Well the first few I've seen from your link are traditional sheepdogs of some variety (no surprises there).
You've just contradicted yourself again with that clanger, citing some behavoural trait for huskies while still in denial that XL Bullies are too aggressive for dogs and humans....
Traditional sheepdogs being used in sheepdog trials, yes... How is that a clanger?
You asked for examples of open sheep herding trials, which are open to dogs other than Border Collies. It includes dogs of various breeds and various different herding styles, depending on country, which are primarily used for herding sheep but also other livestock.
You also seem to be conflating genetic behavioural traits with human-inflicted trained behaviours, as in the case of Huskies being trained to aggressively herd reindeer... which, co-incidentally, is also the primary factor in XLBs.
Yes, individual behaviour! You still don't get it - that there's some uncertainty present to the point where breed isn't a good predictor for the behavour some selected individual dog isn't a negation of the fact that breed traits exist for the breed overall and is what we're interested in when looking at XL bullies and the risk they pose.
No, you don't get it - This 'uncertainty' is due to there being such a wide within-breed variance (as already highlighted), which is precisely why no given dog can be behaviourally profiled based on breed.
As you have seen from the open sheepdog trials, there are many phenotypically different breeds that share the same behavioural genes, and many examples from each breed that do not exhibit the behaviour typically ascribed to their breed - Breed is phenotypical, behaviour is genotypical.
That you conflate the two is precisely the same mistake most people make with 'breeds'.
Yes,
some Border Collies have made good sheepdogs in the past, and that's what they're mostly known for, but the vast majority are not so special.
You might as well argue that all (true) Scotsmen are tight-fisted, kilt-wearing, whisky-chuggers with blue-painted faces, who go round yelling about freedom.
Collies are used more than any other type of dog as sheep dogs because they are geniticaly pre-disposed for that type of activity, so it's a good bet, farmers don't just spin a 'dog breed' wheel, end up with a golden retriever and say, oh well, with the right training that retriver willmake a top class sheep dog - it just won't happen.
Some lineages of Border Collie have a strong herding inheritance, yes... but they often cannot manage to herd cattle or range sheep. They only excel in Gathering style and are almost useless at herding sheep in a loose-eyed style or a traditional style. Genetics plays some part in their herding instinct, but their trainability is stronger than their intelligence, which is why they require a micromanaged style from their handler.
They can learn a lot of complex instructions, but they require instructions for everything. They can't so easily extrapolate, which is why they fall back on what they know and why they so often try to herd humans.
Farmers do pick from lineages with a history of good handling, but even then they get about 30-40% failure rates. The majority of Border Collies are bred from non-working lineages now, though, and pedigree lineages only account for about 10% of the population.
I would also argue that Border Collies are favoured partly because they originated in the UK (and my ancestral home, no less), and partly because their Gathering style handlers mostly remain stationary instead of running around with them.
Equally most attacks are carried out by Bully XL type dogs, because guess what, they are geniticaly pre-disposed for that type of activity, so it's a good bet.
That's not to say all Bully XLs will kill or attack someone, but it's a safe-ish bet, as far as betting goes.
I would like to see some actual evidence that points to a genetic disposition toward aggression in XLBs.
"For more heritable, more breed-differentiated traits, like biddability (responsiveness to direction and commands), knowing breed ancestry can make behavioral predictions somewhat more accurate. For less heritable, less breed-differentiated traits, like agonistic threshold (how easily a dog is provoked by frightening or uncomfortable stimuli), breed is almost uninformative"
From study linked above.
So far, the majority of the limited data available suggests that the American Bully, and more specifically most of its component breeds, behave the way they do because they're highly affected by their upbringing and environment. That's not a predisposition, that's just training and, as shown above, far less dependent upon genetic behavioural drivers.
The quality of being environmentally malleable
is genetically inherited, but the way any such dog responds to that environment is not.
Thus high number of attacks is, as others have guessed, primarly a result of the kind of owners they end up with, particularly in the Chav-heavy UK.
Same as why Labs are often used as guide dogs, German Shephards as police dogs, etc, etc. Not all of them 'make the grade' when training, but if you want a dog with certain traits, that's why people look to some breeds before others.
"Labradors, Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds have been and remain our most common pure breeds on the programme. Historically the Golden Retriever crossed with the Labrador has produced the most successful guide dog of all, combining many of the great traits of both breeds.
However, we have recognised that other breeds and indeed other crosses may lend additional benefits to Guide Dog users and as such, we now have curly-coated Retrievers, and standard Poodles on the breeding programme".
Guide Dogs UK
Labs are pretty much the most popular breed of dog, so it's no wonder that such a massive population has a high yield of candidates. However, you'll also find Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, Boxers, Airedales, Dobermans, Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and Vizslas in use as guide dogs, especially in countries where Labs are not so widespread.
"We used dogs of mixed breed ancestry to test the genetic effect of breed ancestry on behavior and compared that to survey responses from purebred dog owners. For some traits, like biddability and border collie ancestry, we confirm a genetic effect of breed that aligns with survey responses. For others, like human sociability and Labrador retriever ancestry, we found no significant effect".
From study linked above.
So again, a Lab making a good guide dog is not purely down to breed or heritability. The fact that Labs also have one of the highest attack stats is further evidence that
breed does not define behaviour.
In the case of Bully XL's that trait is attacking other dogs and people, simple as that.
A trait which is defined by breeder and owner treatment, not genetics.
Why would dog behaviour have nothing to do with genetics, when we know that human beahviour is part genetics and part environment. Even if environment is the greater determinant, genetics plays a role.
Why would dogs be any different? Why would dog genetics play no part in their behaviour?
That is the complete opposite of what I have been saying all along.
The difference is in assuming that breed = genetics = environment = behaviour. Genetics defines breed and genetics defines behaviour, but breed itself defines nothing.
One of the main problems with dogs like XLBs isn’t the fact they’re gigantic, but they have a very low tolerance for “kicking off” - they just go off at the drop of a hat and are almost impossible to stop when they do. (This seems to be a common trait of dogs bred from pitbulls)
As before - "For less heritable, less breed-differentiated traits, like agonistic threshold (how easily a dog is provoked by frightening or uncomfortable stimuli), breed is almost uninformative".
Pit Bulls, Bullies, Bulldogs, Collies and several other breeds are all highly responsive to their environment. No healthy dog will just kick off without reason... but whichever reasons it finds to kick off will have been taught to it. This is why dog trainers often discourage owners from playing tugging games with their dog, because it teaches them that ragdolling something is how to play.
Our ~16 week old Labrador Retriever, loves nothing more than carrying soft things around in her mouth with minimal pressure, we didn't teach her that she just does it.
Strangely enough without any training she's also excellent at bringing things back.
She comes from a long line of very successful gun dogs, but i'm sure genetics have nothing to do with it, and this is just an accident.
Whereas ours never did any of this, despite coming from strong working stock.
Different dogs, different behaviours, same breed.
Exactly that, there is some confusion ttaskmaster seems to have when it comes to the fact there's some uncertainty present, he seems to have also noted that not all collies are good at herding sheep but then used it as an argument against breeds having behavoural traits and if you point out the issue with XL Bullies he's stuck on some idea that if there is some negative behavioural trait(s) for them then all of them should have it to the same extent and also have been involved in attacks or something... the notion that there can both be breed related traits and some uncertanty seems to be a point of confusion.
Once again, the confusion is yours, seemingly deliberate, and all stemming from you not actually reading things properly.
"Breed" is a modern idealism of appearance, ie phenotype.
Behaviour is ancestrally genetic and defined by inheritance of heritable traits, not by phenotype.
That some people have tried to make ancestral traits fit into a modern pidgeonhole is merely a fallacy, which you are perpetuating.
In order for a breed-related behavioural trait to be valid, the vast majority of examples would have to strongly exhibit this trait, just as they do with the physical appearance traits that actually define all modern breeds.
Since there is such a wide variance of behaviours, both within and between breeds, any such ascription to breed is fallacious.
He's just wrong, see the study posted earlier there are clear behavioural traits associated with different breeds, the issue is he's also seen some study pointing out that those traits aren't (necessarily) good predictors for behaviour individual dogs and grocking those two things seems to be where the confusion has come from.
See those same studies, but also realise:
- That some breeds have higher heritability for behaviours
- That this same heritability is also shared between different breeds
- That variance within breeds is found at similar levels to between breeds, especially outside the very limited range of pedigree lineages.
Once again, genes define behaviour, breed does not.
We know different breeds will, in general, score differently overall for different traits, we also know that those traits will vary within a breed but (as ought to be obvious) that variance is less than the variance of that trait among dogs in general.
Do we??!!
"Studies, however, found that
within-breed behavioral variation approaches levels similar to the variation between breeds, suggesting that such predictions are error prone even in purebred dogs"
That's your first mistake...
Your second mistake is ascribing ancestral behaviours to modern breeds and assuming that ancestry is a reliable predictor of behaviour, particularly when most modern breeds are bred solely for appearance in the same mistaken assumption.
Does that negate that there can be traits associated with different breeds - nope, of course not.
But neither does association imply causation.
A few dogs of one breed being good at one style of activity geared specifically to the style in which they are trained does not mean the trait is common enough to exemplify the wider breed, particularly if as much as 90% of that breed are bred for other functions.
In reality, there may well be a combination of traits that has impacted XL Bullies, in reality, the distributions and variances of various traits won't all be the same either... but hopefully the above addresses the muddle that seems to be occurring for ttaskmaster re: individual dogs and the breed overall.
XL Bullies are not a breed.
They are a mongrel sub-variant of an already mongrel crossbreeding of five other primary breeds, with at least three other breeds involved.
Despite such a mess, you seem to think you can reasonably assume wide genetic inheritance of even slightly heritable traits and use them to decide on a breed behavioural standard, against which to measure individuals but pre-emptively deciding that the majority match anyway.
Lastly, XL Bullies are likely quite close genetically, 50% of all XL bullies in the UK descended from Killer Kimbo for example but this fact seems to have caused further confusion, it does not mean they should all have the exact same behavoural traits
You have yet to state what you think it
does mean, though, despite repeated requests for such. All we have to go on is the context in which you post this, and the comments in response to which you post.
No one claimed that genetic inheritance worked like that, you're arguing against a point you came up with yourself there ttaskmaster, there is no reason to assume that all of Kimbo's descendants would have attacked people.
Genetic inheritance from direct lineage is actually a far better reason to presume a higher likelihood of attack than mere breed. I presumed such implication is why you keep bringing this little bit of trivia up.
Feel free to explain yourself, though...
The point simply was in relation to XL Bullies being genetically similar perhaps more so even than some pedigree breeds (since you keep on making some irrelevant point that the study showing behavoural traits varying for different breeds only concerned pedigree breeds.)
You believe that some of the XLB population are genetically similar, since they have a shared ancestor... But given that XLBs are, as previously pointed out, a mongrel sub-variant of an already mongrel crossbreeding of five distinct breeds, with several other contributory breeds, plus whatever local additions are included by individual breeders, that would actually suggest their genetic profiles are ultimately more diverse than the average breed.
As pointed out, when examining a breed as a whole and not just focussing on pedigree lineages, within-breed behavioral variation approaches levels similar to the variation between breeds... and here you have a sub-group of dogs that is anything but pedigree, yet you are desperate to ascribe the same behaviour to all of them on the misrepresented, misrepresentative behaviour of a few.
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