Reply #262: The bottom line is...when ANY dog growls at you, don't ignore it.

[renie408]

All dogs are good dogs at heart. No dog is born mean. They are born with different tolerance levels, different drives and different ideas about what is important.

A labrador can be a big pain in the ass to take on a walk in the country. They consider chasing birds to be a high priority. That's what they have been bred for. My Aussie was a pain to have around the barn when he was a puppy. He thought his raison d'etra was to herd the horses. All the time. Herd the horses. That's what he had been bred for. That is the direction his drive took him. My GSDs are actually easier to take on walks and they might have considered chasing the horses, but they were quicker to take a hint. But their job is to keep an eye on the family. Without the proper socialization, I can see where they would eat people they found threatening. So we have worked hard on socializing them. But I would never pretend that they are 'just like any other breed'. They aren't. They are large, strong, alert, SMART dogs with an agenda. They really aren't for everybody. I reckon Pitbulls are the same way. In the right hands, they can be good dogs. But they need to be in the right hands. They are not a breed that is for everybody. And by the wrong hands, I don't even mean people who are abusive. I am talking about people who think that because Buttons is mostly sweet and wiggles when they come home that he would never think about biting or attacking them. So they do something that really pisses Buttons off, ignore his attempts to alert them to the fact that he is pissed and Buttons kills them because Buttons is 50 pounds of solid muscle bred to latch on and rip something to pieces if he is going to bother biting it.