spouse of scouse

No self-respecting dog would live in the same house as him.

Lion in Winter

Good point well made.

scrubbedexpat091

And different breeds bred for different traits so personality and behavior can vary quite a bit by breed.

Those like dachshunds were bred to hunt small vermin, things like badgers and other such sized pests, so they were bred to keep traits of being stubborn, strong willed, and a high prey drive. Dog's bred to herd sheep or such, bred for high energy levels, and barkers to keep the sheep in line.

The so called working breeds were largely bred for specific behaviors that still exist in the breeds today, of course we now also have the so called designer breeds which were bred strictly for looks.

People really just need to research the behaviors of their breeds, if you have young kids, a dachshund may not be the best choice. They as a breed tend to not like small humans with unpredictable movements who tend to be loud, 2 things dachshunds don't care for.


I like cats too, they are certainly more independent then dogs, but then they were domesticated later than dogs, and domesticated for different reasons, cats maintain more of their wild instincts than dogs.

Dogs of course are more useful to humans in doing tasks than cats are if you actually need a working breed, service dog etc, but miniature horses actually make good service animals as well, and can be house trained, and no bigger than a giant dog breed, but longer life span.

It's too bad those little monkey's don't make good service animals, being human like with hands and a thumb would be useful I think for some with disabilities, but the disease risk is high and monkey's are too intelligent so they don't maintain good mental health doing such tasks.


Charlee our dog is a good judge of character, she volunteers to stand in the middle of the white house lawn, Trump and one end, Biden on the other, I'd bet money on who she would choose and it ain't Trump

caretaker

Nearly all the various dog breeds now in existence came into being within the last 200 years, and many of those have few useful characteristics. In some instances great breeds of hunting dogs have had their best traits bred out of them by people trying to achieve perfect conformation for dog shows. It took a lot of work and determination to reclaim some of that.

Lion in Winter

I think i read somewhere that if we just left dogs alone, after a number of generations they would all be medium-sized and brown.

Which, interestingly, is exactly where the population of the US is going.

caretaker

Most of the "wild dogs" all around the world look quite similar. The Basenji was notable in the Nova show last night in that it marked the last development in dog evolution before the branching-off of the Husky-Malemute sort, and Basenji (minus it's distinctive marking and vocal ability) is a little classic brown wild dog. I could have this wrong, it was television and I wasn't giving it 100% of my attention.

scrubbedexpat091

How about coydogs.....interesting look when that occurs.

caretaker

I've seen coy-wolves in Saskatchewan. I think they started out in eastern Canada, and when I saw them here it was in the mid 90's. First reaction was, "Jesus, that's a big coyote!". Since then there have been some real wolves move in. I would consider myself lucky to see one, and even luckier to make it relevant to a Trump thread...

andyrebell

Trump is an Octopus not a dog guy.

zzrmark

No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, Trump is definitely a cat guy. I distinctly remember him talking about how he likes to handle his pussy...

moneypenny20

He surely hates cats, they wouldn't give him the time of day. They'd give him that look and go back to washing their backsides.

caretaker

Nutmegger

A number of them in the state park that abuts my property—the product of liaisons between strays and the coyotes.

andyrebell

True but he is also hands all over the place apparently. Speaking of animals I heard of a tale in the early 00s Trump was at a place in NYC called Cheetah the one from the visa card advert in the UK Advertising to get a visa credit card because Cheetah some resturant I can't remember the name of and the broome street don't take american express. He was there with people and all his daughters mates were there and he was trying it on with them.

Yet despite Trump's rep there has not been not one allegation against him from any female white house staffer during his 4 years in office. Maybe that will be the October surprise.

Oakvillian

So Sarah Sanders' recently published tale that he "joked" about pimping her out to Kim Jong-Un doesn't count? Alva Johnson filed suit in 2019 alleging unwanted sexual advances in 2016 during the previous campaign. Give it time: as people get out from under his sphere of influence the allegations will come out of the woodwork, I suspect.