Monday, April 25, 2011

Nerd alert

   So.... Ive been slacking a little bit. Since I've gotten pregnant my goals of learning how to aggression train dogs has been put to the side for obvious reasons. Sadly I had let just about everything dog training fall to the wayside. I have spent my time bonding with gliders and preparing for glider babies. Which is still pretty cool but more of a sidepot than than the jackpot so to speak.
  Diving back into my passion I have been studying behavioral psychology in relevance to domesticated dogs. I've finished a few books by trainers and behavioral therapists alike. Now I remember why I love it so much...
  Recently Ive been watching documentaries on the domestication of mans best friend. A multitude of experiments have proven that domestication has been more of genetic development than anything else. Wolf cub raised solely by humans will still act like wolf cubs regardless of the human bonding. In fact they can even be released into a wolf pack and thrive after a limited knowledge of wolf life.
  In russia a psycho-biologist  has been performing similar experiments with silver foxes. 99% of the silver foxes would act aggresively towards human presence. The 1% that acted cautiously were put into a breeding program. After 8 generations the wolves became almost completely domesticated. Only 8 generations. Thats simply amazing. In fact by only choosing the most cautious and friendly foxes, physical changes became increasingly evident. Short round ears a shorter tail and different color variations. The Silver foxes began to look like a domesticated dog. The scientists even went as far to implant  aggressive fox embryos into a domesticated fox and it had no affect on the personality of the aggressive fox cubs, they were still scared and vicious.
  How cool is that?
  All dogs genetically date back to the silver wolf.

I'm hoping to use this info when we get our next bitch.

Happy

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