Post by robynsa on Mar 25, 2014 13:02:18 GMT -5
I am currently fostering the brother (littermate) of the dog in my avatar (Belgian Shepherd Malinois). Well, I'm actually boarding him for a few days, as his breeder sent him to a new home but it didn't work out, so he'll be going back to his breeder in a few days.
I can keep him if I want, and from the moment I saw him, I wanted
I met him as a pup (he came here from his breeder with his sister ie. my dog) and stayed a couple of days. He then went to a mutual friend where he was very good but developed a poultry fetish. After the I-don't-know-how-many'th bird, she elected to send him back to the breeder. The breeder then tried to make a working dog out of him, but it's not his style (they are detection dogs, used to find large predators as well as poaching snares - so Malis bred for their nose rather than their bite) but Tyto doesn't have it in him. He's very low drive. Another mutual friend expressed an interest but Tyto kept escaping from his property, so not a match.
So here is my conundrum.
Firstly, Rets is going to nail my a$$ to the wall for even bringing the notion up, so this has to be "her idea".
But I really like this dog. This particular line of Mali is VERY gentle and low-energy (on the Mali scale, which means they're not layabouts by any means but they're not raging lunatics either). They are exceptionally obedient, and have high protective drive. His sister is fearless with the cattle and has driven a lunatic boar off me as well. They are also protective against people, but in a very situation-specific way. They will NOT bite a person unless THEIR person is threatened, in which case they will go balls to the wall and defend to the death. The nice thing about that is that they are brave protectors - not overly fearful or anxious and unpredictable. We do live in Johannesburg So a strong protector is a very good thing. They are clean in terms of hips/shoulders/eyes etc, so we don't need to worry about that.
I only got his sister, Kite, because she has a funny paw that would have prevented her from working as a detection dog. She has the goods and she is about a BAZILLION times higher drive and higher energy than Tyto is. They are almost 2, and for the first year I absolutely LOATHED Kite far more often than I loved her. She was a maniac in many ways; over-sensitive, high prey drive, and just relentless in everything she did. She is still largely relentless and I often have to ask her to tone it down but she's incredibly obedient, has exceptional recall, and is a rock-solid companion. She too killed chickens but I've learnt to manage it. So managing 2 with the chickens isn't much different to managing 1. Kite is now at the stage where she can be left alone with the chickens, as she was when we were on vacation, but I go with my gut, and if I'm sitting somewhere away from home and get "that" feeling, I call our tenants and ask them to put her in a kennel. Touch wood we haven't had a bird incident for about 4 months and that last time she removed the rooster's tail feathers but didn't kill. I didn't get "that" feeling while we were away so she did spend 6 days with the birds unsupervised - a new record! Every time she does it is when I am away from home, and when she's killed, she's killed one bird and started eating it - unlike Padi The Chicken Sadist foster who killed TWELVE roosting birds in 10 minutes last week and didn't take a single bite out of one
I run a doggy daycare/boarding kennel from home and am a behaviourist (though not on paper), so I am around 90% of the day and night, and Tyto was raised with children/dogs/cats/goats/cattle/horses and he 100% trustworthy around them.
Kite is my first Mali, and she came very shortly after my first GSD, so I can't say I have a lot of experience with these dogs. My experience with the herding breeds is mostly Border Collies (many of them - at one point I had 8). I am, however, confident in my ability to work with dogs (I work with them every day as my business) and sort out the issues that CAN be sorted out.
What would you guys do, given that I know this line, the genetics, the nature of the beast so to speak?
I can keep him if I want, and from the moment I saw him, I wanted
I met him as a pup (he came here from his breeder with his sister ie. my dog) and stayed a couple of days. He then went to a mutual friend where he was very good but developed a poultry fetish. After the I-don't-know-how-many'th bird, she elected to send him back to the breeder. The breeder then tried to make a working dog out of him, but it's not his style (they are detection dogs, used to find large predators as well as poaching snares - so Malis bred for their nose rather than their bite) but Tyto doesn't have it in him. He's very low drive. Another mutual friend expressed an interest but Tyto kept escaping from his property, so not a match.
So here is my conundrum.
Firstly, Rets is going to nail my a$$ to the wall for even bringing the notion up, so this has to be "her idea".
But I really like this dog. This particular line of Mali is VERY gentle and low-energy (on the Mali scale, which means they're not layabouts by any means but they're not raging lunatics either). They are exceptionally obedient, and have high protective drive. His sister is fearless with the cattle and has driven a lunatic boar off me as well. They are also protective against people, but in a very situation-specific way. They will NOT bite a person unless THEIR person is threatened, in which case they will go balls to the wall and defend to the death. The nice thing about that is that they are brave protectors - not overly fearful or anxious and unpredictable. We do live in Johannesburg So a strong protector is a very good thing. They are clean in terms of hips/shoulders/eyes etc, so we don't need to worry about that.
I only got his sister, Kite, because she has a funny paw that would have prevented her from working as a detection dog. She has the goods and she is about a BAZILLION times higher drive and higher energy than Tyto is. They are almost 2, and for the first year I absolutely LOATHED Kite far more often than I loved her. She was a maniac in many ways; over-sensitive, high prey drive, and just relentless in everything she did. She is still largely relentless and I often have to ask her to tone it down but she's incredibly obedient, has exceptional recall, and is a rock-solid companion. She too killed chickens but I've learnt to manage it. So managing 2 with the chickens isn't much different to managing 1. Kite is now at the stage where she can be left alone with the chickens, as she was when we were on vacation, but I go with my gut, and if I'm sitting somewhere away from home and get "that" feeling, I call our tenants and ask them to put her in a kennel. Touch wood we haven't had a bird incident for about 4 months and that last time she removed the rooster's tail feathers but didn't kill. I didn't get "that" feeling while we were away so she did spend 6 days with the birds unsupervised - a new record! Every time she does it is when I am away from home, and when she's killed, she's killed one bird and started eating it - unlike Padi The Chicken Sadist foster who killed TWELVE roosting birds in 10 minutes last week and didn't take a single bite out of one
I run a doggy daycare/boarding kennel from home and am a behaviourist (though not on paper), so I am around 90% of the day and night, and Tyto was raised with children/dogs/cats/goats/cattle/horses and he 100% trustworthy around them.
Kite is my first Mali, and she came very shortly after my first GSD, so I can't say I have a lot of experience with these dogs. My experience with the herding breeds is mostly Border Collies (many of them - at one point I had 8). I am, however, confident in my ability to work with dogs (I work with them every day as my business) and sort out the issues that CAN be sorted out.
What would you guys do, given that I know this line, the genetics, the nature of the beast so to speak?