The behaviour interpretation thread

I found this article, which I thought was pretty good. It's about frisbee, but it's the same idea.

Excerpt:

What is commonly considered "herding instinct" is, in reality, a function of the dogs' prey drive. Simply stated, prey drive is a dog's desire to pursue anything moving. The behaviors resulting from this type of drive include the pursuit, catching and carrying of a moving object. The prey drive is initiated by the flight (as in fleeing) of the object and is measurable in terms of the dog's intensity.
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When you finally have your dog catching and returning the disc with the expectation of getting another one thrown, you have successfully converted prey to play.

That's what Jaia does. B'asia just wants to catch and kill it.

DPU

Do the dogs ignore the toy when it is sitting by itself and not attached to anything?

I was wrong. B'asia didn't ignore it. I made sure Jaia was busy with something else and I threw the toy for B'asia. I thought I would NEVER get it back! She didn't want me to throw it again. She caught it and she wanted to kill and dismember it. So, I don't know if you'd call that playing with it or not, but if she could have, she would have eaten it.

Just a quick note to all:

I made a video today of Shadow doing obedience in the yard, even with the distraction of the neighbor dogs but it's a little long, I think. And I was having trouble uploading it to Google Video. I even tried to email it to someone and the system balked. I swear, it's only about 3 minutes or so. Whenever I can manage it, I will get the video up for comments, whatever.

FourIsCompany

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When you finally have your dog catching and returning the disc with the expectation of getting another one thrown, you have successfully converted prey to play.

Thats where I was going, the distinction between prey drive and play.  I have to think about this, but my first reaction was not to use prey drive as a springboard to play.  There is a certain respect I have for a dog's innate abilities.  I would not want the field pointer to use that innate ability to point at a tug toy to springboard to a tug game.

 My trip home for urgent pet therapy on the weekend yielded a lovely clip of Penny and Jill playing. Unfortunately, iMovie has abruptly and randomly decided it can't do a thing with MPEG-4 files anymore, despite having happily imported them and converted them to mov files last week without a hitch. And there's no other program on my mac that can handle them. And my PC is packed away! But I'll need to set the PC up sometime in the next couple of days anyway to put all my media on my new media player, so I'll upload it then and hopefully my PC's flakey wireless card will last long enough to upload the clip onto YouTube. So, hopefully expect one later in the week.

As for the latest video, Carla, it's hard to tell your dogs apart! It's like one of those games where you have to follow the cup with the ball underneath. I can see that one of the dogs is a lot more revved than the other, though, and I'm assuming that's B'asia. I was going to say Jaia was the one barking from time to time, but I think maybe they both do it.

I think this is a good opportunity to pinpoint what makes me see two dogs having fun rather than two dogs being aggressive or something else.

I say the way the dogs' ears are forward, their tails are not right up, but they are being held out slightly and wagging sometimes. The dogs show some pretty intense focus, but I think the fact that they're chasing real low to the ground with their tails out as rudders and no particular tightness about their faces (that I can see) is a good indication that they're in chase prey mode.

I like when they catch it how they come up side by side and are quite comfortable sharing. Is it B'asia that leans back and starts tugging? Dogs' ears always go flat when they're playing tug, so even when they growl and carry on, they don't look that threatening. Is that why they put their ears flat, do you think? Their faces are intent, but their bodies are quite relaxed. Again, tails low and waving about. 

 DPU, is it that you don't want to convert the inate ability into a play drive or something similar? I wonder if the behaviour is still the same, natural behaviour when you attach a new meaning to it for a dog?

corvus

can see that one of the dogs is a lot more revved than the other, though, and I'm assuming that's B'asia.

Yes, that's B'asia. She's the only one barking. She follows in the track of the toy (focus), while Jaia stands back or circles around. She's the one tugging and jerking.

As far as their getting along, they are best buds! On that rare occasion when there's a question about a toy or something, Jaia has a certain vocalization that B'asia respects completely and jumps out of his way. He just has to say the word and she crumbles.

corvus

Is that why they put their ears flat, do you think?

I'm not sure, but I would guess it might have something to do with dismembering prey... Either keeping their ears out of the way or listening for approaching intruders... Probably the latter.

DPU

FourIsCompany

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When you finally have your dog catching and returning the disc with the expectation of getting another one thrown, you have successfully converted prey to play.

Thats where I was going, the distinction between prey drive and play.  I have to think about this, but my first reaction was not to use prey drive as a springboard to play.  There is a certain respect I have for a dog's innate abilities.  I would not want the field pointer to use that innate ability to point at a tug toy to springboard to a tug game.

What is influencing me the most is seeing a tv program on wild dogs.  Play, that is chasing, wrestling, play biting were all part of preparing the dog for prey, kill, and then feeding.  I remember the momma dog bringing home a live critter and then releasing the critter to the pups.  The pups started off with play but play was transitioned to prey, then kill, then feeding.  This was the order and I can't help but think this is the way it should be.  So what I see in your video is play and the preparation and honing skills for when the prey drive becomes active on a live animal.

 Ah, but domestic dog breeding has resulted in dogs that don't always naturally have all the behaviours they need to hunt and kill. Herders like the GSDs have an exaggerrated stalking behaviour, which is part of hunting, but they don't usually follow through with an attack and kill like a wild dog ultimately would. I'm reminded of Penny, who quite loves a little game of tug, but has shown next to no prey drive throughout her life, despite me actually trying to encourage her. She got as far as deciding kangaroos are fun to chase after all and gave up at that point.

Although, I should mention that up until she started chasing kangaroos, she never rolled in animal poo she found. Once she started chasing roos, all poo from herbivores was fair game for eating or rolling in. She doesn't get a chance to chase roos much at the moment, and the rolling/eating behaviour has diminished as well. Isn't that interesting?  

I wanted to say the same thing, Corvus. A domesticated dog behaves differently than wild canids or dogs that have gone feral. By feral, I mean they don't even listen to humans anymore. For them, the play instruction is in childhood. As adults, they are accomplished predators, nearly apex predators. Domesticated dogs, however, retain the neotenous behavior of play and sublimated drives throughout their lives. I say that even though Shadow has killed squirrels, birds, and mice.

What is commonly considered "herding instinct" is, in reality, a function of the dogs' prey drive.

Occasionally, a herder will drift from "grip" to bite, or will kill an animal or seriously injure a human.  This is largely because the kill instinct has not been bred "in" to the herder, but bred "out".  Therefore, in the population of herding breeds there will be some individuals who are closer to the original dog (or wolf) that completes the sequence all the way to the end.  Interesting piece on the heritability of herding traits in the Border Collie:

http://www.sheepdog.com/genetics/intro.html 

Nice one page explanation of one person's method for instinct testing:

http://www.glenrosefarms.com/instinct_test.htm 

 For anyone who does not own a Border Collie and wants to test their dogs, just make sure the person giving the tests has experience with upright herders, too;-))

corvus

Herders like the GSDs have an exaggerrated stalking behaviour, which is part of hunting, but they don't usually follow through with an attack and kill like a wild dog ultimately would.

My BC mix, Cara (and Mia, too), has followed through every chance she gets. She has killed a skunk, a mouse, a rat and several rabbits. She has brought live rabbits in the house and I have awakened to the sounds of them dying. Watching the GSDs, I have no doubt that when they get the opportunity, they will "follow through" as well.

Maybe GSDs were a bad example. My little herder wouldn't know the first thing about killing an animal larger than an insect. Flies and cicadas beware, but anything with an actual backbone is a mere curiosity at best. She's 99.8% reliable with the rabbits, even the hare with his really exciting behaviour. Pyry, on the other hand, also a herder, kills every prey animal he can get a hold of. Birds, rodents, lizards, rabbits are all very exciting, and he was pretty awed about that little baby cow we ran into at the vets one day. He knows they're for eating and he knows how to kill them and he does every chance he gets.

Jill is somewhere in between. She loves to chase, but doesn't really get much farther. She hasn't been tested around the rabbits, but I'd be confident she could be taught to leave them and she'd be around maybe 75% reliable with them, or maybe more. All three dogs are herding breeds or part herders.  

I know I promised a play clip, but I was just flicking through what I do have on the Mac and thought I'd post a greeting one. There are some little details in there that might be interesting to discuss. It's a bit longer, but still under 2 minutes. It shows the 3 dogs greeting my brother and his girlfriend, whom they haven't seen for several weeks. They don't know the pair that well, but they act like they know it's family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA_W_IUeI5I 

That was neat but then just about any reason to hear the accent is worth it. Seriously, though, they do greet in their own ways, it would appear.