Regardless of all the recently developing issues surrounding Tovarish's adolescence, the basic personality that we've seen over the past year remains intact and he just seems all the more wonderful as time passes.
Today we went to the Laurel Canyon Dog Park, one of the best off-leash parks around. On weekends it is particularly crowded and we have used it for the past year as a prime dog socialization opportunity as it is a controlled area of utter canine mayhem. There are often as many as fifty dogs running around in an area of about two acres and there are all sorts of personalities represented.
Originally Tovarish approached these trips with real trepidation, hanging back and waiting for dogs to approach him, not acting fearful, but not being particularly outgoing. As time passed and his hormones began to flow he grew accustomed to the park and was more forward.
Today he struts around as if he owns the park, yet he is always benevolent. Regardless of how aggresively a dog may approach him, Tovarish is always reserved and slow to build to any kind of strong response. If a dog comes on too strongly Tovarish gives it several opportunities to back down and reconsider. If the dog stays harsh Tovarish will do something small but clear, indicating to the dog that the attitude will not be tolerated. In the last year with nearly constant introductions to new and strange dogs I have never seen an all-out response and have only seen him react strongly a half dozen times.
In fact, his attitude in the park is more one of peace keeper. If two dogs begin to fight, (Tovarish always recognizes the difference between noisy roughhousing and fighting), he will dash over at top speed and place himself bodily between the combatants. If they move away and begin again he will bark ferociously in their faces and intervene again. If they continue to fight he will knock over the dog he believes is out of line and scare off the other while he disciplines the antagonist.
I find this behavior astounding, and if I hadn't seen it repeated time after time I wouldn't believe it. Other people at the park have come over to ask me how I trained Tovarish to stop fights! Would that I knew how! Tovarish broke up two fights tonight, once succeeding where the owners had failed. In both instances little Ilka followed him over and remained on the periphery, observing. My greatest hope is that he is able to pass his attitudes on to her.
I can't say if this behavior is characteristic of LGDs, but this is what I find most attractive in Tovarish. He has a very clear sense of right and wrong and he will not violate it, nor will he tolerate others' violations. Do any of you see similar behaviors and attitudes in your dogs?
Now if only we can convince him that fast moving children should be disciplined only by their parents!
(Reminds me of a joke: The difference between Saks Fifth Avenue, Sears and Pic-N-Save (bottom of the barrel of discount stores)? In SFA you tell your kids that if they don't behave you'll take them outside and give them a spanking. In Sears you can spank them in the store. In Pic-N-Save you can spank other people's children.)
Benjamin G. Levy, ben-levy@westworld.com
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