Bark of the Week

While we were working on our web-site many people asked us why we didn't introduce dog breeds.

The most important reason why we didn't do this is because we are convinced there's a bigger difference in character between individual dogs than between breeds. Any dog can either turn out to be friendly or mean, depending on how its owners handle it and on its experiences with other people and dogs. A dog with little or no contact to different people and situations will get frightened easily. A scared dog will bite to protect itself if it can't find another way out of the scary situation. We would call such a dog aggressive even though it is just natural behavior. As you can read in Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Man? dogs can also get aggressive if they've been abused.

To have a friendly dog, the most important thing is to get it used to as many different situations, people, and dogs as early as possible. Then, if you use a gentle training method, nothing can go wrong.

If the aggressiveness doesn't depend on the breed, why are there more accidents with biting Rottweilers than Golden Retrievers? This is my theorie. A person who wants a dog to protect his house certainly wouldn't get a Goldie. He'll want a breed with the reputation of being mean. Otherwise people wouldn't be scared off. So here's the problem: A person who chooses a scary looking dog will more likely want an aggressive dog and therefore make it so. Some people even get such a dog just to make themselves feel more powerful because they can handle it and nobody else can. Also, a person who wants a watchdog will likely know less about handling dogs than someone who wants a family dog. After all, the watchdog just has to sit in the garden and bark when someone comes near.

So this is why I am convinced that you can only tell the size, shape and color of each breed and not the character it has. Isn't it the same with the different human races?

For pictures and names of the different breeds visit: www.dogbreedinfo.com