I got robbed on Friday

[dev]

I even got the DVD's of em and so if you wanna borrow anytime let me know. And that poetry stuff was just serendipity.

Regards,

Dev

Star wars -the whole 9 yards is on tv in dec end Dev.
Delhi Annual tennyson memorial 'haiku' contest is later, in Jan, dont forget the 5-4-4-5 metre

[dev]

Thanks like I said I am halfway serious about a rotweiler type of doggie. One that actually thinks that visitors are meat on the hoof.


Regards,

Dev

Sorry to hear about this incident Dev!

The word *dogs/pups* dragged me into this topic!

If you are not looking for any particular breed and would like to adopt a stray pup who has been vaccinated, then do let me know! There are 8 of them who are being taken care of by students at a college in Delhi and need to find them homes!

I have been looking after strays since quite sometime but dont keep them as pets anymore. I can vouch this about them- they make amazing guards and are absolutely loyal!

[mehulkamdar]

Dev,

I used to be a dog judge and amateur dog trainer and this whole notion of "powerful" dogs etc simply does not cut it with me as far as my experience is concerned. I had a Rottweiler mix dog whom I couldn;t bring to the US because of his size and who is now with my former neighbours in Chennai, and, Mark's father had a beautiful Rottweiler who died very recently. They are fine dogs and do get one if you want one. The fact simply is that the dog would be more "show than go" and a determined man would be able to kill it very easily with a large knife. There is a reason why Rottweilers are used more by the scatterbrained film types as guard dogs while police forces use more lithe breeds like Dobermann Pinschers, German Shepherds or Belgian Shepherds around the world. A dog that is needed for guard duties should be lithe enough to get away from someone who wants to kill it with a knife or whatever. A slow, lumbering breed like a Rottweiler, English Mastiff etc just can't do it because they are too big and heavy. A large dog also offers more body area for a man with a knife to stab in a confrontation

I think Stunngun has some very wise words here. I have found mongrels of all kinds to be absolutely intelligent dogs and they seem to have a kind of "native intelligence" that pedigreed dogs just don't seem to have. A very good friend whose brother owns a farm outside Bangalore had several dogs as protection and on one occasion thieves managed to throw poisoned meat into his compound. Every single one of his pedigreed dogs ate the meat and died. A sole mongrel refised it and alerted the man - he came out with a shotgun and shot one of the intruders who died a short distance away while the others fled. This happened in the 1970s and I have heard of several lesser incidents where mongrels have performed far more creditably than any pedigreed dog that anyone can mention.

Though this is OT now, and it has been becoming OT in a sense, let me give you my reasons for suggesting mongrels instead of pedigreed dogs:

1. Most pedigreed dogs in India are heavily inbred and tend to die early. Many also have problems with hip dysplasia and deafness, and they also age very early, often at 5 or 6. I have seen many pedigreed pups with undershot jaws and other birth defects over the years but have never seen a single mongrel with these problems. If a dog is going to guard you, then it has to be healthy and capable of warning if anything goes wrong, to begin with

2. There is the problem of intelligence which I have told you about. I do think that some of the smaller breeds display a remarkable intelligence - Dachshunds and Lhasa Apsos being prime in my list. Neither is going to be any good as a guard dog

3. If you get a mongrel, get it neutered for one thing. Many years ago, when Markus Wolfwho recently died as Chief of the East German Stasi wanted to kidnap an East German agent who had defected to the West, managed to render a whole pack of guard dogs in West Germany completely ineffective by releasing a Dachshund b**ch in heat near them. Western intelligence looked like such idiots at the time - the agent was kidnapped by the East Germans and imprisoned until the fall of the Berlin Wall - thatthey still do not talk about it these days. I remember being completely unable to stop laughing for a long time at the thought of several German shepherd dogs getting desperate over a Dachshund b**ch released by the East Germans in their midst.

4. There are two instincts that could be used to train a dog to be a guard dog. One is the pack instinct, the instinct that drives the dog to consider the family that it is with as it's own and protect them. The other is the territorial instinct which has it protesting the intrusion of anyone who is "not a part of the family" on the property that it regards as it's own. Get a pup or a young dog upto a year old, let it run around the houmse and garden or the apartment as the case may be, and make sure that it knows exactly who is a part of the family and who isn't. Personally, my dogs have always been fed by hand by a member of the family and will not eat anything offered by an outsider. I train them to do this from a young age so that there is no possibility of their being poisoned. The flip side of this is that none of my dogs could be left with someone from outside the family and I had to get my Jimmy whom I left behind to slowly get him accustomed to my father's friend and my former neighbour who has him now

5. Don't hire a professional trainer. Dogs are pack animals and they usually accept only one person as an "alpha male." Get some Cesare Milan videos and learn basic tricks or buy a book and read it before you start training a dog. Also, DON'T start too early. I prefer a dog to start training when it is 9 months old or older. They are very intelligent animals (even when theya re pedigrees, though, as I have experienced, mongrels are definitely more intelligent than pedigrees are) and after a while you will begin to bond with your dog when you get one and learn as much about it as it would about you

As I have posted before on this thread, work out a routine to tackle intrusions. You know the layout of your home and get yourself a drill in case you aree at home when an intrusion takes place and one when you may be away. If it is a large home, get yourself two dogs. Have a burglar alarm, especially the type that calls your cell phone and that of your wife's and others who may live with you if this hapens when you are away. If I remember right, Allwyn used to build gun safes and export them from India but I don't know if the company is still in existence. Godrej may be doing it as well, no idea. If you get a Storwell from Godrej, then get it attached to the floor with cement and bricks by a mason and have a separate alarm attached to it. Sadly, once thieves have robbed your home, the possibility is that they may try again after some time as they know what you have there.

Best wishes,

Mehul

[stunngun]

Hi Mehul! I must commend you on very articulate analysis of dogs/breeds given by you! Thou someday I might take you up on some of the observations you made here to prove a point otherwise than what you stated! not here thou!

[dev]

My Dog experience has been restricted to this very cute spitz puppy that we got . We didn't do much of training except to toilet train it, now she lives with my mothet-in-law in guwahati.

The show factor versus real effectiveness has been an eye opener. I am going to think seriously about the dog after I get back in Jan from assam and all.

Till then I plan to leave my rifle with parents and entice the cops into zealoud guardians with maybe some liquid currency.

Most times you get this creepy feeling akin to living in a straw house. By the way have you heard about Naga dogs? They look street dogs but are more fierce, have curling tails and a great survival instinct. You would have to if you were a dog in Nagaland. .

Regards,

Dev

P.S. Is my line of reasoning that a dog will be enough to entice would be burglars to look elsewhere correct. A determined guy with a knife would have ta really think that I'm loaded with cash or really have a desire to kill me I guess. So far I have no such enemies.

Dev,

I used to be a dog judge and amateur dog trainer and this whole notion of "powerful" dogs etc simply does not cut it with me as far as my experience is concerned. I had a Rottweiler mix dog whom I couldn;t bring to the US because of his size and who is now with my former neighbours in Chennai, and, Mark's father had a beautiful Rottweiler who died very recently. They are fine dogs and do get one if you want one. The fact simply is that the dog would be more "show than go" and a determined man would be able to kill it very easily with a large knife. There is a reason why Rottweilers are used more by the scatterbrained film types as guard dogs while police forces use more lithe breeds like Dobermann Pinschers, German Shepherds or Belgian Shepherds around the world. A dog that is needed for guard duties should be lithe enough to get away from someone who wants to kill it with a knife or whatever. A slow, lumbering breed like a Rottweiler, English Mastiff etc just can't do it because they are too big and heavy. A large dog also offers more body area for a man with a knife to stab in a confrontation

I think Stunngun has some very wise words here. I have found mongrels of all kinds to be absolutely intelligent dogs and they seem to have a kind of "native intelligence" that pedigreed dogs just don't seem to have. A very good friend whose brother owns a farm outside Bangalore had several dogs as protection and on one occasion thieves managed to throw poisoned meat into his compound. Every single one of his pedigreed dogs ate the meat and died. A sole mongrel refised it and alerted the man - he came out with a shotgun and shot one of the intruders who died a short distance away while the others fled. This happened in the 1970s and I have heard of several lesser incidents where mongrels have performed far more creditably than any pedigreed dog that anyone can mention.

Though this is OT now, and it has been becoming OT in a sense, let me give you my reasons for suggesting mongrels instead of pedigreed dogs:

1. Most pedigreed dogs in India are heavily inbred and tend to die early. Many also have problems with hip dysplasia and deafness, and they also age very early, often at 5 or 6. I have seen many pedigreed pups with undershot jaws and other birth defects over the years but have never seen a single mongrel with these problems. If a dog is going to guard you, then it has to be healthy and capable of warning if anything goes wrong, to begin with

2. There is the problem of intelligence which I have told you about. I do think that some of the smaller breeds display a remarkable intelligence - Dachshunds and Lhasa Apsos being prime in my list. Neither is going to be any good as a guard dog

3. If you get a mongrel, get it neutered for one thing. Many years ago, when Markus Wolfwho recently died as Chief of the East German Stasi wanted to kidnap an East German agent who had defected to the West, managed to render a whole pack of guard dogs in West Germany completely ineffective by releasing a Dachshund b**ch in heat near them. Western intelligence looked like such idiots at the time - the agent was kidnapped by the East Germans and imprisoned until the fall of the Berlin Wall - thatthey still do not talk about it these days. I remember being completely unable to stop laughing for a long time at the thought of several German shepherd dogs getting desperate over a Dachshund b**ch released by the East Germans in their midst.

4. There are two instincts that could be used to train a dog to be a guard dog. One is the pack instinct, the instinct that drives the dog to consider the family that it is with as it's own and protect them. The other is the territorial instinct which has it protesting the intrusion of anyone who is "not a part of the family" on the property that it regards as it's own. Get a pup or a young dog upto a year old, let it run around the houmse and garden or the apartment as the case may be, and make sure that it knows exactly who is a part of the family and who isn't. Personally, my dogs have always been fed by hand by a member of the family and will not eat anything offered by an outsider. I train them to do this from a young age so that there is no possibility of their being poisoned. The flip side of this is that none of my dogs could be left with someone from outside the family and I had to get my Jimmy whom I left behind to slowly get him accustomed to my father's friend and my former neighbour who has him now

5. Don't hire a professional trainer. Dogs are pack animals and they usually accept only one person as an "alpha male." Get some Cesare Milan videos and learn basic tricks or buy a book and read it before you start training a dog. Also, DON'T start too early. I prefer a dog to start training when it is 9 months old or older. They are very intelligent animals (even when theya re pedigrees, though, as I have experienced, mongrels are definitely more intelligent than pedigrees are) and after a while you will begin to bond with your dog when you get one and learn as much about it as it would about you

As I have posted before on this thread, work out a routine to tackle intrusions. You know the layout of your home and get yourself a drill in case you aree at home when an intrusion takes place and one when you may be away. If it is a large home, get yourself two dogs. Have a burglar alarm, especially the type that calls your cell phone and that of your wife's and others who may live with you if this hapens when you are away. If I remember right, Allwyn used to build gun safes and export them from India but I don't know if the company is still in existence. Godrej may be doing it as well, no idea. If you get a Storwell from Godrej, then get it attached to the floor with cement and bricks by a mason and have a separate alarm attached to it. Sadly, once thieves have robbed your home, the possibility is that they may try again after some time as they know what you have there.

Best wishes,

Mehul

[penpusher]

Neutered dogs become docile and lose their aggression

penpusher

[mehulkamdar]

Stunngun,

This is a discussion forum. Please go ahead and post what you think. No need to worry at all, I am happy to hear all views.

Dev,

I would not be surprised if the Naga dog breed was very intelligent. The problem with most pedigrees is that they they are heavily inbred due to commercial concerns and that is why they start weakening over time. Some of the native Indian breeds are very nice though I am familiar only with the SOuth Indian ones like the Rajapalayam, Kombai, Chippiparai etc. If you get some pictures of the Naga dog, please post them here.

penpusher,

Completely wrong viewpoint. Every single Western nation - whether it is in Europe or North America - uses only neutered dogs for police work. So do the Israelis who recently switched to the Belgian SHepherds from German Shepherds and who probably have more police as well as military work to do than any other nation that employs dogs with law enforcement or armies. Also, but this is personal, I would prefer a well trained dog as a guard dog and not an aggressive one. Aggressive dogs are often a greater danger to the owners' families than they are to a possible intruder.

By working on the dog's two natural instincts like I posted, it is possible to get a very fine guard dog that is a part of the family "pack." I have helped several first time owners with my suggestions and to date not one has found them wanting. Yes, quite a few have had incidents where their dogs were able to help them during tight moments.

Cheers,

Mehul

[mundaire]

By the way have you heard about Naga dogs? They look street dogs but are more fierce, have curling tails and a great survival instinct. You would have to if you were a dog in Nagaland. .

I think you are talking about the Indian "Bhutia" breed (I think that's the name) of hill dogs. They can be found in Garhwal as well... and they do have a fierce reputation. I believe the local shepherds use them to guard sheep...

I have little knowledge on the subject... mostly second hand stuff, heard from all manner of people - as always would be interested to learn more...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[Pran]

Dev,

I used to be a dog judge and amateur dog trainer and this whole notion of "powerful" dogs etc simply does not cut it with me as far as my experience is concerned. I had a Rottweiler mix dog whom I couldn;t bring to the US because of his size and who is now with my former neighbours in Chennai, and, Mark's father had a beautiful Rottweiler who died very recently. They are fine dogs and do get one if you want one. The fact simply is that the dog would be more "show than go" and a determined man would be able to kill it very easily with a large knife. There is a reason why Rottweilers are used more by the scatterbrained film types as guard dogs while police forces use more lithe breeds like Dobermann Pinschers, German Shepherds or Belgian Shepherds around the world. A dog that is needed for guard duties should be lithe enough to get away from someone who wants to kill it with a knife or whatever. A slow, lumbering breed like a Rottweiler, English Mastiff etc just can't do it because they are too big and heavy. A large dog also offers more body area for a man with a knife to stab in a confrontation

I think Stunngun has some very wise words here. I have found mongrels of all kinds to be absolutely intelligent dogs and they seem to have a kind of "native intelligence" that pedigreed dogs just don't seem to have. A very good friend whose brother owns a farm outside Bangalore had several dogs as protection and on one occasion thieves managed to throw poisoned meat into his compound. Every single one of his pedigreed dogs ate the meat and died. A sole mongrel refised it and alerted the man - he came out with a shotgun and shot one of the intruders who died a short distance away while the others fled. This happened in the 1970s and I have heard of several lesser incidents where mongrels have performed far more creditably than any pedigreed dog that anyone can mention.

Though this is OT now, and it has been becoming OT in a sense, let me give you my reasons for suggesting mongrels instead of pedigreed dogs:

1. Most pedigreed dogs in India are heavily inbred and tend to die early. Many also have problems with hip dysplasia and deafness, and they also age very early, often at 5 or 6. I have seen many pedigreed pups with undershot jaws and other birth defects over the years but have never seen a single mongrel with these problems. If a dog is going to guard you, then it has to be healthy and capable of warning if anything goes wrong, to begin with

2. There is the problem of intelligence which I have told you about. I do think that some of the smaller breeds display a remarkable intelligence - Dachshunds and Lhasa Apsos being prime in my list. Neither is going to be any good as a guard dog

3. If you get a mongrel, get it neutered for one thing. Many years ago, when Markus Wolfwho recently died as Chief of the East German Stasi wanted to kidnap an East German agent who had defected to the West, managed to render a whole pack of guard dogs in West Germany completely ineffective by releasing a Dachshund b**ch in heat near them. Western intelligence looked like such idiots at the time - the agent was kidnapped by the East Germans and imprisoned until the fall of the Berlin Wall - thatthey still do not talk about it these days. I remember being completely unable to stop laughing for a long time at the thought of several German shepherd dogs getting desperate over a Dachshund b**ch released by the East Germans in their midst.

4. There are two instincts that could be used to train a dog to be a guard dog. One is the pack instinct, the instinct that drives the dog to consider the family that it is with as it's own and protect them. The other is the territorial instinct which has it protesting the intrusion of anyone who is "not a part of the family" on the property that it regards as it's own. Get a pup or a young dog upto a year old, let it run around the houmse and garden or the apartment as the case may be, and make sure that it knows exactly who is a part of the family and who isn't. Personally, my dogs have always been fed by hand by a member of the family and will not eat anything offered by an outsider. I train them to do this from a young age so that there is no possibility of their being poisoned. The flip side of this is that none of my dogs could be left with someone from outside the family and I had to get my Jimmy whom I left behind to slowly get him accustomed to my father's friend and my former neighbour who has him now

5. Don't hire a professional trainer. Dogs are pack animals and they usually accept only one person as an "alpha male." Get some Cesare Milan videos and learn basic tricks or buy a book and read it before you start training a dog. Also, DON'T start too early. I prefer a dog to start training when it is 9 months old or older. They are very intelligent animals (even when theya re pedigrees, though, as I have experienced, mongrels are definitely more intelligent than pedigrees are) and after a while you will begin to bond with your dog when you get one and learn as much about it as it would about you

As I have posted before on this thread, work out a routine to tackle intrusions. You know the layout of your home and get yourself a drill in case you aree at home when an intrusion takes place and one when you may be away. If it is a large home, get yourself two dogs. Have a burglar alarm, especially the type that calls your cell phone and that of your wife's and others who may live with you if this hapens when you are away. If I remember right, Allwyn used to build gun safes and export them from India but I don't know if the company is still in existence. Godrej may be doing it as well, no idea. If you get a Storwell from Godrej, then get it attached to the floor with cement and bricks by a mason and have a separate alarm attached to it. Sadly, once thieves have robbed your home, the possibility is that they may try again after some time as they know what you have there.

Best wishes,

Mehul

mehul,
nice info.personally i think great danes don't make good guard dogs either.dobermanns and mongrels would be my choice of guard dogs.i've been told of mongrel packs hunting down lambs and new born calves which would be bad on a farm with livestock.
pran

[mishradk]

Hi Dev
Felt very sorry after reading the post..
Hope you get the things back ..

But after listening from you people. I am still not convinced that a hand gun/rifle/ or any such thing will safeguard you more than 30 %.. I feel if the thief is unlucky or you are lucky then only you will get the chance to use your gun.

But I think now we must go with the tech..

When I was in 12th grade.. summer evenings of Cuttack (Orissa) used to be 32 - 40C. So every one used to close their main gate, but keeping all doors and windows open.. enjoy the night at terrace (A flat roof to a house) enjoying the wind from the river side..

As power cuts were very regular ( for 2 -3 every evening ) during that time thieves do their work..

Once I lost my pair of Action shoes.. those were brand new..

Being angry made one electronic circuit which is an infra red LED operated and produces a sound like a female dog with two puppies barking.. they bark so badly that any one will get frightened..

Yes I remember it saved us in 2 -3 incidences.. but when the circuit became common and was available every where.. I removed that from house..

But this is not what I wanted to tell..

Technologies are there to help us from the problems.. There are so many security devices available which can keep us safe.. if not 100% but will make us lucky most of the time..

And many of those can be personalized so nicely that you only know the where are the traps and where is the key for the circuit..

It is not the right place to talk about the security devices.. but they work

Best of luck Dev..
Deepak

[penpusher]

Mehul,

I have never kept dogs so my ignorance.While in college once there was a conversation going on about dogs in a group,which besides my friends included some boys I was meeting for the first time(it was the start of a new session).One of the new comers turned to me and asked if had a dog. For me dogs are for gaurd duty so I told the fellow that there was no need for me to keep dogs as we had policemen to do their job.What I did not know was that the boys father was in the police.We never talked after that.

penpusher

[Grumpy]

Neutering a male dog helps to control its` aggression against other male dogs, serves to stop it from being distracted from females on heat and eases the process whereby it tries to dominate its` handler or owner. It doesn`t stop it protecting its` property or other pack members - namely its` owners and family. In a Wolf pack only the dominant pair breed - the rest of the pack are hormonally `neutured` but they all hunt and will fight for the pack.

[mundaire]

One of the new comers turned to me and asked if had a dog. For me dogs are for gaurd duty so I told the fellow that there was no need for me to keep dogs as we had policemen to do their job.What I did not know was that the boys father was in the police.We never talked after that.

Excellent one penpusher!

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[kanwar76]

By the way have you heard about Naga dogs? They look street dogs but are more fierce, have curling tails and a great survival instinct. You would have to if you were a dog in Nagaland. .

I think you are talking about the Indian "Bhutia" breed (I think that's the name) of hill dogs. They can be found in Garhwal as well... and they do have a fierce reputation. I believe the local shepherds use them to guard sheep...

I have little knowledge on the subject... mostly second hand stuff, heard from all manner of people - as always would be interested to learn more...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

I think Dev is talking about Santhals, which is a Shepherd breed from North East. The other good breed from NE is Naga Chow which is a small breed and look more or less like pomerians.

Abhijeet,

The Bhutias you are talking about are called Tibetan mastiff which is also a shepherds dog mainly found in Ladhak region. It looks like a Gaddi shepherds which is another mountain sheep dog but the only difference is tail. Tibetan mastiff has curled tail where as Gaddi mastiff has a less curled tail (Not straight). If you go to chail, Kinnaur area you will hear stories of Gaddi's bravery. Chasing leopards etc is their daily routine. I know of one incident where two Gaddi's killed a leopard. Most shepherds put a round iron collar with small edged iron rods on their dog’s neck which saves them from a stalking leopard.

-Inder

[mehulkamdar]

Pran,

Great Danes are a very docile breed and few other breeds deserve the description of "gentle giant" better. The Dobermann Pinscher is a recent breed developed in the 1890s by a German doctor and I am not sure the breed has "settled" in its characteristics yet. They are very powerful and agile dogs, no doubt, but in India, again, the breed is highly inbred and it is a question of time before hip dysplasia and deafness begin to show up.

penpusher,

If you do not have a dog, just get yourself one. They are great fun to have and excellent stress relievers even if you have policemen as guards.

Cheers, my friend, and thanks for the second fine joke in two days!

Mehul