustrating not having a pup
but it is interesting scanning the broad field of dogs in culture.

Hope you're doing well,

Cheers,

Richard