sungolddogs

[sungolddogs]

F1 grey wolf x poodle crosses bred by Erik Zimen as part of a study on dog domestication. 

Footage from BBC Horizon, 1969

[sungolddogs]

I really don't have good words for this but I get a lot of messages and asks etc that boil down to "my teenage puppy dog isn't behaving like a 3 yr old and I'm worried they'll be this way forever."

Your 7 month old is a teenage puppy

Your 1 yr old is a teenage puppy

Depends on the dog but often your 20 month old is a teenage puppy

Even past for some though I haven't experienced that yet

And teenage dogs are harder than anything any trainer has worked in an equivalent adult dog lmao! Their brains straight up aren't doing adult dog things. They're sorting and working it all out

Please, please do not expect fully adult behavior out of a teenage dog. Don't take one or even three experiences as How The Dog Is. Patience, patience, time and rewards for what it is you do want them to do. And time. Please

[sungolddogs]

Which of your dogs:

Is the Oldest: Astra

Is the Youngest: Amos

Is the most athletic: Astra

Is the couch potato: Astra

Is the snuggliest: Astra

Knows the most tricks: Astra

Has the best manners: Amos

Has the worst manners: Astra

The friendliest: Astra

Is the biggest: Amos

Is the smallest: Astra

Is the most patient: Astra

Is the least patient: Amos

Is the stinkiest: Astra

The Clingiest: Amos

Most food driven: Amos

Most toy driven: Amos

The hardest to groom: Amos

The easiest to groom: Astra

The fastest: Astra

The slowest: Amos

The best listener: Amos

The worst listener: Astra

Most likely to mess somebody up: Amos

I wanted to make a meme thing for multi-dog households, getting to know your dogs more! Have fun!

Which of your dogs: Is the Oldest: Is the Youngest: Is the most athletic: Is the couch potato: Is the snuggliest: Knows the most tricks: Has the best manners: Has the worst manners: The friendliest: Is the biggest: Is the smallest: Is the most patient: Is the least patient: Is the stinkiest: The Clingiest: Most food driven: Most toy driven: The hardest to groom: The easiest to groom: The fastest: The slowest: The best listener: The worst listener: Most likely to mess somebody up:

[sungolddogs]

I really do think the way some folks talk about working herding breed dogs crosses over into the way people think all working bred dogs are like.

Good working drive in many breeds is calm, unchaotic, able to settle. Not to paint too rosy of a picture (I try not to I hope you all see that) but good sled dogs need to be able to settle in a sled bag or settle when you stop on the trail, good hunting dogs need to work in a calm, focused manner and even wait in hides for hours on end before they get to do anything. Good service dogs need to be calm and focused to complete their task.

The way we talk about drive to work is so skewed because of the way people talk about working herding breeds that I think many of us fail to remember that not every dog breed’s ideal working self is a quivering bundle of excess energy that needs a lot of mental stimulation. It’s just more nuanced than that.

[sungolddogs]

100% accurate results, every time!

(Submitter’s note: please take the quiz I beg of you. gender neutral, no sex/romance questions, no timed questions, one “do you care about your star sign” question but it doesn’t list the zodiac and there’s a “no” option)

[sungolddogs]

These two had a nice walk today at one of our favorite parks. 🐾

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Baby’s first show!!!

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Working on bringing out that bark.

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Selkie, Belgian Tervuren

2 months —> 9 months

[sungolddogs]

anyway modern animal fancy has its roots in the eugenics movement of the 19th century and I don’t think we’ll see real structural changes in breeding clubs unless this gets recognized and addressed

[sungolddogs]

And she bites!

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Surprise….. Introducing Kosovo!

She is a one year old Malinois who has officially joined our crew! I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us!

[sungolddogs]

wAIT TELL ME THE NUANCES BETWEEN CID, MALS, AND GREENLAND DOGS I MUST K N O W

Please know that these are not hard and fast rules as all these dogs come from the same landrace and can look very similar to the points some people cannot tell them apart (especially if they are in a similar color) like some of these are Malamutes, some are Canadian Qimmiq and others are Greenland Dogs lmao:

But in general:

Alaskan Malamute:

The most ‘domestic’ looking (note that all these dogs are domestic, but Malamutes are very much a registered breed, modified from its indigenous landrace by white people). Look for plumed tail that is not overly curly or snapped over the back, very even and defined markings (you'll also see a lot of 'open' faces), dark eyes. NO piebald (exists in breed, but a DQ and very rare). Most commonly seen colors would be gray & white and seal & white, overall colors have less intensity to their sabeling (other Inuit dogs are more intensely colored). Can see information on colors HERE. 

Can be lower on leg than the other two Inuit sled dogs. Will see several distinct 'types' or styles: show, working (these are commonly interbred) and pet (pretty distinct from the other styles). Varied size range, tends to be the biggest of all three types with thickest bone, especially in show & pet individuals. Varied malamute teams below (also see THIS post):

Canadian Inuit Dog (Canadian Qimmiq):

Look for snapped tail, overall tails tend to be more curly, lots of piebald, lots of black & white dogs, more 'dirty' markings, tend not to have black masks as often as Greenlands and overall tend not to be as intensely pigmented as Greenlands (in my experience...so like Malamute - CID - Greenland for Phaemelanin intensity). Usually a smaller/shorter ear and smaller eye than the modern Malamute. 

One style, but dogs can be much more varied within that one style, sometime longer than average coats are seen, much more likely to see a tail with long hair here. Butterfly noses. Wider size range, but similar to Malamutes. Please see the WIDE variety of colors across teams from the Ivakkak 2021 race, tends to trend black/white/gray variations:

Greenland Dog:

Keep in mind that Greenland dogs can differ from Eastern Greenland vs Western Greenland (there are more dogs in the East overall). Can have snapped tail, lots of piebald, can come in brindle (any color is allowed in the breed) & often have masks & sooty/dirty marking, dogs often very diverse in color, when they have lots of red in the coat it is BRIGHT, look for a ‘ulo’ which is a small cape of white at the nape of the neck named after an inuit women’s knife of the same shape. 

Short neck, less overly thick bone than Malamutes, but never fine boned. No long coat, should be ‘pointy’. Shorter than Malamutes. Some have a very ‘wolfy’ appearance (not just agouti in color, but lots of generalized primitive features). See the varied appearance below (Eastern dogs first three photos, Western dogs bottom three photos):

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Tricks in TSC!

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[sungolddogs]

Extremely unpopular opinion but:

No-kill shelters were a mistake

Dogs and cats are so horribly over populated and there's so many fucking feral cats that just get fixed and released its insane

Like humans are responsible for this mess and instead of dealing with it people cry about their own personal feelings before considering how many dogs and cats are out there already.

Like yes it's sad. I wish it didn't have to be like that. But it's our responsibility to clean up the mess

And maybe if people didn't treat cats and dogs like throw away toys. Or collectibles. Or like something they can just run around ravaging the local ecosystem then maybe it wouldn't have to be this way