Você está na página 1de 5

OROSCO 1

Vanessa Orosco
Professor Lynda Haas
Writing 37
30 January 2015
The Mind and Training of Dog Breeding
When most people think about getting a dog they mostly think about the type of dog they
want by the size, known characteristics, or the overall look of the dog. Most people never bother
to think about the breeding that goes into creating a dog and how it affects the offspring.
However, there have been sources to help better explain dog breeding and how its affected dogs
both psychologically and physically. These works include that of Leslie Irvines If You Tame
Me, where she talks about animals and their behavior along with their domestication and the
history of animals from the earliest of time. She helps to present the good side of how dogs have
fared with breeding, along with the ugly part that comes with having to domesticate these breeds
of dogs.
Irvine helps to see a bit of both sides of breeding, whereas some sources are more onesided when it comes to their biases of dog breeding. Such in the example of the websites of the
National American Alsatian breeders Association (NAABA), and Petfinder. The NAABA uses
dog breeding as their basis of Dire Wolf Project foundation, and sees breeding as beneficial in
the creation of well-bred family companion dogs. Whereas Petfinders article The Case Against
Hybrids highlights the dangers and deadly risks wolf/dog breeds and stands against the whole
institution of breeding. All these sources however hold in common the general aspects of what
breeding does to dogs behavior and physical appearance

OROSCO 2

In Petfinders article The Case Against Hybrids they point out the reasoning behind dog
breeding in that the point of it is to create a hybrid of a dog with a wild animal appearance and a
temperament of a domesticated dog. However, they argue that, even though hybrids can be
beautiful and well bred, many have unstable temperament and that combined with increased size
and strength, results in a potentially dangerous pet (The Case Against Hybrids). When breeding a
wolf and a dog together the offspring hybrid of this mix faces the inner battle of what
temperament to have and how to behave. They battle between expressing their inner wolf instinct
and their loving domesticated side, which can lead to the hybrid becoming confused and
randomly lashing out and attacking owners. However, the NAABA would argue that, breeding
can help to create family companion dogs (The Dire Wolf Project). Through breeding, the Dire
Wolf project organization has been able to create companion dog personality with the look of the
dire wolf, which went extinct 10,000 years ago.
The Petfinder website would argue that there are too many risks when it comes to
the NAABAs Dire Wolf project involving the temperament of these new breed of dire wolf
dogs. The dogs that the NAABA breed are the descendants from the dire wolf and so they
carry parts of those wolves temperament. So if the NAABA were to perfect this project and recreate the dire in the form of a domesticated dog, the Petfinder website would put to question,
just exactly how alike would these new breeds be to the original ones 10,000 years ago. The
continuing breeding of those new breed of dire wolves with other domesticated dogs would only
help to prove the point of Petfinder, in that theres no real certainty of how these hybrids will
come out temperament wise, and for all we know the NAABA could just be creating new
enhanced breeds of vicious hunting dogs back to life.

OROSCO 3

The Petfinder website not only contributed to the discussion of dog breeding and
behavior, but along with Irvine, discusses how these bred dogs have to be trained due to their
hybrid state. Irvine believes that as a species dogs have fared extremely well under
domestication. They have adapted marvelously to human society (Irvine 2). Because of this
greater domestication effect on dogs humans have been more prone to breeding dogs than any
other animal like Irvine states. However, she also states that shes encountered things that
people would do to santitize [animals] natural qualities, these included severing the vocal
chords of dogs so that they cannot bark. They will use choke collars and other forceful means to
get dogs to mind(Irvine 12). In this source Irvines depicting the manner in which people go
about in order to make these bred dogs more compliable to the way they want. Here the Petfinder
website would side with Irvine and add on to the conversation with the example of dog/wolf
hybrids, in that once that hybrid is born in order to create a bond the owner must spend 24 hours
a day with it during the first 10 days of birth. If this bond is not created then the owners will then
find other ways to train these hybrids and make them to their liking, sometimes even making
drastic changes to these wolf/dogs so that training is easier. Some of these examples include
shock collars and choke collars and severing vocal chords, as Irvine stated in If You Tame Me.
On this topic both Pedfinder and Irvine would agreeing during a discussion of the training and
controlling of hybrid dogs and most likely suggest against breeding.
Throughout the topics of dog breeding there are many sources to create a conversation
from. Though individually these authors may not have their owe call to action, together they help
create a realization of a new look on dog breeding. Together these sources may call to action that
people realize the true aspects of dog breeding and that goes into it and all that can result from
it.

OROSCO 4

OROSCO 5

Works Cited

Irvine, Leslie. If You Tame Me: Understanding Our Connection with Animals.

Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2004


(The Case Against Hybrids) https://www.petfinder.com/pet-adoption/exotic-

pets/case-against-hybrids
(The Dire Wolf Project) http://www.direwolfproject.com/home.html

Você também pode gostar