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Date Posted: 15:07:56 01/13/04 Tue
Author: Lucinda
Subject: Re: Individual, Boerboel or mastiff family trait ?
In reply to: Dan G. 's message, "Individual, Boerboel or mastiff family trait ?" on 19:26:56 12/29/03 Mon

Hi Dan,

Interesting question. I think it may be a Boel/mastiff trait. Boet started watchdog barking at 6 months, other than that he was silent, didn't matter how much you revved him up, not a squeak. I had to recruit a friendly teenager to help teach him to 'speak'. The poor boy jumped up and down, flapped his arms, everything - not a word out of the dog. Finally, teenager started pretending to cuff Boet around the head, no contact, all playful. Boet loves full contact, he was up, happy and finally a small bark - jackpot! It only took a couple of reps to get Boet to realise that he would be rewarded for 'speaking' and we could dispense with the assistant. (We inadvertently trained in a small jump with the bark, which pops up every now and again, very funny!)

However, his bark on command is as non-threatening as a big dog can be, his normal 'day' bark to let me know someone is arriving is loud but not aggressive and I can tell if it's someone we know. Visitors at night are another story, loud and serious.

NB Boet only really barks if there's a barrier between him and the visitor - if not, day or night, he'll bark a couple of times only and move forward to check out/sort out the visitor. He has no inclination to stand off and bark as many other dogs seem to. This has been one of our training challenges - I have managed to teach him that it is not his place to greet visitors and that he must come to heel when strangers approach but it goes against the grain!

There is now one other occasion on which Boet will let out a woof - if he's been released to informally greet visitors, he will often wait until they are bending down rubbing his head and then bark playfully straight into their face. This almost always makes them jump sky high(as you can imagine), Boet meanwhile is laughing all over his body and everybody watching generally laughs too. I discourage this behaviour as I think it's disrespectful (if very funny) but as everyone else including my husband thinks it's a good joke, it's been hard to eradicate completely.

hth
Lucinda

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