Natural History

Posted in dog breeds | Tagged Caucasian Ovtcharka | 17 Comments

17 Responses

1. on March 30, 2011 at 8:23 pm Dave

   For awhile there, I thought it was a still from a movie. Doesn’t even look like a dog.

   
   
2. on March 30, 2011 at 8:40 pm Pai

   Is that the woman who breeds the most vicious dogs possible to sell to wimpy people for ‘protection’? I know there was a TV show about such a person a while back, and it was incredible to see such stupidity.

   
   
   • on March 30, 2011 at 8:44 pm retrieverman

     Yes!

     I was going to post that video, but now that you mention it:

     
     
3. on March 30, 2011 at 9:46 pm pris

   I wouldn’t call aggressively going after a car or a large van a well thought decision…. Why would you want such a dog as a protection do in a city or town? It’s not like you have a flock of sheep in big predator country.

   
   
   • on March 30, 2011 at 9:48 pm retrieverman

     Why would you want a dog that you couldn’t possibly handle?

     
     
   • on March 31, 2011 at 1:25 am Pai

     A big, tough dog means the owner is big and tough too, didn’t you know? =P

     
     
4. on March 31, 2011 at 8:54 am Bunnies!

   I’m trying to understand the mindset where a dog who barks when someone comes to the door, is not enough. And I say that as someone who spent the 1980’s on some of the worst streets in NYC (height of the crack problem! woo hoo!!).

   What on earth are these people afraid of? The skinny dude (Mike DeMartino), with the huge dog lives in what looks like a more or less middle class suburb, in a house that looks like the total contents can’t add up to that much. Does he really worry about home invasions, coming in and stealing the half empty container of Breyers ice cream? Or that someone will zoom by in a stroller?

   Honestly it would be healthier for everyone (that would include his neighbors, the postal carrier, and the UPS driver), if this guy would get rid of the dog and seek therapy to answer the question of why, in such an unthreatening environment, he needs to own such a bad ass dog. Or at least that’s what I think.

   
   
   • on March 31, 2011 at 11:03 am retrieverman

     Yeah. I agree with about that guy.

     I could understand owning one of those dogs like in the City of God or if I lived in the Caucasus and the wolves and bears kept eating my sheep.

     In this country and this society, I’d be worried about having any dog that had a tendency to show a lot of aggression. Tort law and homeowner’s policies just work against owning these dogs if reason doesn’t work.

     I saw an interesting show on Animal Planet a few weeks ago. There was this guy in Ohio who kept venomous snakes. He was a social outcast– blue collar and had marital problems. His only joy in life was keeping those snakes. Not only did he like learning about them– he became a near international authority–he liked the power that keeping such animals gave him. One of his snakes bit him, and they found all sorts of other illegal things going on in his property. And he wound up in prison.

     But it was just so sad.

     
     
5. on March 31, 2011 at 11:16 am M.R.S.

   It is a far leap of logic to equate this example of hyper-agressive dog, with all the ovtcharka or shepherds’ dogs of the 19th century (whether or not any of those might have been an ancestor of some Golden Retrievers); or, for that matter, those of today.

   And, by the way, I’ve met several Caucausian Mountain Dogs at UKC shows, and they were very well-behaved and tolerant, even in the busy environs of a large dog show.

   Whomever is selling nasty dogs as “protection” is doing no one any favors, except perhaps the lawyers who will manage the subsequent legal actions.

   
   
6. on March 31, 2011 at 12:02 pm bayareadogtrainer

   I think all the breeds that roamed the Transhumance many of the less suspicious pups ended up bumming around small towns centers and those can be almost as friendly as a Golden. I’ve seen them adopted by punks in Rome and lying next to the town drunks in rural mountain towns. It also seems the Ovtcharka has gotten a bit bigger (wider) since it started being promoted as the “ultimate man stopper”
   Isn’t there a legend about Russian circus dogs being in the foundation stock of the Golden?

   
   
   • on March 31, 2011 at 6:20 pm retrieverman

     The Russian circus dog story was the accepted theory of their origin until the 1950’s. Then, the actual kennel records from their foundational breeder were released. Not Russian dogs at all. Just a strain of wavy or flat-coated retriever.

     I think it would vary a bit on these kinds of dogs. In the Caucasus, there are areas where the people don’t come down out of the mountains for any reason. During World War II, these people often resisted conscription into the Red Army with success. Farley Mowat writes about a Georgian officer during the Second World War who was sent up into the region near Mt. Elbrus to conscript the men into the Red Army. When he found the people– I think they were ethnic Abkhazians– they told him they weren’t going to go, but if the Nazois showed up, they’d take care of them. And he left it at that.

     If these guardian dogs came from place like that, they probably weren’t all that friendly. The Soviets also used these dogs as military and police dogs– mainly because they didn’t have access to the best lines of German shepherd and other Western breeds during the Cold War. The Soviets likely bred these dogs to be even more aggressive than they were in their homeland.

     
     
7. on March 31, 2011 at 12:59 pm Donna Hiebert

   Retrieverman, I think you are fascinated by large, dominant dogs!

   I know a breeder of a few rare Japanese dog breeds who lives in the desert in Arizona. They have problems with Cougars and Golden Eagles – the cougars jump over their 6 ft wooden fences to look for puppy meals and the eagles try to pick them off in the compound from the air. Their Ovtcharka takes care of that!

   Too much dog for me however!

   
   
   • on March 31, 2011 at 6:13 pm retrieverman

     I think these dogs do have a purpose and place. It’s just they have to be extensively socialized to live in cities and suburbs.

     But out on a ranch or farm, they would be awesome.

     
     
8. on April 1, 2011 at 3:42 pm Lindsay Tompkins

   The Nat Geo special featuring the most condemned CO breeder in North America has done the breed the greatest dis-service and nobody in the community respects her. There is a few pseudo breeders (Rockhill), who promote the breed as being perfect for apartments if you can “be the alpha” and treadmill them for exercise. They are also not setting the breed up for success. I believe very, very few people in the US truely need to own one of these wonderful dogs, and most people get interested in the breed for all the wrong reasons (young men wanting a “bad ass” protection dog). CO are not a good personal protection dog. They work off instinct not commands when it comes to realizing or engaging a threat.

   My CO has just earned his CGC at the age of 12 months and he also does nursing home visits. I live in a semi rural farming/hobby farm community on 1 acre. I agree that any breeder placing dogs into population dense areas or into an apartment setting is really setting them up for failure. I also agree that the idiot man in that video had zero control over his CO and he was obviously a horrible match for the breed and shame on the breeder for placing a dog with someone so incapable of managing the dog.

   My reasons for owning a CO, similar to my friends with the rare Japanese dogs in the desert, are to keep coyote and unwanted visitors away. German shepherds and similar more traditional protection breeds, had far too high a prey drive to be trusted unsupervised with my small Japanese dogs and poultry. They are also too velcro to be happy working independently and too inclinded to obsessively bark for no reason.

   I bought a CO in part for their good judgement in discerning a real threat, big displays, love of their pack and family, and visual deterrant factor, not because I have paranoid delusions of being attacked or victimized or some such nonsense.

   My CO has taken 2 puppy classes, and a CGC class, in addition to some handling lessons for the show ring. I don’t believe that is an abnormal amount of work needed to keep the dog socialized, but they are definately not a breed that can be left at home without doing any work and then be expected to be managable in public.

   On a side note, I take my intact male 115 lb CO to off leash dog parks routinely where he is very reliable and well mannered with other dogs and strangers. He was attacked by a golden retriever last time we went. At his CGC test, it was the Golden who lunged and snarled and couldn’t follow even the most basic obedience commands. I realize that in no way reflects on the larger population of Goldens and their people, much like that photo you posted also does not reflect the majority of good CO owners and their dogs. Too bad you used those examples to generalize about the breed.

   
   
   • on April 1, 2011 at 5:45 pm retrieverman

     I can say that you put the work into this dog.

     I do believe breed makes a difference, even though that’s not politically correct.

     This breed has nothing to offer a retriever, so it makes no sense that it would have ever been used to found them. It’s just a cock-and-bull story that has been severely discredited. They don’t naturally retrieve. They require a lot of socialization to be good with other dogs. They bond very closely to just a few people.

     Not a single trait anyone would want in a retriever.

     I guarantee you that if you didn’t put all of that important work into you ovtcharka, he wouldn’t be as placid or tractable.

     You can get by with a lot less work on a golden retriever or Labrador, and that can be bad, too. People often don’t do anything with their dogs, and you get surly retrievers.

     Don’t assume that I am attacking this breed. I am merely saying that its behavior and traits aren’t retriever traits.

     This dog does have a function, but because a lot of the ones available in the US are originally Red Army dogs, they aren’t all peaches and cream.

     
     
   • on April 1, 2011 at 5:54 pm retrieverman

     This is what these dogs could be in the right hands.

     I would, however, be more concerned about a dog that tightly bonds with just a few people and is super protective of them than I would be of a dog like a pit bull, which are normally quite friendly and gregarious dogs, even if they want to eat other dogs.

     
     
9. on February 23, 2012 at 10:36 am Jan

   It’s amazing how often I come across this blog when searching for Golden Retriever information… This picture literally had me on the floor laughing. I suppose such a dangerous looking dog could only be laughed at from the distance from which I am viewing (a photo on the Internet)

   This dog’s head looks sooo bear-like to me. Wolf X Bear! ;D

   
   

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