Canis lupus hominis

World’s worst lurcher

November 15, 2012 by retrieverman

Greyhound/Pembroke corgi:

Source for image.  

Photo courtesy of Nara U.

Posted in dog breeds | Tagged corgi, greyhound, Lurcher, Pembroke Welsh corgi | 38 Comments

38 Responses

1. on November 15, 2012 at 11:16 am M.R.S.

   . . .or the fastest Corgi ever. . .!

   
   
   • on November 15, 2012 at 12:33 pm Painted Cricket

     I know it’s a joke. But sighthounds don’t have rockets in the behind, they need legs for full extension that allows them to cover ground and they need a tuck to fit those legs for the reach. if anything, maybe the most flexible corgi, but nothing else…

     
     
2. on November 15, 2012 at 12:30 pm Painted Cricket

   Ohgod. That’s awful.

   
   
3. on November 15, 2012 at 1:56 pm Anna

   I just met someone who is “breeding” (i.e. leaving intact unsupervised) Great {Pyrenees/Corgi crosses & selling them as LGDs. The mind, it boggles.

   
   
   • on November 15, 2012 at 5:25 pm Ogre Magi

     What is a LGD?

     
     
     • on November 15, 2012 at 5:38 pm Anna

       LGD= livestock guardian dog. Examples: Great Pyrenees, Anatolian Shepherd, Maremma, Central Asian Shepherd, Hungarian Kuvasz, Tibetan Mastiff, Spanish Mastiff, Armenian Gampr, Transmontano Mastiff, Pyrenean Mastiff, Polish Tatra, Sarplaninac. The list of LGD breeds is long. But notice they are all large, hairy, & powerful. Corgis don’t really fit the bill, methinks.

       
       
       • on November 15, 2012 at 7:47 pm bearcoatpei

         Large, hairy, powerful and with LONG legs. The appearance of bodily bulk of most of those breeds is caused by the thick coat and they are extremely agile and fleet footed for such large dogs. Any predator would eat an achondroplastic LGD as an entree.

         
         
         • on November 15, 2012 at 7:50 pm Anna

           Tell me about it! My Central Asians & Anatolians move like lightning!

           
           
           • on November 16, 2012 at 12:51 am Kathy K

             Hi. OT, but what’s with the amputation of ears? I’ve read that prick eared dogs panic sheep. Is that true and, if so, is it the reason for the amputation? And, if that’s true, is it the reason why we have drop-eared dogs? (I think, though, that drop ears probably came about as the dog skull got smaller and narrower, probably as the need for speed unfolded to give us the sight hounds.)

             
             
             • on November 16, 2012 at 1:14 am Anna

               No LGD breed has prick ears. They all have small drop ears, like a Golden Retriever. The breeds that are cropped aren’t cropped to make them look like they have prick ears, it’s to keep them from having their ears ripped up in fights with predators. You’ll notice it’s the more aggressive breeds that are traditionally cropped, because they’re more likely to go after & attack predators. The whole ear flap is removed, generally at around 3 days of age, there isn’t enough left to give the appearance of pricked ears. The bit of fluff sticking up from what remains of the bell is nothing like the actual upright ear of a wolf or coyote & is just enough to allow the dog to communicate easily & to protect the inner ear from rain, debris, etc.

               A working crop like I do on my dogs leaves enough of the pinnae to ensure the ear canal is protected from the elements, so they look like they just have really tiny ears (my rough coat girl still looks like she has full hanging ears because of the fluffy fur that grows below her ears. Most people don’t even notice until they stroke her ears.). A lot of show breeders do a more extreme crop where they remove the entire pinnae as well as some of the skin around the ear canal opening, so they basically look like lizards with holes in the sides of their heads, smooth when viewed from the front. I don’t do this because I think it is insane to crop so deeply when the dog is supposed to live outside. Rain just flows right down into those extreme crops. It’s even sillier than the super long crops done on Boxers & Dobermans & Danes that are purely for looks.

               
               
               • on November 16, 2012 at 5:54 am retrieverman

                 Actually, this is simply wrong.

                 Ever heard of a Canaan dog? That’s a livestock guardian.

                 Ever herd of an Azawakh? That’s a livestock guardian.

                 The mongrels that the Navajo use? Livestock guardians.

                 The dogs you’re talking about are just mastiff-type dogs that are used for that purpose.

                 Unfortunately, the Coppingers screwed everyone up on this. People think livestock guardians are only those big mastiffs from Eurasia, but in most of the world, the livestock guardians aren’t big mastiffs at all.

                 I’m sure you know that a Central Asian Ovtcharka can be trained to herd and hunt in the same way that a Canaan dog can be used to her or that someone might course with an Azawakh that normally guards goats.

                 These dogs never were as specialized as we have made them, and the idea that it’s what these dogs look like that makes them good at their job is really the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

                 You can take a Chesapeake Bay retriever, raise it with livestock, and it will do the exact same job as a Great Pyr, though probably much better, because Chesapeakes are really aggressive guard dogs. I cannot recommend Mark Derr’s A Dog’s Best Friend enough. It really does a lot of important “de-programming.”

                 I certainly needed it!

                 
                 
                 • on November 16, 2012 at 8:23 am Dave

                   Swedish Vallhunds are both herding dogs and livestock guardian dogs. Their jobs when the farmers left the field for the day was to stop poachers and rustlers.

                   
                   
                   • on November 16, 2012 at 8:39 am bearcoatpei

                     Vallhunds were longer in the leg and shorter in the back historically than the ones you see in the showring. It nearly died out in the 1940s and was “revived”. They did the same job as shar-pei and many other general farm dogs which was to hunt, herd and guard in various percentages. The herd size/breed/liberty, terrain and climate has a lot to do with what constitutes a LGD.

                     
                     
                   • on November 16, 2012 at 8:45 am Dave

                     It depends on the cultural needs as well. :)

                     
                     
                 • on November 16, 2012 at 8:23 am bearcoatpei

                   Nobody said that the big molosser type dogs that the LGD monniker is most commonly given to are the only dogs that guard livestock. But it does cover the bulk of breeds that indeed do that job.

                   The one thing guardians of livestock worldwide have in common though is legs proportionate to their body. I suppose some of the puppies of a corgi x great pyrenees would too, but some wouldn’t. I dare say someone somewhere has a corgi that they say has chased wolves and big cats off their sheep, but it will be the very lucky exception rather than the rule.

                   Of course you could train most breeds to do any random job that dogs are known to do, but their aptitude would still depend somewhat on their body shape (a greyhound is probably always going to be a better hare courser than a pitbull for instance, just on body type alone). So in many ways it does matter what a dog looks like depending on it’s job.

                   
                   
                   • on November 16, 2012 at 8:44 am retrieverman

                     The bulk of the breeds in northern Eurasia are of mastiff-types.

                     They are not representative of Latin America, parts of the Middle East, or almost all of Africa.

                     It depends on what you mean by “aptitude.” If you mean win a trial designed for that breed, then yes, that breed will do better than a dog from another breed.

                     Trials are not the same as “work.”

                     But for general purposes, it really isn’t true. When it comes to behaviors, you can teach a golden retriever to herd sheep and very tame cattle. You can train a beagle to flush and retrieve pheasants. And you can even train a chihuahua to tree squirrels and perch grouse. You cant take a flushing spaniel and train it to point (and if you incorrectly train steady to flush, you’ll get a pointer that sits whenever it encounters a bird). The only thing that really limits dogs is trainer skill and the actual conformation of the dog. Read some Bill Tarrant, who trained dozens of different breeds to be competent waterfowl retrievers.

                     Trials are entirely different because they have esoteric standards that aren’t really all that different from conformation shows.

                     But that doesn’t mean that historically, greyhounds were often used to retrieve pheasants and that Siberians, cut off from most of the world, relied upon their hunting spitzes to do some of the work for which the British required several specialized dogs.

                     I think dog culture has set up mental blocks in so many ways. One of them is what Mark Derr calls this “culture of instinct”– that if a dog is bred for it, then it should be able to do it better than all other dogs.

                     Not necessarily.

                     
                     
                 • on November 16, 2012 at 12:10 pm Anna

                   I HAVE an Azawakh! I wouldn’t put her near the stock for love or money! She’s a hunter of animals, not a protector of them! Azawakhs are hunters & territorial property guard dogs, NOT LGDs. Canaan Dogs are more general farm dogs that herd when needed & guard the general property, but which are not left unattended with livestock full time. Chessies are too high energy, they take a long time to settle down, are puppyish & playful well into old age, & are going to be prone to using the stock as playmates, thus harassing & stressing them unnecessarily. The Native American dogs are essentially landrace dogs that have been selected for LGD work. The ones that aren’t calm with livestock get shot, plain & simple, so the temperament traits that are not conducive to the work are selected away from, which as we all know is likely how the “purebred” LGDs developed. They may have all manner of ear sets, pricked is certainly not preferred, but in time, they will likely go the same route. None of these are dogs which are going to be good at being left alone with the livestock for any length of time. An LGD is a dog that specializes in living with livestock, with a genetic predisposition to protect rather than hunt. Much like a good herding dog will show instinctive stalking behavior as a young puppy, a good LGD puppy will demonstrate calmness toward livestock. How a pup is raised & trained will modify whatever natural tendencies they possess, but if you want the best dog for the work, you start with a dog that already leans in that direction.

                   A good LGD is also generally big enough & athletic enough to handle any manner of predators. That is one area where the Native American dogs fail in droves. They are killed by large or bold predators all the time, including, surprise, surprise, other dogs. They don’t care because they don’t expend many resources on their dogs, but wild predators are smart. Domestic herbivores are easier to kill than wild ones, so if the dogs are small & wimpy & also easy to kill, why would they be a deterrent? It’s a cost/benefit analysis. The guardian dogs need to be tough enough to offer enough resistance to make the predators choose to move on, & they also need to be tough enough to take out the ones which decide, for whatever reason, to try anyway. In my area, feral dogs & strangely large coyotes (be they coydogs or coyote/wolf crosses) are the primary predator of interest, & they’ve learned that most dogs are creampuffs. So yes, I need a dog that will do more than bark AND that can easily win in a fight. My little 50 pound Chow/Sibe (who is also a stock killer, so would never be an LGD even if she was larger) can take out a single, normal sized coyote (and boy, has she!) but she simply isn’t large or powerful enough to take out 3 or 4 at once. My LGDs are.

                   Coppinger doesn’t really seem to understand what his stance actually is on the subject. On the one hand, he says dogs with the best genetically behavioral “shape” (i.e. that are bred for it) are going to be the best LGDs. Then he also says any dog, no matter its genetics, will be good a LGD if raised with the livestock from puppyhood. He also advises a completely hands off approach to raising & training LGDs. But his LGD project failed miserably because his dogs were too feral to be of use. In practice, dogs which are not bred specifically for the work are far more likely to wash out, get killsed, or become stock killers. LGD/herding & LGD/hunting crosses are among the worst stock killers, & purebred herding or hunting dogs require more supervision because they’ve been bred for a different set of drives, i.e. to chase & even kill, & most of them are either too small & weak, too large & clumsy, or lack the right coat for living outdoors 24/7. Also, breeders who raise essentially feral dogs because they never handle them are producing unstable or weak temperaments that develop into fear aggressive dogs or dogs so timid they run from danger right along with their livestock families. So the truth, in real life, lies somewhere in the middle. Hedge your bets by going for a dog bred specifically for the task, be it a purebred, a crossbred, or a land race, from parents that are proven at the task, & then raise it doing that task. Handle your LGDs daily, but do it in the pasture, with the stock. Don’t be tempted to bring that puppy in to sleep inside & don’t encourage it to hang around the house, but don’t just toss it out into the pasture & expect it to never make a mistake. And don’t get a dog bred to do one thing & then expect it to do another.

                   And yes, I’ve seen Central Asians used for big game hunting, usually wolves & boar. Mine are avid hunters. But their predatory drives are not like those of dogs selectively bred purely for hunting. They’re much more discriminatory & need very little training to learn how to differentiate from “wild deer I can kill” & “goat I must protect”. They even understand which animals of the same species belong & which can be dispatched, like the barn cats vs feral cats, or the pig we raise every year vs wild hogs tearing up the fencing in the bottom pasture. The point is, you can leave your stock alone with an LGD bred & raised for the task & trust it to make approved decisions. You would be unwise to do so with the more general purpose dogs which have a herding or hunting bent. It’s all about stacking the deck in your favor.

                   
                   
                   • on November 16, 2012 at 12:40 pm Dave

                     And yes, I’ve seen Central Asians used for big game hunting, usually wolves & boar. Mine are avid hunters. But their predatory drives are not like those of dogs selectively bred purely for hunting. They’re much more discriminatory & need very little training to learn how to differentiate from “wild deer I can kill” & “goat I must protect”. They even understand which animals of the same species belong & which can be dispatched, like the barn cats vs feral cats, or the pig we raise every year vs wild hogs tearing up the fencing in the bottom pasture.

                     Any dog can do what is described. Obviously you have never hunted over a dog before. Instead, you just wallow in breed fantasies and myths.

                     
                     
       • on November 15, 2012 at 9:55 pm massugu

         There’s also the fact that the Corgi, like the Border Collie, or the Aussie Shepherd, was bred for its propensity to herd (a form of predatory behavior) livestock, while LGDs were bred for their propensity to identify w/ and guard livestock. The wise stock handler has members of both types working w/ his/her stock.

         
         
         • on November 15, 2012 at 10:25 pm Anna

           Exactly. Herding dog/LGD crosses combine all that prey drive of the herding dog with the independence, power, & aggression of the LGD & often grow into world class stock killers. The Corgi would at least make the cross less *able* to kill, I guess. But of course it would also be less able to fight predators. And it would still be likely to herd/harass/nip at the stock.

           
           
           • on November 16, 2012 at 8:25 am Dave

             Not really. A well-trained farm-dog would not aggressively pursue livestock.

             Not all herding dogs are as obssessive like Border Collies.

             
             
             • on November 16, 2012 at 9:27 am bjarne1

               Even border collie crosses can be good .

               “Samson is a half-Maremma. His dam is purebred Maremma and his sire is purebred Border Collie (both parents are working stock).”

               http://2wmaremmas.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=13549446

               
               
             • on November 16, 2012 at 10:48 am massugu

               I think we have to be careful here not to confuse preference w/ training. Yes we can train dogs away from inherent behaviors, but that doesn’t mean the dog in question doesn’t still have a predilection for that behavior, or that its puppies won’t also have that predilection. Some breeds, like the original form of the American Bulldog, are truly all-purpose. Others naturally fall into behaviors that make them most useful for performing specific tasks. Most folks just tend to take the easy road in this regard.

               
               
               • on November 16, 2012 at 11:34 am Dave

                 Thing is, I never heard of an untrained corgi being a livestock killer. In fact, Pembroke corgis just plain suck at herding after watching a herding instinct test.

                 I have heard of trained Border Collies killing livestock though.

                 
                 
                 • on November 16, 2012 at 3:58 pm massugu

                   What if you bred that Corgi to say, an Ovcharka and the resultant pups had the Corgi’s prey drive? Do you think they’d’d be apt to kill stock? I wouldn’t want to risk my stock on that possibility.

                   BTW: its my understanding that Corgis have a completely different herding technique than say Collies or Aussie Shepherds. It might be unfair to judge them in a standard event.

                   
                   
               • on November 16, 2012 at 12:53 pm Dave

                 The point is, for some reason, when people think of herding dogs, they automatically default to the ISDS-registered dogs. I do admit, that the type of dogs people breed for in herding trials are the most likely to kill livestock by running them to exhaustion if left unsupervised– even trained ones. However, the vast majority of working farm-dogs in the world don’t or shouldn’t have to be crated to prevent running stock.

                 We don’t always have to look at things from an Anglo-American point of view. The world isn’t cut and dry between sheep-chasers and wolf-crushers.

                 
                 
       • on November 16, 2012 at 1:04 pm Dave

         If I remember a study or report done by North American livestock ranchers, the recommendation is to use the West European LGD-types as sentry-dogs only; and the East European and Asian LGD-types as a line of defence because the report found that the breeds from Central Europe and Western Europe are not capable of deterring coyotes; while a brace of Volkodav-types would force a lone wolf to think twice.

         So, how would a pure-bred Pyrenees be any better than a cross-bred based on the report’s recommendations above? And despite that corgis are classified as herding dogs by Kennel Clubs around the world, most of them don’t have the instinct anymore. So, again, why is the cross such a bad thing? No rancher is going to use a pure-bred Pyrenees as predator-deterrent without back-up from a Volkodav.

         
         
         • on November 16, 2012 at 4:03 pm massugu

           Dave said “No rancher is going to use a pure-bred Pyrenees as predator-deterrent without back-up from a Volkodav.” I agree w/ the sentiment expressed but if my take on what is actually happening is correct that is exactly what some (many?) ranchers are doing–some don’t even want the expense of keeping LGDs–they’d rather see the predators eliminated on Uncle Sugar’s dime.

           
           
           • on November 16, 2012 at 5:25 pm Dave

             What actually happened was when the government started telling the ranchers to buy LGD or LPD, the ranchers bought a dog or two from breeds already existing in North America. They quickly found out that the dogs got slaughtered by cougars and wolves. Why would you waste money on a dog which would get slaughtered by a predator? It’s much cheaper to use a bullet.

             While LPDs are successful at repelling black bears (Ursus americanus) and grizzly bears during most encounters (Andelt 2004), their effectiveness against wolves has met with mixed results. The number of conflicts between LPDs and wolves is increasing in the Rocky Mountains of the United States, with 83 LPDs killed by wolves in this region from 1985 to December 2005 (Bangs et al. 2006). Confirmed fatal wolf attacks on LPDs are only a fraction of all wolf-caused deaths, since many LPDs will simply disappear, with their fate unknown (Bangs et al. 2005). Most (11 of 18 = 61 percent) of the documented fatal wolf attacks on LPDs from 1995 through 2004 in the Yellowstone region of the Northern Rockies involved the killing of Great Pyrenees LPDs (Bangs et al. 2005). Researchers suggest that these conflicts involved LPDs that were outnumbered and outweighed by their wild counterparts (Bangs et al. 2005). There are similar reports of wolves killing LPDs in France, and both hunting dogs and LPDs in Italy (Rigg 2001). Wolves in the United States have been taking their toll on hunting dogs, as well. There were 49 hunting dogs confirmed as killed by wolves in Wisconsin 2004 through 2006, with an additional 10 injured (Ruid et al. 2009). The 35 dogs confirmed to have been killed by wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming during 2006 to 2008 included LPDs, hunting dogs, and pets (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2009). In one stunning case in Romania, wolves killed 157 adult LPDs from January 2001 to October 2002, with wolves consuming the majority of the carcasses in most cases, and leaving the nearby livestock unscathed. This situation appeared to be the result of one wolf pack that had specialized in preying on dogs (Mertens and Schneider 2005).

             This report states that ranchers should increase their experiments of using one or two westernized breeds to using a mixture of 2 to 5 dogs with different personality traits and working styles. They also listed several recommended breeds.

             It is recommended that range sheep producers in the Northern Rockies try using groups of two to five of these LPDs to protect each of their herds, with the objective of outnumbering and outweighing wolves or other large carnivores encountered. Individual dogs will have different behavioral and guarding tendencies, so developing the proper mix of traits into a group of LPDs may take time and readjustment of the animals involved.

             Source: http://lordsofnature.org/documents/LivestockProtectionDogs.pdf

             
             
             • on November 17, 2012 at 4:20 pm massugu

               Hi Dave, yeah I read all that a while back. I’ll grant you that the gov shudda been a bit more specific in describing the breeds to use. The one thing I haven’t seen is a concerted effort to ensure that there are human drovers present with the herds and flocks. Back in the 19th century Basque shepherds filled the bill for the sheep ranchers. I suspect that their equivalent can still be found among the millions of Hispanics looking to el Estados Unidos for employment.

               
               
4. on November 15, 2012 at 4:36 pm peg4x4

   WHY!?
   Not that it isn’t a nice,happy dog.

   
   
5. on November 15, 2012 at 4:39 pm massugu

   I suspect he might eventually have back problems. Elsewise, I kinda like him.

   
   
6. on November 15, 2012 at 7:39 pm bearcoatpei

   Sire or dam, that was a corgi with ambition!

   
   
7. on November 15, 2012 at 9:01 pm Karla

   I think he’s actually a pretty cute little guy……

   
   
8. on November 15, 2012 at 11:01 pm massugu

   A question comes to mind. Writers/biologists comparing wolf and domestic dog physiognomy, often comment on the difference in size & placement of the ears. Could the domestic dog’s ears be a remnant of its primary descent from a southern, arid climate subspecies of wolf, one that would most likely have exhibited the larger extremities observed/expected in animals endemic to such climes? Just curious.

   
   
   • on November 15, 2012 at 11:06 pm massugu

     Note: This question did indeed arise because of the relatively large size of this particular dog’s ears.

     
     
9. on November 18, 2012 at 2:23 pm Adam

   I think the specialised breeds probably evolved in more affulent environemnts. If your in a sparse environment you cannot afford the rescources for a herding dog, a guarding dog, a fetching dog ect! You need a dog that can do it all well enough to keep you alive!

   I think in some ways we have over bred behaviours into some modern breeds. I know dogs with such high prey drive they will hunt (either real or toy) until they collapse. This would not be a good trait in a natural setting! Now with good training you can get some control of them but they still have the desire to hunt until they drop!

   I also think as people have become less good at dog training they tend to rely on genetics more! Historically of course people didn’t have fancy training methods/equipment but they had lots of dog time were the dog was with them and they trained the dog to their needs during their time togehter. So the dog learnt the behaviours.
   Now people have less dog time and often become so hooked up on training philosphy that they don’t train! Hence relying on genetics!

   Adam

   
   
10. on November 21, 2012 at 9:29 am chervilmeadow

    how could the pharoah hound have stopped so low when it met the dachshund?

    
    

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