These toy spaniels have been trained to kill rabbits.
From Raymond and Lorna Coppinger’s Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior, and Evolution:
Brian Plummer in Scotland has a pod of [Cavalier] King Charles spaniels that tears across the countryside searching for bunnies and kills them. Here is a hunt that is seriously uniform, to say the least. They have not been selected to be hunting dogs. But Brian, who prides himself on being a good dog trainer, uses them to illustrate his point: if you think about it and work at, you can teach any dog to do any task.
I made the case that any dog can do anything only if it is socialized correctly when a tiny puppy. I was sure Brian would see this as an exception to the rule that you can train any dog to do any task. He didn’t seem to. Then I asked Brian if one could train King Charles spaniels to hunt lions. Or could King Charles spaniels join transhumant migration, and guard sheep against wolves, even if they were socialized properly? Well, Brian’s a good dog man; he knows dogs. He just gave me a big grin and asked: “What do you think?” (154-155).
***
Brian believes that nuture is more important than nature in determining intelligence [working ability]. I had spent a delightful day hunting rabbits with Brian and his [Cavalier] King Charles Spaniels (#44).
“Why did you pick this breed?” said I.
“Because these dogs have been the epitome of the housebound, nonworking pet dog for centuries,” said he. “If I can train them to hunt rabbits, I make my point: I can train any breed to do anything.” And sure enough, after scampering over hill and dale (actually, the neighbor’s lawn), holing the rabbit, and driving it out with a ferret, the King Charles spaniels killed it.
Then we went down to the river and put his golden retriever (#4) through the fetch, retriever, and deliver-to-hand routines. Nice dog! she would work all day long and enver quit. I asked Brian if he could train his golden to herd sheep, and he responded instantly, “No problem. It would be asy to train a golden to herd sheep.”
“Could you then take that dog into a sheepdog trial and win?”
“Oh no!” he said without hesitation. I knew I was talking to someone who understands behavioral conformation.
“Oh no!” Just like that. The reason he cannot teach the golden to win a sheep trial is the same reason I cannot teach a dachshund to win a sled dog race. They are the wrong shape– the wrong conformation. The dachshund has the wrong physical conformation and the golden wrong behavioral conformation to herd sheep (192-193).
The numbers are the rankings for each breed in “Working and Obedience Intelligence” that Stanely Coren put together in The Intelligence of Dogs. (The ranking in Wikipedia does not line up with list in that I have in my copy of Coren’s book.)
The authors continue:
I have trained border collies to retrieve ducks, but it is just for fun, perhaps an interesting novelty. The border collies isn’t as big and its mouth is the wrong shape and it does not have the body volume of a swimming dog. It gets cold. It lacks the appropriate physical conformation. But what if took a German shepherd or some other breed that was about the same size and still couldn’t get it perform like a good retriever: I’d have to conclude it not only he size that’s important. Rather, there is something about the shape that underlies the perfect performance.
Shape of the perfect performance? It is the shape of the brain the breed that is the underlying cause of the unique intelligence [working ability]. Intelligence is not more or less in each breed, but rather, each breed has a different kind of intelligence (193-194).
Essentially, what the authors are saying is that you can train dogs to do lots of things, but there are unique talents and abilities in all of these different strains of dog. These talents and abilities are hard-wired into the strains, and these strains provide the ability to work at various tasks.
Not only do dogs have to have the right working conformation in terms of size and build, they also have to exhibit the right behaviors. Biddability is an inherited ability, just as any other behavior. Biddability is nothing more than an enhanced ability to communicate and receive communication from humans. It is nothing more. It is not intelligence, per se. It is working ability.
Retrieving, pointing, herding, and quartering are all inherited motor patterns that are hard-wired into dogs. In these strains, we expect these motor patterns to develop. Once they develop, the dog can be polished through training into a working animal.
This is not to say that some dogs don’t exhibit unusual inherited motor patterns for their breed. I’ve seen pointing Labs and goldens and read about a pointing bloodhound. I knew a miniature dachshund that had very strong retrieving motor patterns and was as a hard driving about her retrieving as any retriever. I know a Jack Russell that is the same way. German shepherds and other continental sheepdogs, along with collie-types, exhibit an air-scenting motor pattern somewhat similar to quartering in a gun dog.
But all of these dogs are not at the same level as a dog that has been bred for generation after generation to exhibit the strongest level of these inherited motor predatory motor patterns. That’s why they are generally much better at these activities than other breeds of dog that give off these abilities.
Now, that Jack Russell I mentioned is a far better retriever than my current golden. He would be useless for his breed’s original task, but he wouldn’t be a good bird retriever. He has another motor pattern. Whenever he retrieves a tennis ball, he gets really into it, and if you’re done playing with him, he’ll take that ball and pluck all the green fuzz off it. I can just see him doing that to a shot bird.
Behavioral conformation is really important to working breeds. It provides the basis for which training can proceed. I’ll actually go a bit farther. In a working breed, the behavioral conformation is inherited and then polished and refined through good training. And that’s why if we breed working dogs, we have to focus on breeding these working motor patterns.
I am aware that this is controversial for some people. I’m not denying you can’t train any dog to do these specialized behaviors. What I am denying is that is nearly impossible for you to train any dog to do these specialized behaviors and have them compete successfully against dogs that were already hard-wired to have them.
*Keep in mind that I don’t agree with everything that the Coppingers say in this book. However, it is a really good primer for understanding dog behavior in terms of their evolutionary past and their centuries of selective breeding.
Speaking of BCs being trained to do other things, my Celeste has decided all on her own that she is a hunting dog. She is the first Border Collie I’ve had who is fast enough and sneaky enough to catch a rabbit, and she’s done it multiple times on her patrol of the acre. She got one just the other day.
All the dogs are also part of the anti-squirrel assault force, which often includes artillery support, but that’s strictly optional as far as the dogs are concerned. Celeste has plucked them out of the air as they leap from the apple trees in the middle of the yard toward the the taller trees they need for escape.
Usually they are dead before dog hits ground again, but one time both her and her son each got one end of a large squirrel and thus couldn’t snap its neck right quick. Said squirrel dealt one of them a bloody nose before he parted.
For being quite the huntress, I’m sure Celeste would not make a good gun dog as certain noises are just not to her liking. For instance, toe nail clippers at work, or a high pitched sneeze. She just excuses herself from the room. The pellet gun isn’t much of a problem, but I doubt a larger bore gun would be as amenable.
The claim that “it would be easy” to train a golden retriever to herd sheep is dimwitted in the extreme.
Let’s see him do it. Really work sheep, not follow a constant stream of directionals. No, he doesn’t have to win an open trial. Just really work the sheep.
Chasing and killing small prey is one of the most primitive and essential behaviors inherent in the dog genome. I doubt there is ANY “breed” that cannot, as a group, be induced to display it, though there may be some individuals of some breeds that won’t.
Retrieving, similarly, a simple (though not similarly primal) behavior that can be mechanically trained on probably any dog — if the trainer is skilled, not method-bound, and has enough time and patience — and in some cases, a masochistic personality disorder.
In one case, just permitting and developing a primal drive; in the other, mechanically building a simple sequence of movements.
Working livestock, reliable livestock guarding, certain kinds of scent work — NOPE.
You could train one to “herd” but it would be nothing like a proper herding breed’s behavior. I bet you could teach one to move livestock, but that’s about it. It would never be able to do the work of a trial border collie. Never. I doubt that I could even get them interested in the sheep to exhibit predatory motor patterns. My first dog never chased deer, but a flock of mourning doves in a wheat field, and the predator would suddenly come alive.
Now, with retrieving, if you run into retriever that really has a big dose of the instinct or motor pattern, and it does sort of take you aback. I had a dog that had such strong retrieving instinct that you had to let her work out the motor pattern. It was a good reinforcer for training to let her retrieve.
And people asked me: how did you train her?
The answer was that she didn’t have to be trained. She naturally retrieved to hand. And I thought this was common.
I’ve been around many goldens over the years, but very few of them really have it. My current dog will retrieve, but she’s spayed because 1. she’s too big and too light in color and 2. she doesn’t have a strong enough prey drive.
9 out of 14 of her puppies had very strong retrieving behavior, too.
So there is some genetic basis to it.
My first golden, although a good gun dog, learned the full predatory motor pattern sequence from a Norwegian elkhound, which was a superior rabbit killer. However, she would kill the rabbit, bring it to me, and want to do some retrieval work with it.
And forget about doing LGD work with most goldens. They don’t guard.
The Cavaliers I know, although certainly very pleasant little lap dogs, are actually very birdy and prey-driven. I don’t doubt for a moment the ones I’ve met would chase and kills rabbits, given the opportunity and a little praise. Perhaps they are the exception.
In fact, when I am old and infirm, a Cavalier will be my first choice to fall over and break my hip with (previous Sussex jokes aside). They are neat little dogs.
The ones I’ve been around have been more like bird dogs than any American cocker I’ve been around.
I know one that flushes birds out of the garden, and another that would love to chase deer, if it suddenly became legal for dogs to chase deer.
Herding isn’t just predatory behavior.
My barn cat sits in the door to the ducklings’ stall and keeps them from bolting out while I bring in the water bottle. This is as much “herding” as whatever a golden retriever on a sit-stay would be doing. (Maybe a little bit moreso, since I didn’t obedience train the cat.)
I didn’t mean to imply that, because one can mechanically train a chow or pug to “fetch,” that this action is the same thing as an internally driven natural retrieve.
Believe me, I know what a psychotically-driven natural retriever is like. My GSD has room in her brain for virtually nothing else.
Interestingly enough, I finally gave up trying to get a reliable trained fetch on her. Not that it couldn’t be done — but she is highly resistant, and I was not sufficiently motivated to put in the time with her, when my other student was so much more pleasant and cooperative.
What amazes me is when you get a litter of goldens or Labs that have been bred for the instinct, and they start retrieving at 5 or 6 weeks of age. That’s a predatory motor pattern that has developed far sooner than when wolves develop theirs. Border collies are also known to clap at an early age.
We have really done remarkable things with selective breeding in domestic dogs. We have changed their brains and how they develop profoundly.
We’ve got our Beagle retrieving tennis balls pretty good. Still working on coming when called but she’s only 9.
I’ve noticed beagles have some inherited behavior, too. I’ve never met one that didn’t run along the hedgerows or the edges of fields, where rabbits are likely to be found. They seem to do this automatically. Of course, I’ve never been around a “pet only ” beagle. All of the ones I’ve been around have been used for rabbit hunting or snowshoe hare hunting.
“If it suddenly became legal for dogs to chase deer”?
Not only is that a quaint sentiment from someone of significant Appalachian heritage (;-)), but it is so obvious that you are not a grower! I don’t know any grower that doesn’t encourage their dog(s) to chase off the deer — the biodynamic vineyard folks down the road gave up after a year of no sleep (deer will do just about anything for grapes, which is why I use hardy kiwis when I need sturdy vines) and went with dogs and an invisible fence (vineyard people have money, even in PA! ;-)).
We seem to have a small herd that moved in to the community garden over the winter and is not happy that all these people showed up this Spring. I haven’t seen them in 2 weeks because Pepper can hear them coming and keeps them beyond the tree line.
This is why I love my dog! :-D
If a dog is caught chasing deer in West Virginia, it can be shot by a landowner or by conservation officers. It is illegal for a dog to chase deer. It would be nice to let dogs run them off, because the northern tier of West Virginia has some of the highest deer densities in the country: http://www.i-maps.com/whitetails.htm
That’s why if you drive through rural West Virginia and see vegetable gardens, they are almost always surrounded with an electric fence.
Pennsylvania actually got some of its restocked white-tailed deer from West Virginia.
I do grow a vegetable garden with two strands of electric wire surrounding it. A low strand for the rabbits and a higher strand for the deer.
Yow! Here in PA, it’s illegal for dogs to chase deer, but all you get is a fine from the Game Commission officer. The guns laws are slightly stricter here, so no one can shoot a dog for running after deer.
I don’t know anyone that has received a fine — the Game Commission REALLY doesn’t want to get an earful from growers so in the urban areas they pretend we don’t exist and in the rural areas, as long as you donate regularly to the local food bank, no one asks too many questions about where the meat came from and how much is being “harvested.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported an incident about 3 years ago where a male Lab in the suburbs was chasing deer off his owner’s property and actually got gored by a male in full antler during the rut. The Game Comission admited that they should fine the dog for chasing the deer in the first place, but declined, saying “the dog had suffered enough.”
The dog got prompt vet care and was fine — he made the rounds on all the local TV stations with a big bandage on his side and a happy wagging tail from all the positive attention.
West Virginia can have its white-tailed deer back — we really don’t want them anymore! ;-)
West Virginia barely has gun laws, but we rely so much on hunting tourism that game laws are pretty important. More money is spent because of black bear hunting tourism than virtually any other tourism, including skiing and white water rafting.
We have very high densities of deer in the northern half of West Virginia. These densities extend into Southwestern PA up to Allegheny County.
If I go to my boyhood farm just before dark, I will see dozens of deer. At certain times of the year, these things fill the meadows and old pastureland quite thickly. Hunting and the little predation they get from coyotes does little to their numbers.
Only a really bad winter, like we just had, can really reduce their numbers significantly. About a month ago, you’d see scrawny deer grazing in the middle of the day, but now the grass is starting to turn green and they can fatten up again.
I don’t expect as many twin fawns this year, because the does didn’t get enough good nutrition this winter.
Yes, you can be fined for having a dog chase a deer, but if it’s caught chasing deer on someone else’s land or on public land, it will be shot.
A few years ago we had a very dry late spring, and the does were having to move out into the open to graze and browse. They were leaving their fawns in areas really close to human habitation, and the dogs were finding them. There were several beagles and smaller dogs that got attacked by the does. However, there are coyotes here, which basically make the does paranoid about larger dogs, so I seriously doubt that a WV doe would’ve attacked a Labrador, even to save her fawn.
We have crop damage cull permits for deer, but that really doesn’t change their numbers that much. And because they can’t be shot out of houses, the deer have no fear of human habitation. I’ve seen them get up on porches and decks and graze flowers. I’ve seen them chewing their cud in car ports.
We’ve always had at least some deer. My grandparents remember them, but they were never as numerous as they are now. My grandpa said that if someone saw a deer, people would talk about it with wonder. Today, you just hope some of them die, so that you can protect your flowers.
[...] But I have heard of Cavaliers being trained to hunt rabbits. [...]