Not Accepting Melons

“I used to not like lettuce but now I like lettuce.”  That’s ALWAYS the cutest thing I’ve heard in like a month.

It’s because consumer software has been growing steadily more user-hostile for the last twenty solid years, and this is a deliberate tactic on the part of major software vendors in order to manipulate people into paying money and/or installing adware in order to access functionality that their systems were already perfectly capable of.

Basically, big software vendors have realised that you can charge people for access to things they already have if you can prevent them from realising that they have it; this is now a major plank of their business model.

I’ve owned Diego since he was four months. I did everything with him, socialized the hell out of him, he loved other dogs when he was young. We went to training classes, etc.

And then one day when he was about eight months old he jumped a dog. He no longer tolerated strange dogs.

And I felt like fucking hell. I believed that “it’s all how you raise them” shit. Here I am doing my best with this dog, and he turns out like this! I seriously considered rehoming him.

It took a lot for me to get out of that stupid mindset. I took him to behaviorists and trainers who all pretty much said the same thing - that’s his personality.

She’s a rottweiler, so a breed prone to being aggressive. And she was neglected as a pup, when I got her she was skinny, half bald with mange and jumpy if you moved to fast around her head. And she was the wriggliest, friendlisest pup you could ever imagine (if a little shy, which she still is). If it were all in how you raise them, she’d be a mess.

She’s been home about 3 days in this picture:

LET’S HAVE A TALK ABOUT SOME MOTHERFUCKING REACTION RANGES, KIDS. 

A reaction range (or range of reaction) is the intersection of nature and nurture in terms of traits which are variable, complex, and (in some way) quantitative. Things like wariness and intellect are not ‘quantitative’ in the same way that jelly beans in a jar are but they are called so in this instance with the understanding that ‘qualitative’ means things like, spotted or drop earred. With quality you either are or your aren’t. With quantity there is a possibility to be more or less of a trait. (Please hold comments on how dogs can be more spotted or less spotted, etc… This is how these things are defined in this setting, just bear with me)

So, with this in mind, friendliness, or it’s converse, aggression, are both defined as quantitative traits. You can be more friendly or less friendly, more aggressive or less aggressive. It is a spectrum. In a simplified imagining of this you have one side which is an imaginary dog who never knew a stranger, absolutely loves everyone and everything and would never snap or growl under any circumstances, on the other sides is another, equally imaginary dog who is aggressive towards everything and everyone, knows no ally and never has accepted a kind hand in its life. 

These are extremes. In the grey area in the middle lies every dog you have likely ever met in your whole life and every dog you are likely to meet ever. These are also specific. The spectrum for dog-agression is not the same as human-agression, not the same as prey-drive, and in real life is often separated between sexes and sizes and personalities of other dogs. (ie; same-sex-dog-aggression, larger-dog-aggression)

This is where the nature comes in. Each dog (and creature) is born with a set range of possible outcomes for these quantifiable traits, in this case dog-friendliness (we will ignore the narrower categories for now and try to put them in this simpler umbrella). If we set this spectra on a scale of 1-150, higher numbers being friendlier dogs, then a sample dog, must fall on this number scale.

So, we have a litter of puppies and pick one at random, we name him Tom. Tom is a Shepherd mix who we know, though our all-powerful hypothetical powers) is born with a reaction range from about 80-111. As he matures Tom can land anywhere on this spectrum of friendliness from 80-111. 

This is where nurture comes in. If we clone Tom twice and give Tom1 to a deprived home with no training and almost no socialization and that will abuse him, Tom2 to an average home that is well-meaning and offers some training and socialization and treats him pretty well otherwise, and then we give Tom3 to an enriched home, a dog expert who trains him well, socializes him from the first day, and loves on him as often is appropriate, each Tom will grow up to fall on different parts of the reaction range. Tom1 ends up on the lower end of the spectrum, around 83, Tom2 is mid-range, around 92, and Tom3 is on the high end of the spectrum, around 108. The more enriched environments give the best possible outcomes. 

Now we introduce another dog, Miguel, a hearty little Lab mix who was recently rescued from an abusive home. We know that Miguel has a friendliness range from 97-125, higher than Tom. So, we compare him to the three Toms. (pretend this is friendliness not IQ)

Miguel is more friendly than the equally deprived Tom, and just as friendly as the average Tom, despite having a poorer quality of life. If given to a home which is patient with him, Miguel may have a chance of rising higher on his scale and, one day, may be even friendlier than the enriched Tom. 

But, you may ask, can Tom ever be as friendly as an enriched Miguel that is at the tom of his reaction range? No. The absolute answer is no. Each dog is born with their own innate range, woven into their very core by the wonders of genetics. You can make a dog as high on it’s range as it can go- but it can never go higher. Tom will never be able to be as friendly as Miguel, but the Tom raised in the enriched home will be much friendlier than the Miguel who was raised by the deprived home and received no help, too little help, or help too late. 

How does this influence how we look at our own dogs?

The reaction range warns us to all heed the over-arching themes within each breed type- they exist for a reason. Chows were bred to guard and will be more wary of strangers, Hounds were bred to track and will follow their noses, and fighting breeds were bred to be dog aggressive and will be more likely to not get along well with others. You may have the most dog friendly, well bred and trained Cane Corso in the world, but realize that it will never be as friendly and amiable as most any decently bred Golden raised to it’s full potential, and getting it there will involve your hard work and diligence. 

It also encourages us to train the dog that we have- not the dog we wish we had. If you have an aggressive and reactive dog but wish to play flyball… you are going to have to think realistically. If you can’t even walk on the opposite side of the street as another dog without having to pull all the stops to keep your dog under the control of it’s training (leave it!! watch me! watch me! good boy! sit. good boy! watch me!) and keep it from snarling and lunging- then congrats, you have taken your reactive dog and made the best of it’s genetics by bringing it to the top of it’s reaction range. BUT you would be making a mistake to try and get this dog to do more than it can, or at least to try after getting strong feedback that it would be unfruitful to try again.

It does not make you a failure of a owner or trainer that your dog can not do the things that the dogs of others can. Read that again. It does not make you a failure of a owner or trainer that your dog can not do the things that the dogs of others can. If anything it makes you a wonderful owner and trainer to recognize what your dog is capable of and strive to bring it to the best of it’s ability without pushing it to an impossible goal.

So, do your research when choosing a breed, talk to the shelter or breeder extensively, gauge what your dog is capable, and accept the roof of possibility when you hit it. Your dog is your dog and no one else’s- all you are expected to do is make it the best dog it can be with the genetic code it was born with. 

Every puppy on Earth goes through multiple “fear periods” and “socialization periods”, starting from the first day he is born. Puppies are born without their senses aside from smell (from day one, a puppy’s sense of smell is already stronger than a humans!), and from hereon out, every single interaction he has is a learning experience and will shape how he turns out to be as an adult. Many experiences are taught by the owners (usually later on, when the puppies are beginning to wander around and it becomes time to sell them), whether intentionally or without knowing at all. A puppy whose mother is a poor mother will be shaped by how she treats her puppies, and he will be shaped by how his siblings treat him. A puppy who is only 21-49 days old and is routinely beaten up by his litter mates may grow up to have a lower threshold for tolerance to roughness or aggression. A puppy who investigates the family cat and gets swatted may become fearful or aggressive towards cats later on. Conversely, a puppy who has NOT been been introduced to rough playing or has not had his limits pushed by his littermates may grow up to be a rough player, who doesn’t understand the limits of other dogs and is routinely “bullying” other dogs at the park and getting into fights. A puppy who hasnt been introduced to men or people in glasses or hats prior to his first fear period may become terrified of people like this.

Certain dog breeds (like hounds, fighting breeds, retrievers, etc) that are bred for a certain temperament will generally have a set guideline for how they will react. Of course, depending on how the puppy’s socialization and fear periods went in his youth, he may still develop fear of random things or objects. Gun dogs, for example, are taught from an early age to be desensitized to the sound of gun shots  and similar noises like thunderstorms, this is the same way that we teach dogs to become less fearful of such noises.

A Golden Retriever is still most likely going to want to perform instinctual tasks that were bred into his ancestors, like swimming and retrieving. A bully breed is still going to want to fight, and these things are normal behaviours for the dogs.

You can raise a bully breed up as fine as you can from day 1, and his genetics are still going to trump his puppyhood in the end. A bully breed who is aggressive towards dogs isn’t necessarily fought, and didn’t necessarily have negative experiences with his littermates during puppyhood. (In actuality, squabbling and fighting is pretty normal for any breed of puppy, and is a sign that it’s about time to seperate and sell the puppies).

穿越千年才找回跟你在一起的回忆

“And they were reincarnated soulmates!”

Debbie Ocean and Lou Miller, Oceans 8

1.) Intense obsessions that last maybe two weeks but consume your soul

2.) Spacing out in class but loving to learn

Second image description: A headline from The New York Times that says, “Australia decides not to kill Joe the pigeon.”