I did indeed title the thread 'O/T Dogs ' but in initial post I asked how many dogs others had and what breed ,not whether you liked them or not . Crikey , how long would the title be.
ps. I can guarantee you my dog will go nowhere your arse. If I did know where you lived however, I wouldn't be able to offer the same guarantee in regards to your lawn. I might even hang around until he's ready.
So it looks like the signing AH hinted at on Twitter hasn't happened then. He even managed to find a 'signing' emoticon along with a 'fingers crossed' one. Never mind, better no player than a bad one.
So that leaves just dogs to talk about. I don't have a dog because I say I don't like them but my wife has a Springer. The weird thing is, the dog has become more attached to me than her. It was the same with the dog she had when I met her. So it is possible for non-dog people to be converted. Springers are great really, they have two modes, 1) sleep (their favourite) and 2) run at top speed in random directions until they drop.
You can't trust them though, they are always liable to do something stupid, usually involving birds.
I spent some time with a dog psychologist recently and what you are alluding to is known as the 'ladder of escalation to threshold'. Threshold being the point at which a dog is completely unable to control itself and/or respond to commands by it's owner.
The ladder has a number of rungs that a dog climbs to get to this point of threshold. Imagine the dog is just 'slorming' (sidders) about at home he is at the bottom rung. You then say "walkies" and he suddenly jumps up excited at the thought of going for a walk, next step on the ladder. You get outside and he sees a crisp packet rolling in the wind so he gets more excited, then he sees a cat and he climbs another rung on the ladder. At this point he is a completely different dog to the one that was slorming about at home, his senses have become heightened and he is now quite literally at the point of threshold and it is at this point bad things can happen with dogs because they will, by nature react accordingly to any situation.
In most cases this will just mean running off to chase birds or squirrels but if startled could mean a defensive response which would then be seen as aggressive.
One thing the psychologist told me was that there is no such thing as an aggressive dog, just a reactive dog. He has to go to court to assess whether a dog should be put down or not after an attack or biting incident and more often than not it is apparent that neglect or an inability to understand and identify the signs of a dog getting to 'threshold' by the owner as the issue, not the dog itself.
It seems Bohinen that your Springer, like my Schnauzer only has one rung on his ladder of escalation!
Sure, I can see why some people think dogs are great if it means they needn't invite their aging parents to come and live with them!
And speaking of ppl talking crap, have you heard the new language that insane dog ppl are inventing:
My pupper doggo goodboye boops his wuvable hooman mummy every time she comes home!