Why dogs run into other dogs and people?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Syzygys, Sep 29, 2008.

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  1. Hercules Rockefeller

    Hercules Rockefeller Beatings will continue until morale improves. Moderator

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    The premise for the thread is flawed. Your assertion that all dogs “…keep running into each other or into people…” is obviously false.


    Yes, I have also drawn that conclusion about certain posters.

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    Hercules Rockefeller, Oct 2, 2008
    #21

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  3. Syzygys

    Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    Oh my...

    Yes, I obviously meant ALL dogs, specially the chiahuahuas....

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    On the other hand, it is hard to argue against a person, whose knees just got dislocated due to dogs running into her. yesterday another woman told us that she had to recover for a full 10 minutes, after her own dog took her down.

    Personally I was taken down by 2-3 different dogs and once hit on the knee so hard, that I had to walk it off, pretending that it didn't hurt, if you know what it means...

    It is mostly the mid-size dogs, the small ones are unable to take you down and the big ones not that careless....

    So unless you understand the concept of the thread, or had such experience please kindly fuck off....
     
    Syzygys, Oct 2, 2008
    #22

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  5. Syzygys

    Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    OK, how about this:

    Personally they can bump into each other as much as they like if it doesn't involve humans. (specially me) Also your theory doesn't explain why people not knowing unleashed dogparks didn't have this experience?

    About the eyesight: If they can avoid trees, why can't they avoid humans???
     
    Syzygys, Oct 2, 2008
    #23

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  7. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    But we've spent 15,000 years adapting dogs to accepting us as members of their packs, so they're going to treat us the way they treat each other.
    Dogs in a dog park are not members of the same pack so they're not going to perform the social rituals they perform with their pack mates. I imagine if they keep encountering the same dogs, eventually they'll start treating them like pack mates.
    They have no reason to bump trees since they can tell by their smell that they're not animals. There's no point in performing a social ritual with a plant, only certain humans do that.

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    You don't understand that they don't want to avoid us. They bump us on purpose as a way of reasserting their place in the pack hierarchy. As I hypothesized from the behavior of my own dogs, I think the subordinate pack members bump their superiors as an expression of either loyalty or subservience (I haven't really read up on this), and almost all dogs regard almost all humans as their superiors in the pack hierarchy. (I have read up on that. We didn't propagate the DNA of the wolves who thought they were in charge of our pack.)

    The superiors in our own pack don't bump their inferiors. They bully them into rolling over on their back, or simply fight them into that position if they don't submit automatically, and then they give them a ritual bite on the throat. We raise Lhasa Apsos, a breed that tends to be pretty uppity because they were originally developed to be temple watchdogs and not automatically respect human strangers. I sometimes take the ornery ones and roll them over and bite their throats, to remind them who's in charge.

    The ones who are not alphas occasionally bump me.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Oct 4, 2008
    #24
  8. Simon Anders

    Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    My experience as a dog owner is that what you describe is quite common with younger dogs but adults dogs tend to do this in specific situations. Generally when they are excited. They sit in the house staring at their unbelievably inactive pack-mate (you). Finally the alpha gets off his ass and takes you to the park or outside anyway. There you meet other dogs and life begins. Me play. Me overexited. Me resilient wild thing don't give shit about minor impacts. (me not used to ((genetically)) bipeds and their problems with stiff long legs, me bounce off other dogs.

    Think rugby players - or any group of bored australian men who are released out of doors.

    Think mosh pit.

    Every tackle someone in american football. Very good feeling - usually.

    In all my years I don't think I saw a lone adult dog, not overstimulated by finding himself amidst a bunch of humans and dogs, run into a tree. Young ones, yes. Mine used to come home with holes in his legs where he had obviously run into things. He outgrew that.

    Remember when you were a kid and loved the feel of your own body? Remember all the scrapes, holes, bruises? Remember picking scabs?

    Humans are so damn mature.

    They have to contrive some sort of excuse to crash into each other playfully.

    A dance. A racist act. A sport. Sex.
     
    Simon Anders, Oct 4, 2008
    #25
  9. Syzygys

    Syzygys As a mother, I am telling you Valued Senior Member

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    I have to agree with Simon. It is simply overexcitement and carelessness and not challanging the social order. After being in a small appartment, they are just crazy to run wild and free, and such a thing as a soft human is not an obstruction in their way...
     
    Syzygys, Oct 4, 2008
    #26
  10. Enmos

    Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Perhaps young dogs aren't as careful. Many young animals behave reckless.
     
    Enmos, Oct 4, 2008
    #27
  11. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Dogs are wolves, hunters by instinct. They're built to withstand much rougher encounters with other creatures than we are. Seven of them will jump on an old, slow bison, and he'll drop to the ground and roll over them to try to knock them off. I'm two or three times as big as a wolf and I wouldn't get that close to a bison.

    Dogs just aren't as sensitive to bumping as we are.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Oct 5, 2008
    #28
  12. Simon Anders

    Simon Anders Valued Senior Member

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    Rugby players, mosh pit dancers, half the skateboarders I've ever seen, hockey players, boxers, siblings, japanese commuters and sumo wrestlers......

    If I was hungry and bison was the food source, I'd be on that old slow one in a second, especially knowing my pack was with me.

    We're a hair's breath - ooh, nice slang, if I have it right - away from wolves. Hell, if the bailout does not work, we may see this on a wide scale.
     
    Simon Anders, Oct 5, 2008
    #29
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