I think you mean "cues" here.
For reading queues, a rabbit is more popular.
I chuckled and woke my wife, thanks a lot!
Reference for those who don't get it: https://www.rabbitmq.com/
We had another die from a ruptured spine and another die in my arms from a massive heart attack at 2 years old b/c of a genetic heart defect.
Obviously the rescues spay/neuter any dog that comes in. I wish I knew of a better solution, but we do what we can to help these animals since we have the means.
This could be understood as if the most intelligent dogs were always bored or trying to escape. To clarify: intelligent dogs do need more stimulation, this is very true. But as long as they get it, they're happy.
My beagle growing up extremely smart--he knew every trick you can think of; he could remember specific objects by name; track someone's scent in an instant if you said find XXX; and seemed at times to understand whole sentences. Unfortunately, he also was stubborn, independent, and had an insatiable drive to follow scents.
I knew he was smart, but it's next level impressive what he can track. Our dog has had no formal training , i got him as a rescue when he was about 18 months old. He can do all the standard tricks, and apparently track things? I'm certain he knew what i wanted him to do, it was an odd form of communication but he seemed very excited with the assignment he was tasked with.
The kicker to this story is that our friends dog came back to our house all by itself about 5 hours later. We spotted it once during our hunt, but being a rescue street dog from Forida, she's pretty skittish and just ran away any time she was approach by another person.
If she ever happens to see a squirrel or a chipmunk however she'll try to rip the leash off of your arm; if she's ever off-leash and sees a critter like this you can throw the hours of trained recall out the window. Fortunately this has never happened near traffic or a cliff.
Our goldendoodle is fantastic. Our neighbors can't believe she just chills with us in the front yard without a leash. They can't let their dogo out of the house without a fence or leash. She only barks once in a blue moon and everyone in the house is on immediate high alert when she does. Generally, its salesperson walking up the front driveway. She doesn't bark at UPS/Fedex any longer... which is good this time of year.
I run her every other day a few miles and she is right with me, generally off leash. When she sees a lizard tho, its game over. I have to stop and physically pull her off the bush she is buried in to get the lizard. She is very food motivated and the word "treat" is spelled out in our house because she will not leave you alone until she gets something if she hears that word.
My only complaint is grooming. To do it properly, I've been told requires brushing her everyday. Not happening. I have tried to do it 3 times a week... it takes like two hours and is completely exhausting. We just get her shaved every two months or so.
In theory many other breeds could be more intelligent, but border collie is the one most likely to be excited to learn how to be good at the tests we give the dogs.
> This breed doesn't suffer health problems due to inbreeding, because it isn't a (UK) Kennel Club breed
The paper aligns with what you say, it remarks that Collies are highly inbred but not suffering that much from it. Can you explain the significance of not being a Kennel Club breed? Can that be the whole story, though?
> There were interesting exceptions to the correlation of inbreeding and health. The Border terrier, Basenji, Collie, and English setter breeds have high inbreeding but low morbidity. Likewise, the Malinois, Pomeranian and Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka (Russian Toy) have lower inbreeding and high morbidity. These example breeds are neither brachycephalic nor particularly known for extreme morphologies.
> In the case of healthy breeds with high inbreeding, it may be possible that these breeds have been purged of deleterious alleles as has happened with inbred mouse strains
> In the opposite situation, the recorded morbidities could be high allele frequency Mendelian diseases or potentially conditions linked to phenotypes under selection in the breed. These discrepancies could also exist due to population differences between the insurance data and the inbreeding data.
Well, the Kennel Club rates breeds in terms of their conformance to "spec", which is a lot about appearance. Inevitably, breeders breed to the spec. Border Collies aren't bred to any spec. (Collies are a different breed, which I believe is rated by the Kennel Club)
If your ideal dog experience is sitting on the couch with them keeping you company, well, there's other breeds for that. :D
I have a pitbull/amstaff/boxer mutt, which is a pretty good balance on being smart enough to learn tricks quickly but still be kept happy with walks and toys. I'm staying well away from the border collies and Australian cattle dogs...
like everything to do with people, there are fads, and then bad things happen due to those fads that you don't see for YEARS. The shiloh shepherds found they had a genetic heart defect, and it was traced back to a single stud used too much as he was popular.
I forgot where else I was going with this, but I mostly agree with the parent. OH, I know, the "new blood" thing. Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard. You give it a registration, and its attached to the studbooks as an addendum. Keep breeding with your fully registered dogs until the progeny's three gen pedigree is filled with pure breds and you have a fully registered dog. Its not perfect, but at least its there as an option.
Very glad to hear there are so many people taking this seriously, there is some hope for at least some breeds!
> She'll cull (as in remove from her program to a pet home, not take out back and shoot) dogs that don't measure up - either temperament wise, genetics (she tests every dog she keeps using optimal selection's tests), other other traits - one of our fave bitches had to have elbow surgery due to a developmental defect that left an unattached piece in her joint.
I would make an argument for culling on the basis of bad temperament - a large breed dog with a bad attitude is a burden only a few are going to be able to handle in the best case. In the worst case it's somebody's child that gets bitten because their parents didn't read the dog.
I would also make a similar argument for any puppy you believe that will require significant or expensive surgery in the future, because the chances are, they won't get it and will suffer. A bad knee joint if quite common in these heavy breeds, but a spinal defect for example is not going to be simply or easy to deal with.
> Most of the worlds kennel clubs have a process for bringing new blood in, where you bring in a dog that LOOKS like your breed, and meets the breed standard.
One problem we've seen is breed definition creep. A lot of these working dogs are no longer capable of doing the work they were selectively bred for because they have been bred for looks alone for too many generations. After about hundred years, there is not an 'expert' alive that knows what the original breed is supposed to be. This is why going back to the breeder's notes have been so important - especially ones around the time when the working dog was actually working.
Great write up. Btw, in that context you want "cue" instead of "queue".
I have a family member that breeds dogs quite seriously - one of their goals is to reintroduce good health traits back into the (working) breeds and undo the awful effects of inbreeding. Sometimes this involves reading the breeders notes from over a hundred years ago and trying to reproduce the same result (it's not easy). Often it seems to be enough to introduce a few closely related healthy breeds and after three or so generations you can get back to something healthier and a good representative of that breed.
There are a few breeds that are in desperate need of serious dedication - namely short-nose breeds (i.e. Pugs, British Bulldogs, etc). Pugs are by far the worse I've encountered in terms of physical health defects, a significant number of Pug puppies are culled early on due to spine defects of breathing issues. Those that end up getting sold are almost guaranteed to end up with breathing issues.
One of the healthier dogs you can own tends to be a mid-sized Mutt (cross-breed). From annecdata, I've found that a Bulldog (typically strong working dogs, dumb but loyal) crossed with something smarter but mid-sized tends to yield good temperament, long-life dogs with average intelligence (which is a good thing [+]).
[+] Generally you want your dog to be smart enough to read your queues and work around you, but not so smart that it's getting bored or trying to figure out how to escape.