Rate your breed?

Luthien
Posted Yesterday, 07:46 AM #2

Azz, would it be possible to set up some kind of thing where people can say what breed/s they have, and rate their dogs 1-5 on things like "good with cats" etc.? If enough people do it (and answer honestly!) it might give prospective owners a clearer idea of what they can expect from each breed.



Azz
Posted Today, 12:50 AM #3

Sounds like a good idea Helen, maybe start a new thread in General Dog Chat, and ask everyone else which questions they think ought to be included


So, what do you all think?
Maybe:
Good with cats?
Good with children?
Good with other dogs?
Can be left for a few hours?
Good recall?
A question regarding how much exercise, maybe what you would class as the minimum it needs.
A question about appetite/food
Perhaps a way to list any specific problems (chewing stuff, chasing cars/bunnies etc.)

What else do you think would be helpful?

grooming on a scale of 1-10
trainability on a scale of 1-10
small furries
livestock
guarding instinct
health problems

thats all i can think of for now...

Good idea. On the scale of 1-5 is 1 good or bad, or is 5 the best or worst of something? You'd have to decide also which way round you're going to do it and make it very clear to those answering so there's no confusion.

Aside from that, would it be worth making sub-folders for breeds with lots of owners who answer? otherwise we could end up with a thread of 100 pages or more with details of ansers for, say, GSDs (of course) dotted all over the place.
Personally, I'd rather look at a GSD folder to see the GSD answers that have to trawl through dozens or hundreds of posts to find what I'm looking for.

Ialso think that you'd have to mae it clear that if there' a lot of answers for a specific breed it make give quite a good idea of what dogs are like in certaqin situations. However, if ther aren't too many of a specific breed that people answer about then those answers given may not be representative of the breed as a whole.

If prospective owners are likely to be looking at the answer too (by that do you mean dog owners already looking for another breed or outsiders who aren't yet members of dogsey who have never owned a dog?) is may be worth putting a note on it stating that one owner's answers about their breed/dog doesn't necessarily hold for all dogs of the same breed.

For example, I have a yougn GSD with severe HD. She can never partake in agility. However, many healthy GSDs are very good at it.
I have Lurcher with absolutely NO chase instinct or prey drive and a male GSD who is dopey around cats but my other 2 GSD would happily chase and kill cats.

I thik the thread is a good idea but clearly what works for one dog of a certain breed isn't necessarily the same for other dogs of the same breed.

Agree with above. I have two of the most placid, well behaved Boxers on the planet, a joy to rear & train. Never a training issue with either. However not every Boxer is the same - you can get very bouncy Boxers & when all is said & done, they are not a breed for everyone.

Also think health issues should be noted - experience with known breed health issues could be noted

I think this is a fab idea!

I agree that each breed should have its own folder if possible?

Or maybe each group - e.g. pastoral, gundog - would have a folder?

I think it's a good idea, even though all dogs in breeds are different, it will still hep people get an idea of the variety fo personalities within a breed.

I agree with this I'm afraid.

Beyond the very basics (grooming, health, typical temperament, etc., most of the other 'questions' are completely down to the individual dog. Therefore peoples answers won't really hold much relevance when making judgements about the breed as a whole.

So, no I don't think it is a good idea. You could gather more informed information looking at general dog breed books and looking at breed club websites. A compilation of questions as you have proposed would be more like an anecdotal owner survey of their dogs characteristics, rather than information that is representative of the whole breed.

There are all kinds of extremes of personality in all breeds though. There are aggressive Labradors, nervous Labradors, hyperactive Labradors, lazy Labradors, dumb Labradors and laid back Labradors. You can change "Labrador" for pretty much any other breed. Does people listing what their own individual dog(s) personality is like really give me an accurate idea of what the breed is like? nope. It tells me that there is a variety of temperaments within the breed (obviously!) but what it does not tell me is what the CORRECT temperament for that breed should be.

My GSDs have all been extremely different. The ones who have been brought up with children have been good with children. I wouldn`t like to answer for ones who haven`t. Things like `good with cats / kids etc` depends very much on the dogs` experience and training, not anything they`re born with IMO. I agree that this would be too subjective. We all have experience of a small sample of dogs, only.
However - grooming needs, health tests advised, original purpose, possible traits, yes. I think it could be a good idea, but the questions need to be more considered. There`s one in the monthly dog magazine isn`t there?

You could have additional box for comments. In this you could specify the differences between your dogs of the same breed.