I place more value on defense drive for man / civil work when testing a prospect than I do on dominance or prey but obviously you cant do that with a 7-8 week old puppy. So generally I look at dominance & prey drive the hardest when testing & selecting 8 week old pups. I preferably try to pick the pup who has the most of each.
So say you had to chose between two top prospects in a litter, one has crazy prey and takes all kinds of pressure on the bite is very confident, bold & moderatly dominant, and the other prospect has decent / good prey but shows alot of rank aggression and is clearly the alpha pup in the litter, it will growl & snarl and even attack its mother if it feels like something is unfair is happening to her.
They are bulldogs a mix of 1/4 Johnson AB, 1/4 TNU line standard AB, and the rest is Oldie. Both parents do civil work very well and would do so at a pretty young age for a bulldog.
So I guess in general my question is in selecting & testing a young pups do you place more value in dominance or prey?
High prey pups will obviously bite really hard when older, but having insane prey doesnt always mean the dog will be civil & nasty. And most of the times the bulldogs that have high fight drive usually have crazy prey as well, so selecting for high prey pups can sometimes help select towards high fight adults in bulldogs.
My opinion on dominance is that not always will a rank aggressive dog be nasty towards a threating stranger and sometimes they are more willing and likely to be aggressive to their owners as they try to one up them in pack position then they are likely to use their rank aggression towards a stranger. Another problem I have with high rank / dominant bulldogs is that in my limited experince is that they seem to get locked in prey easier and are harder to take them out of that mindset. Its like they are so mentally tuff & combined that with the bulldog pain tolerance it can take so very hard pressure to get them to snap out of it which makes training more difficult. I like the bulldogs that come out civil easier, with less training & at a earlier age. Were as a softer bulldog in my limited experience are more likely to take threating actions more personally & seriously and they are more easily pushed into defense, and there fore much easier to get them to turn civil & man aggressive and eventually & hopefully unlock that classic bulldog fight drive on the man with enof experience & confidence threw many victories.
So in general I do like & select for both high rank & high prey, because I vastly prefer OB training dominate dogs, and I like high prey for all the obvious reasons as well.
Long winded I know sorry, I'm just kinda putting some of my thoughts out there as well. I'll admitt I'm just starting in breeding and only have a few litters & years under my belt so I'm looking for any input from experienced breeders who test & select prospect pups to hopefull turn into civil dogs.
"My opinion on dominance is that not always will a rank aggressive dog be nasty towards a threating stranger and sometimes they are more willing and likely to be aggressive to their owners as they try to one up them in pack position then they are likely to use their rank aggression towards a stranger. "
you've summed up my thoughts on things there exactly - i'd go with the other pup
i've had argumentative dominant dogs in the past and they are a total bastard to live and deal with and cause no end of problems with family :/ i personally would prefer a slightly softer dog or more prey driven that is easier to live with... but each to their own...
The questions Matt poses are very interesting to me as well. I don't have a definitive answer as I lack the experience of watching many pups grow to adulthood. I've decided that for myself a pup is always a roll of the dice, although some obvious temperament flaws can be recognized and a bad prospect eliminated.
That said I offer the following. If it was a rott or one of the herding breeds, showing a desire to fight with its siblings, I would take that as a possibility that the dog will be the same way with people. With the bulldogs however I'm not sure that this behavior with dogs will necessarily transfer to people. Pits are known to be strong dog fighters, but are often soft with people. Also a high ranking dog is not necessarily quick to fight, it's more a thing where the other dogs leave him alone. A dog that's quick to fight I think may respond well to agitation initially, but there's no guarantee that he'll stay in the game if the pressure increases.
That said I've had some very tiresome experiences with very strong prey drive, and I had enough. If I was in your shoes Matt I'd take a chance with the dominant fellow. When the balance is obviously shifted to one drive, be it prey or defense, very often it's at the expense of a good balance of the other drives.
One idea that's been recurring to me lately is that the essence of a strong fighting dog is one who's first reaction to threat and pain is forward aggression. This is a sort of short circuit that's built in way down deep, you can't train it into a dog that doesn't have it. I'm not sure how to test for it, but you can try having a stranger cause the pup some pain, by squeezing the webbing between its toes. Some pups will whimper and try to pull away, if you find one that gets pissed you definitely have something, provided the other temperament qualities necessary for a PD are there too.
Please report all your observations as you test, and as the pup you choose matures. This kind of information is invaluable, as I don't believe I will ever have the time to raise enough pups myself.
In a few months I will post about the female rott I selected from my last litter. Like you I was undecided between her (quiet but high rank, without fighting) and a couple of others; one higher in prey and another higher in defense. She's a year now and I think I made the right choice, relative to the other pups at least. Time will tell when I get around to doing some agitation work, she seems to mature very slowly.
If your truely interrested I can keep you updated with my humble pups, I have a few other prospects I'm raising right now as well. The good thing about this current litter is there is only three pups and only two out of the three would I call solid working quality. A friend of mine who is a much better trainer than I is getting the other working pup prospect will be training & testing the pup for the same qualities as I and I could have access to the pup for breeding later when its a adult if it turns out really nice. So I'm really curious to how they both compare when adults and have some civil aggitation under them.
As far as pain testing, I have had four litters so far of bulldogs and I have yet to get even a reaction of any sort pinching the webbing of the feet of a 8 week old puppy as hard as I can even with my finger nails. They dont even react when I give them vaccination shots injected into the muscle with a fairly thick needel.
I do have a 3/4 Oldie X 1/4 game pit pup that is 3 months old and if you grab it by the scruff of the neck it will spin around and nail me but will let go once it feels he has given its point a accross. But is fine when you put a collar on him and guide him around by that. That particular pup doesnt show much of any classic dominance or rank charateristics at all but isnt a overly soft or submissive either more like right in the middle. But he is the most animal aggressive pup I have ever seen starting at 7 weeks of age and continues to act that way. He would latch onto a couple of my 70lb adult males face until you forcefully pry him off sence the time he was 7 weeks of age, he would even do that threw chain link kennel cause his head was so small because of his really young age. He just wont tolerate any males period, which really suprizes me this behavior is happening so very early. So I was pretty suprized that he would sometimes nail me when I grab him the scruff of the neck to put him back into his kennel being I considered him to be a mostly prey & fight driven prospect.
I also have a 5 month old 1/2 bandog X 1/2 Oldie that if you arent quick enof when putting a new collar on or loosening a existing one she will latch onto my forearm and make you pry her off. The male I was previously speaking of goes for the hands this one goes right for the forearm. I'm not a heavy handed handler at all, so I know its not me. No need to do the webbing test on that little stinker cause I already know what she will do. I'm almost starting to think this female prospect might turn out to be overly rank??? I guess only time & patience will tell...
Not perceiving pain is not any kind of good indication as would be perceiving pain and reacting aggressively to it. Although it sure is nice to have a hardy dog that doesn't cry if you need to stitch a cut or something.
The dog aggressive pup you describe is really hard wired for this behavior, I wonder what it would be useful for. Biting your hand when you grab the scruff; you are actually the cause of this behavior, you shouldn't be grabbing a dog this age by the scruff to make it move. The pup should be wearing a collar and learning to respect it. You're conditioning the dog to do this behavior.
With regards to the dogs biting your hand/arm when you grab the collar. The dog has to accept it from the handler, and the way it will learn is by getting a strong correction for his bad action, easy enough to do with a pup. I hope you aren't just letting it slide, big mistake if you are. Part of being a good family PD is being able to accept corrections from the handler. There are many dogs that are so aggressive they'll nail anyone including the owner, that's not desirable.
I am only describing actions of pups not saying they are desireable or I let them get away with it. The little male now has collar on it, I usually put collars on them by 3 months of age or earlier. I grabbed it by the scruff because it was the only way I could get at the dog because it was in between two kennels and fence fighting. The space between the two kennels is about six inches apart he could squeze threw there but I could not, I feared for the pups life so I grabbed whatever I could. After him doing this a couple of times I was on to this behavior that extremely suprized me because of the young age and no events occured or will occur again due to safer handling & knowing what to expect out of him.
The little dominant female, she defiantly didnt get away with it. I am working with her and continuing to build a bond and she seems to be getting better with her rank issue. Only time & training will tell what she will end up like, I often ponder with her if she will end up being too much for my needs if she continues to progress in this nature of rank.
I never said I like or will tolerate a dog so dominant it is handler aggressive.
You gotta do what you gotta do in that situation, I would've done the same thing, grabbed scruff, leg, tail whatever. But now that you say that the dog was already in the heat of the fight, any touch will provoke a bite, even from a good dog to his handler, so don't be surprised. As such the behavior not really indicative of anything pertinent to the selection of a prospect PD.
I only brought it up because you brought up the squezing the web of the feet puppy test. I guess I'm just not used to that behavior period even if the dog is amped up.
I chose the male pup who wasnt as dominant but was more prey driven. He pleasently suprized me yesterday I woke him up in his dog house and I must have suprized him when he woke up he ran to the front of the fence and growled and barked at me, as soon as he heard my voice he started wagging his tail & then chilled out. I havent had a 7 week old bulldog pup do that at that age yet, so who knows I may have picked the right one only time will tell.
Selecting & testing pups for civil work...
I've had some very tiresome experiences with very strong prey drive, and I had enough. If I was in your shoes Matt I'd take a chance with the dominant fellow. When the balance is obviously shifted to one drive, be it prey or defense, very often it's at the expense of a good balance of the other drives.
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