Bravery or fear based agression?
Alex,
Lets put things in perspective. The original CO was not overly aggressive to humans - that came after the Soviet occupation of the Caucasus when the dogs were taken to Red Star Kennel and human aggression was bred into them so they could be used to guard the prisons and other military and industrial facilities. A good CO is supposed to attack and intruder if the "stranger"is deemed dangerous. There are some lines and some breeders who produce dogs that are not confident and they will backaway or run away from someone but continue to bark. That is not desired.
The dogs are supposed to protect whether the owner is present or not. If it does not - keep it as a pet but don't trust your safety with it.. I know you don't .. :) this is for others.
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Im following a series of posts with video's on fb. Showing CO being very intimidating and agressive behind a fence. As soon as the worker opens the gate and walks in the CO's run away and/or do nothing.
Behaviour i have seen more often.
What do you think, is this because lack of training? Altough CO supposed to be ''natural'' guardians? Or is it bad lines of CO? Bad individual dog ? Or what?
One of the vids can be seen on my fb page. https://www.facebook.com/ALEXcontactcombat
If you have video of ''brave'' and fearless CO doing job , especially without owner present please share the link with me.
Thanks for oppinions and insights.
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Alex,
Lets put things in perspective. The original CO was not overly aggressive to humans - that came after the Soviet occupation of the Caucasus when the dogs were taken to Red Star Kennel and human aggression was bred into them so they could be used to guard the prisons and other military and industrial facilities. A good CO is supposed to attack and intruder if the "stranger"is deemed dangerous. There are some lines and some breeders who produce dogs that are not confident and they will backaway or run away from someone but continue to bark. That is not desired.
The dogs are supposed to protect whether the owner is present or not. If it does not - keep it as a pet but don't trust your safety with it.. I know you don't .. :) this is for others.
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I am a new CO owner, and my Yogi is only 7 months old, so I am no expert. In my research of CO's, prior to buying Yogi, I was told to expect 2 periods of "fear" in his puppy year. One at 4-5 months, and one at 7-8 months.
I have seen some of that recently, but the first episode was a cat cat that literally "attacked" him, running from behind a garbage can, stutter stepping on his head and hissing as he charged Yogi would have scared any puppy. He is now wary of other dogs, and will get "defensive" when the "cat mafia" appears on our walks, but he doesn't really show fear.
When someone comes to the door, he is naturally curious, and will bark, and go to the door, but when told to "hush" and "sit", he backs away and waits until he can sniff/approve. By the same token though, he apparently "sensed" something "off" about the cable contractor, and he wouldn't let him in the house, where the postman and the pizza delivery guy are fine and kind of disregarded...so long as they don't get near me.
When he is behind the fence, he does not have the prey drive to attack squirrels, birds, people, cats, etc. He will notice them, and alert to them, but he doesn't run from them, or get "insane" trying to get to them either. He has, from 10 weeks old, placed himself between me and whatever is in the yard or someone approaching me. You don't get near me without that tail going up, those shoulders getting set, and those feet stomping to go with this guttural, bear like growl. He does not bark incessantly, nor does he charge the gate if it is left open. He "guards" his yard and definitely protects me but even on walks or in the truck, he is kind of cool and laid back, "relaxed", alert but he isn't on the "attack" immediately...except with my husband.
Yogi does not see Josh as "pack leader", he sees him as "playmate". He is more "aggressive" in play with him, and a kiss from my husband will have Yogi pulling on his clothes, and nipping at his arms, jumping on him. I see this is "bad" but Josh has completely disregarded any training I have applied, and kind of pays the price now. he
Now is this training or instinct? I've socialized him, taught him basic commands, reassured him to new people, places, things on walks but he isn't some highly trained dog. I attribute it to his instinct, he knows what is dangerous an what he can disregard. What I do not know is how he will react if someone tests him - like if a dog came too near, or if (like the cable man) he decided that person was a threat. If someone came into his fence without being let in. He is definitely protective and I feel he would absolutely act aggressively.
Which is exactly why I bought him.
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In general the difficult part of raising and training one of these dogs can be compounded based on the environment where they live. Consider that the Caucasian is a guardian with a pronounced sense of property and they will guard it jealously. So if they have a small place their jealousy of they space may be heightened. With a larger piece of property such as a farm with hundreds of acres they are more forgiving about encroachment on their turf because their sense of property lies closer to the herd or the castle where the owners (who feeds them) live.
So lets take a CO into an urban environment where we are presented with a different set of challenges such as people walking up the the door, population density, noises, and normally a smaller sphere of protection to defend. This will serve to condition the dog to not react until something is much closer than in a suburban environment where those conditions are fewer. The net result is that the dog will now be more tolerant of those things that it experiences on a daily basis. While they are young they may exhibit some fear tendencies because they don't really know how to address they new situation. It does not mean that they will grow up to be fearful.
@ Duty1st - In your case I think your dog's behavior is correct. Please don't over socialize if you really want to bring out the defensive qualities. On another discussion we had here - we discussed the idea that defensive drive has its foundation in fear based behavior. I will see if I can find it and bump it up as it is a very good read.
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I am no expert in this breed in particular. However, this is common in dogs even in the guardian group. This is why I am an advocate for training the dog. Behind the fence the dog will bark and some will growl. It should do those things. These dogs should be aloof. They should be distrustful of strangers. But this does not mean it should attack the strangers once they gain entrance on the property. The dog does not know know what its job is. Until the dog knows it job it will attempt to bluff. If it has been socialized a lot it will accept the stranger because that is what it has been taught to do. IMO without evaluating the dog personally I would imagine that the reason for this behavior is that the dog needs to be trained to do its job. Even in humans we do not wake up and be a great pianist. Some of us are gifted in this area (not me unfortunately). Those that are gifted still need the right guidance and dedication to become what is already in them.
Example: when I was about 4 I began taking piano lessons. My teacher came to the house for lessons. During summers I would spend several weeks at my great grandmother's house. Two of my aunts were taking lessons with the same teacher. So I would switch my day for a lesson and take my lesson there. My younger cousin after my lesson began to try to play what I was playing. I began showing him the song "Traffic Cop". He picked it up fast. I asked him if he wanted to learn to play. He said yes. I went to my great grandmother and told her. He began taking lesson the next week. Soon afterwards he stopped taking lesson with my teacher and began training with someone else. I was learning to read and play music. It wasn't my passion. He began to learn how to hear music and play it. Shortly afterward he was getting paid to play and could play anything. I could only play what I had learned in the book. Today he is an awesome musician and has traveled all over playing. I can only play a couple of song that I remember and one is one that he taught me. He never would have become this if he didn't get the training and put in the time mastering his discipline. The same thing holds true for most dogs. They still need to be taught what to do and when to do it. I can't tell the number of people that tell me their dog will protect them or protect their home because they are naturally protective. If they agree for me to test them to see if it is true they all find out the dog will not. They will back away. With training I can bring out their protective instinct. The bark and growl is enough to scare off most people. But if you want to be sure you should get the dog trained. we should all keep in mind that dogs were domesticated by humans. They were taught to work for us. They look to us for everything including what their job is in our homes. Unless they have been taught to protect by humans or by other dogs they won't know what to do.
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Here is a news report on a similar subject.
http://www.newson6.com/story/17790985/would-your-dog-protect-you
By the way I couldn't watch the video posted on FaceBook as I don't have a facebook page. If you can post it differently I would love to see it.
Here is another video of untrained dog and trained dogs
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Yes, would love to see the movie aswell ... Could 'tsee it
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I failed at posting it here. Sorry.
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I failed at posting it here. Sorry.
post the link and I will fix it
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My first dog was Chow/Pit mix I pick up from the streets of East Los Angeles at 8 weeks. I gave him basic puppy classes for 7 weeks and that was it. However, when it cam to protect, I did not have to train him at all. His mission in life was to protect me at all times from anything, and he did so on numerous occasions.
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Alphonse (my CO) sounds like he is similar to Yogi. He sees my father as a playmate and not his superior. They play very rough which he is never allowed to do with me. One day my dad was swatting my leg while Alphonse was sleeping, and I became frustrated and screamed at him to stop and Alphonse was up and between us.
When it comes to being approached by strangers, he is very calm UNLESS they are doing something very unusual. If they are drunk and tottering, yelling and screaming, or generally acting completely out of the ordinary he will give them PLENTY of warning but if they continue to approach he will snap. This is something I have only experienced with drunken men forcefully approaching me and running at me, and I give them plenty of warning as well not to approach us.
He is very protective of my room and my car, and if he does not know you and I am not there, he will not allow that. I have watched how he handles my car being approached from afar. One day while I was at work, my roommate's husband brought friends to the house--none of which he had met or heard before--and he slammed into his kennel with such force that he flexed the door open, and then proceeded to dig the corner out of my door trying to get to them in the living room. This was the first and only time he has every destroyed anything.
If I am home, I manage how he meets strangers.
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hello , i am absolutely in agree with training the dog to beva proper guard dog . you should consider the fact thatvthese dogs learn their duty by watching older shepherd dogs , and in protecting a house they must be trained . also i think their trainabity is reduced because of their focus on attack in a tunnel sight manner and calling them to stop may be very difficult thing to learn them . these magnificant dogs belong to their natural work and are not suitable for guarding facilities , home etc. their major drawback is difficulty of controllig them when they are nervous and agigated .
