What Breed Is Your Dog?
- wabniaq
- Aug 29, 2024
- 1 min read
Dogs have been bred over time for specific purposes, so we have hundreds of breeds. All of these breeds are the result of emphasiziing or de-emphasizing innate traits of a common proto-canid ancestor. While breed-specific characteristics are not determinative in a mechanistic sense, understanding how any particular genetic endowment influences temperament and personality is enormously helpful in understanding any particular dog. One example of this that shows up in an old dog trainer joke is, "Hello, I have this terrier that needs training . . ."
That’s the whole joke.
Yes, we can train terriers, but it isn't anything like training a GSD or a Lab. Every dog is different, not only in breed but also in personality and life circumstances, and this should be taken into account in the training.
With mixed-breed dogs the question of how genetic endowment influences temprement, personality, and behavior becomes even more complex. Sometimes genetic testing can be instructive: https://embarkvet.com/
Comments