The end of Dangerous Dogs..?

[E=McMuffin]

Dear Egg Heads, Mensa Affiliaties and Brainiacs,

 

I recently discovered that in an area of Siberia, wild Silver Foxes had through natural selection or more appropriately through selctive breeding become domesticated in the matter of just three generations. Thier domestication had made them not only tamer but more dog like. Thier is a related artical on Wikipedia if you care to research yourself through this link - Domesticated Silver Fox

 

My question relates to pet dogs and specifically dangerous dogs. All domesticated dogs are genetically related to wolves and through history they were breed through selective breeding for different purposes. The German Shepard and Rottweiler were breed for thier ability to herd livestock, this makes perfect sense. The Pit Bull Terrier was breed for the purpose of baiting bears a practice I am glad to say is markedly declined since the 19th century. But all these breeds had a purpose and as time has gone on it is a real rarity that dogs are still breed and used for thier original purpose. Many pit bulls exist around the globe but a very small percentage will ever be involved in the baiting of bears.

 

In Great Britain we have many instances of dangerous dogs exhibiting behavior that would seem quite normal for the animals great grandfather, but completely out of place in the modern world, very often this behaviour can have fatal consquences, often involving small children or other animals. Whenever this does happen the owner protests that thier beloved Rover has never done anything like that before, so one can only assume that the owners and breeders of these dogs are not trying to keep alive this genetic code, in fact it would appear that they are proactively trying to eradicate it. Tagged along side this is the fact that these animals are most often put to death, which by the laws of natural selection will also help to bring about the weakening of the line to which these undesirable traits belong.

 

So now the question, bearing in mind all the facts above, why do we still have dangerous dogs..? Why haven't they breed all these traits out of themselves through successive generations. Have they not had enough time yet, is this something that will eventually happen in the future.

 

I need someone with a better understanding of this field to advise me, the reason for this enquiry is not actually to do with dogs at all and before I get lots of replies from dog lovers, let me say now that I love dogs and have a rotti of my own, she is a lovely playful dog although I can see that within her is the ability to protect me with extreme prejudice with what would be frightening results.

 

My reason for this enquiry is from a more anthropological angle, I am trying to discover why Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and the like find themselves at the top of the evolutionary ladder, when to my mind someone like The Rock or Hulk Hogan would be better suited. My idea has lots of wide ranging issues that I need to resolve and the dog evolution question will hopefully tick one of these issues off my list.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I welcome any time that you care to spend on my subject.

[Arete]

Dear Egg Heads, Mensa Affiliaties and Brainiacs,

 

I recently discovered that in an area of Siberia, wild Silver Foxes had through natural selection or more appropriately through selctive breeding become domesticated in the matter of just three generations. Thier domestication had made them not only tamer but more dog like. Thier is a related artical on Wikipedia if you care to research yourself through this link - Domesticated Silver Fox

 

Yes the silver fox experiment. It's pretty famous in the world of animal behaviour. As domestic dogs are descended from wolves and not foxes, the results of the silver fox experiment are correlate-able, but not directly comparable to domestic dogs - it's an independent domestication event.

 

the laws of natural selection will also help to bring about the weakening of the line to which these undesirable traits belong...

So now the question, bearing in mind all the facts above, why do we still have dangerous dogs..?

 

Artificial selection in dog breed marks one of the starkest deviations from natural selection in existence. In which many traits in dog breeds which would be otherwise extremely deleterious have been selected for - sloping hindquarters in the German Shepard, malformed brain cases in King Charles Spaniels, the ridge in a Rhodesian Ridgeback is actually a variant of spina bifida and the curl in a Pug's tail is a spinal malformity. So you have sanctioned selective breeding for certain traits which make no evolutionary sense and evolutionary principles don't necessarily apply.

 

Second is that many traits that make a breed appropriate for historical tasks make them appropriate for modern tasks - guard dogs, protection dogs, police dogs, etc which leads to breed persistence. Also, traits in originally developed in dogs for one purpose can serve another - e.g. the loyalty to a master required for a dog to fight on command can make them very trainable for other tasks.

 

Third is the misconception that certain breeds more readily attack. The stance of the AVMA and the CDC is that no one breed is more or less likely to bite than any other - environmental factors (training, socialisation, perception of threat etc) are much more important in the tendency to attack than genetic. HOWEVER of the the 4.7 million dog bites that happen per year, the average 16 that result in fatality do show breed trends with more powerful breeds (Pit-bulls, Rottwielers, Malamutes, St-Bernards, Great Danes etc.) due to a physiological ability to do more damage. A pit is not necessarily more likely to bite you than a Lab, but when it does it has the capability to hurt you more.

http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/dog-bites/dogbite-factsheet.html http://www.avma.org/press/publichealth/dogbite/messpoints.asp

 

In summary, while the likelihood of a dog attack being life threatening are exceptionally low, we still have potentially dangerous dogs because breeders select for traits that make a dog potentially dangerous, people want dogs with those traits and environment is more influential to the propensity of a dog to attack than genotype.

 

 

My reason for this enquiry is from a more anthropological angle, I am trying to discover why Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and the like find themselves at the top of the evolutionary ladder, when to my mind someone like The Rock or Hulk Hogan would be better suited. My idea has lots of wide ranging issues that I need to resolve and the dog evolution question will hopefully tick one of these issues off my list.

 

If you're looking at it from a purely evolutionary angle, the only measure of success is fecundity. Gates has 2 children, Hawking 3, Johnson (the rock) 1, Bolla (the hulk) 2 (co wikipedia). Hawking is, evolutionarily speaking, the most successful.

[Moontanman]

Dear Egg Heads, Mensa Affiliaties and Brainiacs,

 

I recently discovered that in an area of Siberia, wild Silver Foxes had through natural selection or more appropriately through selctive breeding become domesticated in the matter of just three generations. Thier domestication had made them not only tamer but more dog like. Thier is a related artical on Wikipedia if you care to research yourself through this link - Domesticated Silver Fox

 

This is a very interesting experiment, I hope to see more information in the future.

 

My question relates to pet dogs and specifically dangerous dogs. All domesticated dogs are genetically related to wolves and through history they were breed through selective breeding for different purposes. The German Shepard and Rottweiler were breed for thier ability to herd livestock, this makes perfect sense. The Pit Bull Terrier was breed for the purpose of baiting bears a practice I am glad to say is markedly declined since the 19th century. But all these breeds had a purpose and as time has gone on it is a real rarity that dogs are still breed and used for thier original purpose. Many pit bulls exist around the globe but a very small percentage will ever be involved in the baiting of bears.

 

A great many hunting dogs are still used for their original purpose, I keep Basset hounds and they are used for hunting by many people. Not me by the way, i just like having the big clowns around the house.

 

In Great Britain we have many instances of dangerous dogs exhibiting behavior that would seem quite normal for the animals great grandfather, but completely out of place in the modern world, very often this behaviour can have fatal consquences, often involving small children or other animals. Whenever this does happen the owner protests that thier beloved Rover has never done anything like that before, so one can only assume that the owners and breeders of these dogs are not trying to keep alive this genetic code, in fact it would appear that they are proactively trying to eradicate it. Tagged along side this is the fact that these animals are most often put to death, which by the laws of natural selection will also help to bring about the weakening of the line to which these undesirable traits belong.

 

So now the question, bearing in mind all the facts above, why do we still have dangerous dogs..? Why haven't they breed all these traits out of themselves through successive generations. Have they not had enough time yet, is this something that will eventually happen in the future.

 

Most reputable dog breeders do indeed breed for personality traits that tend toward dogs that are easily socialized with humans, some dog breeds are better at this than others but the problem IMHO is that some dog breeders who are just breeding dogs for money tend to not only forget the personality part of the equation, they really don't care and dogs with bad attitudes are bred just as any other dog. Personality in a puppy mill has little meaning and if the Bitch or Dam has lots of puppies her mean and surly attitude is not part of the equation since the dog is not a pet but merely a source of puppies lacked away in her cage forever. The personality of the Dog or Sire means very little in puppy mills as well, personality of the parents is not considered resulting in a progressive lack of over seeing the traits of the dogs other than visual and often they do not even care much about that either.

 

 

I need someone with a better understanding of this field to advise me, the reason for this enquiry is not actually to do with dogs at all and before I get lots of replies from dog lovers, let me say now that I love dogs and have a rotti of my own, she is a lovely playful dog although I can see that within her is the ability to protect me with extreme prejudice with what would be frightening results.

 

Any dog is capable of biting, especially in defense of it's master or it's masters children or property...

 

My reason for this enquiry is from a more anthropological angle, I am trying to discover why Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking and the like find themselves at the top of the evolutionary ladder, when to my mind someone like The Rock or Hulk Hogan would be better suited. My idea has lots of wide ranging issues that I need to resolve and the dog evolution question will hopefully tick one of these issues off my list.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my post, I welcome any time that you care to spend on my subject.

 

 

I think Arete answered this part quite well....

[TonyMcC]

IMO the only kind of dog that has been in any sense bred for a companionable relationship with human beings is the humble mongrel. My family has had a few much loved examples over the years. Nobody worries much about what they look like and they aren't worth a lot, so if they turn out vicious and bad tempered they are likely to be taken on a one way trip to the vet before they have a chance to reproduce.

Edited October 26, 2011 by TonyMcC

[Moontanman]

IMO the only kind of dog that has been in any sense bred for a companionable relationship with human beings is the humble mongrel. My family has had a few much loved examples over the years. Nobody worries much about what they look like and they aren't worth a lot, so if they turn out vicious and bad tempered they are likely to be taken on a one way trip to the vet before they have a chance to reproduce.

 

 

To a great extent you are correct, pure breed dogs tend to be either produced by puppy mills that don't care about the disposition of the dogs or by people who are breeding for physical characteristics at the expense of everything else. Most knowledgeable dog breeders really love the breed and are careful to keep positive behavioral characteristics in the forefront of their breeds. I originally fell in love with bassets due to their happy go lucky attitude as much as their looks and after 35 years of keeping bassets I have never had a mean one and many were very intelligent and protective dogs. They tended to take care of children and be mistrustful of strange adults and to take interest in what their owners were doing most all the time. Great dogs, to me at least, but that's why there are so many breeds, personal preference, as a child i had many mongrels who displayed the same great attitudes.... but I have talked to people who sadly did get bassets with bad attitudes....