In some cool news, on the weekend I get to temperment test a litter of 6, 6 week old shepherd mixes for a local rescue. There's four pre-approved adoptions, so I even get to help match families up. How cool is that! I'm pretty stoked.
In other news: Vibo had an awesome homecheck that hopefully will be his forever home :). Sunshine goes home on the weekend and everyone I seem to pick for the TG bus run seems to get adopted so who's coming is totally up in the air (like usual).
Jinks was instinct tested on sheep yesterday and was scared of them! We will instinct test her again at a year to see if the drive shows up but right now she's saying "No thank you! You can deal with those scary sheep and I'll just watch." As far as I know she's cattle-bred so there must be a little something. If there is, great, another sport for us, if not, we'll stick to agility and heck, it'll definitely save some money! I didn't get Jinks to be a pheonemal sports dog, I got her to get my feet wet in a bunch of different things. Plus, with her rock-steady dog skills she will make an awesome dog to work with reactive dogs, so in a way that is more useful than a high-drive sports prospect!
It's a really nice day out though, so we're off to the park. Last day for Sunny to get muddy as I want to clean her up for her new mum. She and Vibo have been rolling in the mud and neither or them are quite as good as Jinks about cleaning themselves off. Retrievers, they just like being dirty I guess.
Emily + Crew Out
Fostering dogs in Victoria, BC. Giving them lifeskills, cushy pillows, structure, confidence and copious snuggles. From chihuahuas to Rottis, to huskies and anything in between, amusing stories, mostly useless dog tips, and cute dog pictures abound.
2 comments:
Temperament test.. I'm very curious about what methods go into that.
& at 6 weeks! that is young.
Wendy
Just like people we are composed of both nature and nurture. Good quality breeders usually have their puppies temperment tested by a "new" person, usually a trainer. From the get go you can test drive, willingness to please and follow, sports potential, general energy level, confidence level (you have to seperate for 10-15 minutes from the mum and siblings), mouthiness and stubbornness. It's especially interesting to do a full litter as you can see differences right off the bat.
In good litters most of the pups will fall mid-way on the spectrum which means they are usually good for the "Every family". Higher drive dogs will need more dog-savvy homes, stubborn/super mouthy dogs will do best without children, etc.
Of course nuture plays a HUGE role too, but to see the difference in pups so young, you know genetics play such a pheomenal part of the package too.
I should know. Jinks is a border collie and is for sure a high energy dog, but she pales in comparison to the energy even medium-range border collies have. Depending on her litter she probably would have been marked as an eager-to-follow "easy" family collie. She wouldn't have even been considered as a sports prospect.
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