Instinctual behaviour
How on earth does is it work, how do they know, it always amazes me with animals, as we humans have to be taught more or less anything, otherwise we'd just sit there like a pink sack of flesh (teenager anyone?) Last night 1:30 in the morning, I was awoken to a "roowrowrowrow row", so I went down stairs to see what was amiss, the two cats are sat there in their basket with a grumpy look on their faces (stupid dog, what are you going on about now?) Archie was facing the outside door (surely not the toilet I thought?) so I let him out and followed he dashed off out growling and barking  patrolled his run area a few times with a few low barks, was satisfied nothing was there then came back to me with a grunt! then went back to his cage!
This obviously was the guarding instinct, but how on earth do they know what to do, it was quite impressive to watch, if anyone had been creeping about, no doubt they'll think twice about coming near our property I think. |
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| Don't get a Pyrenees! They are basically a nocturnal barking machine. While my sheepies are content to cuddle at night and sleep until one of our bladders wins over, a Pyr has to fight the urge to go outside and bark. It's their guardian heritage.
Who knows what Archie heard, probably something but it was gone before he got there, or else he would have described it in great detail. |
| Dogs are xenophobic by nature - that's why its much easier to train a guard dog than a go everywhere do everything dog. |
Archies Slave wrote: Instinctual behaviour,
How on earth does is it work, how do they know, it always amazes me with animals, as we humans have to be taught more or less anything, otherwise we'd just sit there like a pink sack of flesh (teenager anyone?) Wow. What an interesting question. Even we humans have instinctual (or hardwired, if you will) behavior. Your average teenager may not come hardwired to do his laundry or make her bed, but babies pop out with some basic instincts that facilitate their survival, and so do dogs. Much of what we consider breed traits (hunting, guarding, herding etc) instinct goes back (way back) to your average wild canid's survival mechanisms. For instance: 1) hunting for food - tracking, stalking, chasing, catching (controlling), killing. 2) protecting available resources (den/area, food sources, pack members/young) from predators/competitors. Once upon a long time ago when some of these wild canids and humans met up we/they (too) must have figured out our relationship could be mutually beneficial: in exchange for protecting me and my family and helping me procure food (hunting or herding and/or guarding livestock) I offer you a reliable food supply and mutual security. Of course, first order of business would have been to select for those that lent themselves easiest to be tamed. As we started selecting for "friendly", dogs and wild canids started to diverge, with dogs retaining more juvenile (puppy) wild canid features into maturity. And one can assume that along the way, some of these domesticated canids were hardwired a little more in this direction or that. Over time and with selection domesticated dogs started to become more "specialized". And along the way, probably pretty quickly come to think of it, we must have done a fair amount of selecting for dogs who would follow their basic instincts (think about our OES's obsession with chasing and "controlling") sans the kill part. Bottom line, I guess you could say we took their basic hardwiring for survival and selected for those instincts that most benefit us. Except at 1:30 in the morning when we're trying to sleep 
He probably scared off some critter. Not important to you, but he probably went back to sleep preening over the fact that he earned his keep and held up his end of the bargain 
Kristine |
| I love those lowww woofy barks. Its usually something they haven't seen before or heard something weird...or when they are scared. I'm mean..I snuck in the house the other day without showing my head and both dogs stood way, way back from the door and gave the lowwww bark and then backed up some more. They figured out it was me from the laughing...Yep I'm mean. |
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