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Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

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Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#91

Post by s1artibartfast »

shpx wrote: post #78
hippo22 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching a dog that likes playing fetch is cathartic. I truly wish I had that level of purpose and fulfillment in my life.

Dog breeds are not real animals, they're some sort of half-artificial thing created by imperfectly writing some people's desire into another species's genetic code. If you make an artificial thing that really wants to do some specific thing, like a computer endlessly printing "hello world" millions of times a second, it's not surprising to see it do the thing it was created to do. I wouldn't say the computer "wants"…

Regardless of their provenance, they are in fact real animals. They just aren't wild animals.

Artificial does not preclude real. You can make the same judgement about just about anything selected for anything- Such as strange hairless apes artificially selected planning and building and strategy.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#92

Post by WD-42 »

callamdelaney wrote: post #17

We have a springer, cocker and a sprocker. We knew that addiction to these things were a problem and so we didn’t allow it to develop. I do think that people who are constantly throwing balls, especially with a wanger, are idiots.

Why do you keep getting them then?

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#93

Post by tguvot »

emerongi wrote: post #83
tguvot wrote: post #75

I have 2 standard poodles that come from working (hunting) lineage. After few throws of tennis ball they realize that game is rigged, and just go away, making me to go and retrieve the ball

My grandparents had a hunting dog. She did not care about "play-time" at all. On the other hand, she got excited when she heard "forest" or "rabbit". Had to be careful with those words. I think when she wasn't in the forest, she was just waiting to go there again. Instead of ball, it was forest.

well, mine are not hunting dogs. But when we go for a daily walks, they immediately start tracking "whatever" walked there before (living at the city border, surrounded by fields, we have a lot of animals strolling through streets)

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#94

Post by xg15 »

> with dogs as the only non-human species so far that appears to develop addictive-like behaviours spontaneously without artificial induction

How did they reach the conclusion that dogs are the only species affected by this if they only investigated dogs?

This feels like confusing "absence of evidence" with "evidence of absence" - especially as they write it right after stating that there is a lack of research in the field.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#95

Post by moritzwarhier »

delichon wrote: post #6

Perhaps not surprising, working breeds – many of which are known to have been artificially selected for high toy or predatory motivation – were overrepresented in the sample. This is the vibe I get from my golden retriever. Chasing the tennis ball is more than play, it's a justification for life, her contribution to the pack. Actually eating food has a higher priority than chasing the ball, but not much else does. Wh…

I once stopped at a bar near a large train station in my hometown, next to a music club, alternative vibe etc.

Originally, I went there to pee after arriving from a long train commute.

Then I had a drink outside, it was a summer evening. And there was a group of people in the outside area of the bar with a dog, a tame Labrador/Golden-Retriever-like dog.

It was a good friendly dog, but it had a toy.

I got to know the dog because I threw the toy after the dog came to my table and the owners were bored.

10 minutes later, I felt increasingly stressed by the dog "forcing" me to throw the toy again and again :D

And that outside area was near, while not directly next to, a large road, which also was my final straw to get rid of my new companion before I left – the dog was running after a rolling, misthrown toy and almost ran into a cyclist on a smaller, non-car pathway next to the seatings.

I was completely overwhelmed at first by that dog's firm insistence on me throwing that toy over and over, after I had done it one time.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#96

Post by gigatree »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #88
gigatree wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of funny how the idea of behavior being a result of breeding goes out the window when it comes to pitbulls. Retrievers naturally retrieve, collies naturally herd, but when a murder-canine eats a family it’s all “oh it could have been any breed”.

it's more nuanced - "pitbull" isn't a single breed, it's a category none of the dogs in the category were bred to kill indiscriminately - they were expected to obey handlers just like any other working breed and there are a number of fighting breeds outside of the category as well

Obey handlers to do what?

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#97

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

HankB99 wrote: post #57
gwbas1c wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As in I'm obligated to throw the damn ball. As opposed to my Newfoundland that will tease me with the ball and then I'm obligated to chase her until she wears out, I catch her, or I bribe her with a treat.

Our kids have a Rottweiler that loves to chase a ball, Bring it back and then dare us to try to take it away from her. She can drop if convinced. Or I have a second ball that is more interesting, causing her to drop the other ball. She can hold two balls in her mouth so I have to wait for her to drop the first ball before I throw. She also has a large (about 1 food diameter) ball that can't possibly fit in her mouth…

Yea the "No take, only throw" game seems more endemic to Mastiff descendants, as opposed to the true "retrieval" behavior described in the top comments about Retrievers. My boxer/bulldog mix loves to chase the ball, but will fight like hell to not give it up. Like you, I rely on bribery or manipulating the properties of the ball to make it more easily relinquished.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#98

Post by shermantanktop »

brandall10 wrote: post #55
delichon wrote: post #6

Perhaps not surprising, working breeds – many of which are known to have been artificially selected for high toy or predatory motivation – were overrepresented in the sample. This is the vibe I get from my golden retriever. Chasing the tennis ball is more than play, it's a justification for life, her contribution to the pack. Actually eating food has a higher priority than chasing the ball, but not much else does. Wh…

I grew up with a cocker spaniel obsessed with tennis balls to the point of covering his food with them and letting it rot. Looking into his eyes conveyed no emotion and he didn't seem to care much for affection. He was a tennis ball tracking machine. There was nothing you could do to satiate his desire. If you gave in to a catch session, you could throw it 100 times, he would start coughing/convulsing from exhaustion…

A friend had a dog a bit like this. She really liked the dog…but I did not understand how what the human side was getting out of the relationship. The dog would probably have been equally happy living with a ball throwing machine.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#99

Post by testing22321 »

brap wrote: post #45
jncfhnb wrote: post #30

If you ever get a chance to see sled dogs in Alaska or wherever, holy shit do those dogs ever want to pull a sled. I’ve never seen an animal so fixated.

What if you never trained them to pull, and they never observed that behavior? Would they still want to do it?

We got a purebred Aussie sheepdog (kelpie) that failed its tests at a year old. They were going to shoot her, so she became our family pet.

She was obsessed with rounding things up - cats, ducks, kids, you name it.

Part of her dna for sure.

Re: Addictive-like behavioural traits in pet dogs with extreme motivation for toys

#100

Post by dwd »

electroglyph wrote: post #90

i haven't seen any mention of lasers here, so i'll add my laser anecdote. I have a very active German shepherd rescue. I made the mistake of introducing him to the laser pointer which I used to exercise my previous dog, a doberman. Now he lives and breathes for laser. He nags me all day long. He sometimes sees laser dots where there aren't any. His appetite for laser can never be satiated, heh

Squeaky toys are our GSD's main play toys, even just seems to like carrying them around. Games of chase, tug-of-war or just as a way to annoyingly get your attention with squeaking.

The other weird obsession seems to be hunting related. I once attached a toiletry holder in the shower that uses a pump to create the suction. It made a popping sound when I removed it and the GSD came running over to find what made the noise. Even a year later she still gets in the shower to see if there's anything there, especially if I'm crawling around cleaning. Maybe thinking I'm looking for it as well.

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