Quote:
Originally Posted by Emoore
Yes, but being a puppy machine, being ignored and neglected, being yelled at, being dumped at a shelter. . . these aren't the kind of abuse that will turn an otherwise strong-nerved dog into an animal who's afraid of children, strangers, loud noises, people with hats, and different ethnic groups. It would take true sadism to turn a solid dog into one who's afraid of that much. But when folks come across a dog like that they always want to attribute it to abuse. Besides, 40-50% of kids aren't systematically abused. 40-50% of women aren't raped; 40-50% of people aren't murdered. But roughly 40-50% of the GSDs that come through our rescue have some sort of shy/skittish/weak nerve issue. And that's just sad.
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I have the example of this sleeping next to me on the sofa.
Two rescues. Neither of these GSD's I would say are well bred and neither would be in any show.
One was abused, bred, neglected to the point of almost death from starvation and disease before being forcibly seized. Within 6 months she was stable, lots of drive, shows no fear and recovers from any new surprise almost instantly. Great with kids, people and dogs.
She recently had a reactive dog she approached snatch her entire nose and an inch of upper muzzle and latch on tight for a minute or two, much yelping, some bleeding and I'm hoping the marks across her muzzle aren't permanent. She totally recovered in under 30 minutes and was right back to meeting strange dogs without fear, she is a solid girl.
The other was a stray, likely not abused, but genetically a nervy wreck. She is frightened of almost anything new, and does not recover at all from many things that initially surprise her, terrified of lightning and thunder, or any loud noise etc,. Had the same thing happened to her she would not have recovered, she'll be a nervy problem her whole life.
Genetics play the bigger role in their differences in temperament, and it's night and day.