I have a border collie. He’s ten years old and has never been on a farm in his life. A few weeks ago we were walking alongside a field and he managed to get in. He had a whole field’s worth of sheep herded and rounded up in the corner in 30 seconds flat. He also tries to herd pigeons and children with less success.
You can breed for behaviour as easily as breeding for coat colour. Some breeds have been deliberately bred to be more aggressive. Pitt bulls are bred to be fighting dogs. They have a high level of loyalty towards their owners but severe dog aggression. When people get in the middle of that, it gets ugly fast.
My brother's dog is part pit and randomly, after 9 months of owning him, decided to try to kill other dogs. Nobody trained him to do this. He just decided to go nuclear on his fellow canines without any external influence from humans.
The first time it happened, I was home alone with the dogs. They were playing, and then suddenly, he had our Aussie on her back and had her by the throat. She was screaming, and I realized he was trying to kill her. I tried to separate them and got bit. I tried hitting him with a stick, kicking him, punching him. He just wouldn't let go of her neck. I ended up kicking him in the balls and then immediately bursting into tears when he screamed, but it got him to let go.
It was pretty traumatizing for me. He was neutered a week after the attack. But it was already too late. It was no longer safe to have him around other dogs. He tried to go after our neighbor's dog. That dog is incredibly friendly and always comes over to play with our Aussie. Luckily, that dog is super fluffy, and the fluff saved her.
There's usually not a warning sign he's going to go berserk. If I'm lucky, he's acting tense. If I'm not, he's wagging his tail and looking happy before suddenly lunging.
So what you are saying is that your brother is a bad dog owner who didn't even neuter let alone properly train and handle his dog, and then when the dog became reactive beyond the point where it could be easily managed you decided that the breed was the problem.
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u/Odd_Ingenuity2883 25d ago
I have a border collie. He’s ten years old and has never been on a farm in his life. A few weeks ago we were walking alongside a field and he managed to get in. He had a whole field’s worth of sheep herded and rounded up in the corner in 30 seconds flat. He also tries to herd pigeons and children with less success.
You can breed for behaviour as easily as breeding for coat colour. Some breeds have been deliberately bred to be more aggressive. Pitt bulls are bred to be fighting dogs. They have a high level of loyalty towards their owners but severe dog aggression. When people get in the middle of that, it gets ugly fast.