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Hello!
My name is László Bartha,
and this is the third part of
Livestock Guardian Dogs Ethology,
titled: Rank Fight II.
This time my young pack leader guards the rusty depot in the background.
For Gypsies could not take and carry apart.
This is his very own area. Rival male is not allowed in.
In principle.
The yellow male respects this.
Hopefully.
Is it ignorance or arrogance, that has gone so close
to personal area of the pack leader?
Since approaching that much is a serious insult or provocation.
My sensitive pack leader is embarrassed.
He is raising his first legs, swinging his tail,
swallows back his saliva, and his rear leg trembles.
The yellow seems to be calmer, although it doesn't keep the eye contact.
And now explodes the repressed aggression.
This burst out, makes the yellow male to return.
It's exorbitant, what he allows to himself.
As the gray male glances aside,
he turns his head away.
The other also is looking forward, to can step back.
The tension between ambition and angst in the yellow dog.
The tension between honor and angst in the gray dog.
A good shepherd dog never fights willingly!!
But when certain situations arise, it proves a tough fighter.
Deadlock.
It's hard to get out of it.
I can almost hear their brain cells firing all out.
Though they are keen to show a bored face.
The grandfather of the gray dog was such sensitive one.
He had no such complex meta-communication,
but in similar cases - for his lips were loose -
his saliva always began to flow.
He also did not like to fight,
but if he still had to,
he fought hard.
Well!! The yellow dog gets trembled too.
He is not from stone neither.
Observe the subtle play of the tail!
It shows exactly the changing balance of the opposite forces in the dog's soul.
Hardly ever should be seen today in the meta-communication
of so called pure-bred shepherd dogs like Caucasian, Central Asian, Kangal, etc.
Why?
1. Inbreeding narrows each spectrum. (That's the point.)
But also the meta-communicative spectrum of the inbred population, called breed.
(That's why Konrad Lorenz wasn't interested in pure-bred dogs.)
2. Most of the urban breeders of shepherd dogs are doing a contraselection.
If in such situations the tail of their dogs do not stands up stiff,
they consider it like cowardice, discarding the individual.
While I have seen lots of these stiff-tailed dogs,
starting a fight without any hesitation,
then to quit it before turning it serious,
with stand up tail, of course.
The gray dog can't stand, without indignation.
But it really is outrageous the yellow male's arrogance.
He went back again!
Exorbitant!
There will be no good end!
Now that I came here, to see what happens,
the gray dog wants to come to me.
The other interprets this as he would had drawn back,
and immediately makes his way into the area.
And the leader dog tolerates this!!!
Incredible!
He even wags his tail.
Now the gray dog struggles with himself:
to come to me, or keep back the yellow?
I have myself become a complicating factor.
And if they will start fighting, the chain also will be such a factor.
Tail down, head turned away.
He went in, but doesn't provoke.
But the intrusion is though a provocation.
“Think, think, think...” (Winnie-the-Pooh)
And it goes more in.
Why is this so important to him??
Now if I would go to them firmly,
the gray dog certainly would attack the yellow one.
How his thigh is trembling?!
Once, several years ago,
I was telling to Péter Veszeli - a fellow breeder of mine -
about my dog's sensitivity.
He remarked then:
"Every outstanding dog is a sensitive one."
(This of course does not mean,
that all sensitive dogs would be outstanding dogs.)
It may seem paradoxical, but just the sensitive dog,
supported of course by other qualities like:
high pain-threshold, force, speed, stamina, intelligence, etc.
is able to go quite far in limit-situations.
To push the envelope.
The sensitive dog can be sensitive to its honor too.
The legislator’s incompetence in dog behaviour,
and the program policy of different media formats
makes almost impossible to reveal publicly real border-situations.
For lack of these an appearance can getting strength
on that then a dog-business is building itself.
The reality of business hidden overwrites the reality of dogs,
so distorting it unscrupulously objectifies it impoverishing to a tool.
"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur."
"The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived."
wrote Sebastian Brant in 1494(!)
He permits him to reside there,
but for how long?
In such cases therefore, the tension in dogs is increasing more and more.
Now an embarrassed and at the same time tension relieving yawn.
The yellow dog should still get away with it.
Still he should leave the critical area.
In what an extent the gray dog tries to avoid the conflict!
How far he lets him!
How pliant and wary he is!
Good shepherd dog.
Good-willing leader.
- Okay, you came in, but I consider you a pack member, let's forget about it,
- but I would appreciate, leaving you slowly my personal zone,
- cause you bother me awfully.
The yellow swallows back his saliva too.
He is also quite excited,
only dissembles it better.
But yet he keeps pushing the boundaries.
I have to change the battery.
I hope I will not miss anything.
They clashed after all.
How many time has got the yellow dog however,
to change his mind.
In the background my young Central-Asian male
is just beating my young Central-Asian female.
He feels forced to work off the tension caused by these two.
If they will get caught in the chain, they will be in trouble.
It would get sand, or rather gravel, in the behavior-machinery.
They will not understand the situation.
It can break their teeth.
But now I cannot go there.
Both of them would consider a support.
The yellow dog now should turn his head nice and slowly to left.
But he does not.
According to Slavs, the gray already lost now,
'cause he shows his teeth.
The yellow wants the row.
Well.
The one who looks more confident in a certain situation,
is not for sure the better one.
Dogs also manipulate each other.
Appearance is like gravitation.
We find beautiful the muscular body, which overcomes this leading force of nature.
The modern drama of life: fighting against the appearance,
this misleading force of society.
And the chain got caught in.
If the gray dog will want to leave,
he will not be able to do.
He will not understand the situation,
or, what is even worse: will misunderstand.
It will consider a provocation, and will punish it.
The yellow dog will not understand,
why is he punished, if he gave up already.
Somehow I must go to them, to unhook the chain.
But just how I would step near them is very possible they will clash again.
He looks at me puzzled: - Now what's up, boss?
He can't go away.
The yellow dog lies in a perfect submission.
Normal dog do not bites anymore in such a case.
But the situation, for the caught in chain, is not normal.
How smart he is managing even this difficult situation?!
He don't adheres to have the last "word".
He do not forces the yellow into a desperate fight.
Just a few beats to show his strength, speed and technique.
Then he gives the opportunity for the other to recede.
This way fought his father, and his grandfather too.
It does not make any sense to ruin a (potential) pack member.
The fight is not an end in itself, - that in case of exclusively fight dogs -
but the tool of rank order, in building or maintaining a pack.
A real and efficient one, that is essential for shepherd dogs.
And the gray dog wants again to leave.
This can't be worst.
I'll try to go there.
- Stay down!!
They should caught even more.
Maybe now they will get free.
If I would step next them, it would be just oil on fire.
For the caught chain, they have got in a situation,
they are not evolutionarily prepared to.
So bad!
The chain moved now to the rear leg of the yellow dog.
From here will be easier to unhook.
- Stay down!! Stay calm!!
I managed to wedge in between.
Sorry for camera work!
Finally! I unhooked them.
Now I am letting the gray dog free.
After all they did not damaged each other.
Just the caught chain was nerve-racking.
The pack life is not easy.
But these two here surely wouldn't change with
a conspecific of theirs bored alone on the lawn of the backyard.
How confident looks the yellow dog again?!
He was beaten, but he was in.
I am still wondering: why was so important for him,
to go inside to the gray dog's personal area?
Reminds me a *** not of mine, it was in my kennel some years ago.
She used to devour her food quickly.
Then went to the male who dawdled over its food.
Of course, she was beaten by him, but the male get so upset on this,
that he lost even the rest of his appetite.
The female was still lying submissive on the ground,
but she already began to eat underhand from the male's dish.
This way the male could not hurt her.
After eating she left. Beaten, but satiated.
It is an interesting dog, this yellow one.
Self-confident, provocative, moreover arrogant.
If he is punished for this, he does not fight back seriously.
Being beaten seems not to hurt his soul.
A few minutes later he looks again:
self-confident, provocative, moreover arrogant.
It looks like he wouldn't want to spend on luxury of honor.
Is he a survivor type? An opportunist?
Meanwhile his father is a dog of "courage de lux".
Or, he just wants to under-mine the sensitivity of his half brother?
Or, he just takes some fighting lessons?
Would he have an instinctive plan?
A few weeks later ..., I let him to his father,
to my old pack leader's kennel.
He is doing the same thing, with the same arrogance.
He does not respects the personal space, of a dog of higher rank.
The old pack leader behaves like his other son, the young pack leader.
Shows lot of tolerance. But is not so embarrassed.
Observe how the yellow dog provokes his father.
The young central asian male responds with more indignation to the provocation.
Despite of his lowest rank position among the males.
And now I let him to the young pack leader again.
He stops earlier now, keeping a significant bigger distance.
This is almost perfect. He is ready to learn,
but do not tends to make generalizations, how it was seen before with his father.
Let's see if he changes his mind.
No. He learned the lesson quite well.
Since he was not growing up in a real pack,
he has serious problems with showing the right respect.
Towards superior rank dogs, he can not behave in a proper way.
He will have surely more fights, till he learns all the rules,
or becomes a leader, who makes them.
Thanks for watching!
And excuse me for my imperfect English. and for the softer generated voice.
Believe me, it is better than my accent.
Bye!