Would one of the trainers explain disposition versus temperament?

Tony used those words in an answer to a question the other day. Would one of you explain them?Code enforcement brings in dogs to be destroyed at the vet clinic. At times, we pick some out to try to find homes for with the clients or workers. We want some direction on temperament and disposition. We usually let any sick dogs go unless one of the workers wants to take on the medical care. Judging temperament is more difficult. All large aggressive breeds are immediately destroyed by policy. Sometimes you get others--fearful dogs or cute dogs with an attitude. We have begun to let those go too just because we worry about temperament. The confident, friendly ones are kept if possible to be given away to homes or fostered out. I think everyone in the clinic has about 8+ dogs now because we try to save nice ones. Our vets have lots of dogs too.How do you decide who has an acceptable temperament? Fearfulness or Aggression is bad. What else? Please give examples.Thanks all. Drive is a word I understand. Recently one city near the vet clinic added a code that limits per household. So that means that more will be coming in on top of the "found" dogs and injured dogs or dogs removed for breed code or aggression. We may only find homes for 5-10 a year because we aren't a shelter. But that is 5 or ten that aren't killed without a reason. And most should be euthanized, but sometimes you find a cute little dog that seems nice and would do well in a home. Sometimes Good Samaritans bring in injured strays which raises financial issues too. You just never know for sure which dogs are safe and which aren't or which you should really try to make call after call to save.

I stared this for you. Maybe Tony or Greekman or Animal_artworks can give you an answer! Hope it helps!

You might want to look into getting certified in SAFER testing. That's what many of the groups around here use as a means to determine what dogs to place for adoption and which ones to either euth or send out to a more specialized rescue group.Though, you may want to include some of the less desirable looking ones. They can also have great temperaments. That's what I look for when I adopt a dog. http://www.humanesocietyofknoxcounty.org/SAFER.htmlhttp://thebark.com/ezine/features_specialFeatures/specialFeatures_04.htmlTemperament, is the pattern of characteristics a dog is born with, disposition is it's mood on a regular basis.How do you guys network? Do you have any other groups you work with? If not, you may want to try making some connections with other groups around you. Petfinder.com has a message forum and a listing of other rescues that may be around you. I currently work with several groups. Our local SPCA, a cat rescue, a shelter out of Kentucky that is rural and has very few adoptions. Our SPCA takes dogs from them when they have room, and the cat rescue takes in some of their cats. They haven't had to euthanize anything but a couple aggressives in over a year because of networking and some very dedicated volunteers. That's with only have a couple local adoptions a month.

That can be SOO difficult. In many cases we are already attached to them and have them functioning properly in our homes before we realize they can not be adopted. Many dogs are euthanized for acting out on a first impression. I would suggest in your situation instead of continuously foster and each person taking them, invest in some "adopt me" vest they are cheaper than you would think. Maybe even find someo with pockets for a little donation to help with vetting on sicker ones. Let the dogs wear them in the office to meet and greet the clients. If they have acceptable behavior adopt them out to people. If they act out and can't handle the stress euthanize because there are PLENTY more that can handle it and need your help. There is a big difference between fear and aggression. Unless you have someone to work with the dog I would suggest letting them go there are too many dying while you are working with this one. Fearful dogs can be more dangerous than aggressive dogs. Disposition and temperment (to me) are basically the same interchangable words to discribe a dogs attitude towards certain and different stimuli. I don't consider a dog with a bad attitude towards one thing as being unadoptable its just finding the right setting for that dog.

Actually they are both the same, you are using a synonym to describe the same thing!! Temperament is genetic, the dog was born with it. We have talked about this before. For your purposes in rescuing and placing dogs I can see how an aggressive or fearful dog may not be the best candidate for placement. The dogs that I would eliminate from the start are the fearful, sharp/shy ones that because of genetic issues will always be like this, regardless of what anyone says. Please let me know if you need me to be more specific about anything I have said here and I will be glad to do it.

In the rescues I have worked with and with my personal experience as a dog trainer an acceptable temperament varies from breed to breed and for what the dog was ORIGIANLLY bred for. Aggression is not an always black or white bad, in police, Schutzhund and Personal Protection dogs a level of aggression must be present. I owned a 1/2 German bred, 1/2 American bred Rott who was without a doubt the most aggressive dog I have ever known. I have no doubt from watching him he would have killed any attacker but his temperament was well balanced. He was as friendly as a typicall Lab, went to nursing homes and allowed people to hit him,step on him and throw things at him w/o ever showing any attitutude except relaxed friendlienss. He was well trained from the time I bought him at 4 mos and went on to a Schutzhund B, an AKC CD, a WWKC CD, and his TT along with a few other titles. In the wrong hands he could have been a menace but in the right hands, an Alpha dog trainer he was the best dog I ever owned. A gun shy Lab has what is considered a bad temperament since they are hunting dogs but one can live a good life in a pet home. One has to match the dog's temperament with the new owner's to get a good match. Most people love the soft Golden, Lab type temperaments but I can not live with such a soft dog, they bore me and I find them too wimpy after Alpha dogs. My Lab is field bred, very sound and is actually more likely to bite an attacker than my Dobe. My Dobe is a beautiful dog, bred for the show ring but a poor protection candidate.He has a good dispostion but a bad temperament for a Doberman Pinscher, bred for protection. Temperament is what the dog was bred for and disposition is how friendly, easy going, or aggressive they are. A nasty coonhound that hunts like a dream has a good temperament but a poor dispostion. I have rescued mostly the "nasty" ones that no one else can handle and they have gone on to being fine dogs and most have visited nursing homes and none have ever bitten anyone after I have had them. Unfortuanatly most of the people that can handle the Alpha wannabes have their hands and homes full, I have 7 dogs, so many dogs that could have been fine with a proper owner have to be euthanized. Shy dogs that are not aggressive but are afraid of everything are,IMHO, not done any favors by being placed. Their stress levels are so high most of the truely fearful dogs I have known died young. A book I have read, Successful Dog Adoption, points out the fact that many fosters have been fine dogs in their foster homes but bite etc in new homes. I have had that experience too and just the reverse, a "nasty" dog is given to me to rehab and foster and I have no problems. Most bomb/sniffing dogs are extemely high energy and wind up in shelters waiting to die until a knowledgeable person rescues them and traines their high energy and spirits to save lives. So diff temperaments are needed for working dogs vs pets so it is a hard thing to judge. As a rescue person I have had to decide on the death of 4 dogs that were not really able to live in a "pet" home, they were only going to be able to be handled by another dog trainer used to Alpha wannabe who knew how to correct a dog. Since we are almost always at our dog limit they went to the Bridge as unplaceable. In my GSD Rescue we have been able to place a few Alpha types with the police and 1 "unmanageable" GSD pup went on to be a drug and bomb dog. The shelter turned her over to rescue at about 8 mos because she was so wild and no one could handle her.

Contributing to a dogs behaviour are two things: Nature and Nurture. Nature (dna) goes to temperament of the dog, nurture (experience) goes to disposition.A classic example would be a Chessie who will not come back without the fallen bird - but gets damned cranky if you try to pet him. Good temperament, bad disposition.Contrast that to the Labrador that loves to play ball with the kids - but will not hit the water. Good disposition, bad temperament.Then consider the Rottweiler whom you can trust to be alone with your child eating an ice cream bar - and will defend, with all he's got, said child from any threat. Good temperament, good disposition.In a shelter situation, assuming you are trying to qualify a dogs potential to be safely adopted out ... you will be testing the dogs DISPOSITION by witnessing/qualifying behaviours which are the sum product of his dna and experience (nature and nurture); disposition. In the book, the Koehler Method of Guard Dog Training, there is (in one of the chapters relating to "selection") a discussion on temperament vs disposition. I can't re-write it here, but the book is available at your local library. If they don't have it in stock, they can order it in for you.How do you decide who has an acceptable temperament?By careful and objective testing.Examples:Hunt tests for hounds, field trials for retrievers, sled racing for huskies, Schutzhund or RingSport or Mondio for personal protection dogs ... and here is where the discussion becomes a little dicey. Why ... because trainability, inteligence, forgiveness and perserverence all come into play, but that's a totally different discussion.Aggression is not bad.Fearfullness is often a misnomer.Hope this helps.Tony Ancheta

Both Ginbail and Greekman have great answers. My take on the disposition/temperament issue: It really just doesn't matter what you call it... whether its nature or nurture, a dog who THE PERSON SUPPOSED TO BE IN CONTROL cannot handle is in big trouble.I, myself, can handle most dogs. Rarely does even a very human aggressive dog decide to try to take a chomp out of me (unless its been TRAINED to do so). Should that make a difference in the life of the dog? Unless *I* personally am willing to live with that dog, no it should not make a difference. In private practice I will attempt to deal with some types of aggression, but usually I simply refer them to someone who can work with them in an unbiased manner. I have very little room in my life to deal with PETS who bite, for whatever reason. There are too many nice dogs who wouldn't ever even consider biting a human.I agree with you that in a rescue setting, where only a limited number of animals can be saved, the very fearful ones also are difficult to place... and may need to be euthanized. Sadly, many of those dogs may be very nice dogs who simply hadn't the time to warm up. I am relatively certain that even one of my Bernese, which are beautifully trained but tend to be one person one family dogs, may show more fearfulness than your average Golden Retriever when tossed into a new situation. Its simply a part of their genetic makeup. Its not a biting issue, but more of an avoidance issue... they tend to be very dependent on "their" human.Other issues which can be sometimes alleviated with training but which a rescue may opt not to deal with: chronic barkers, chronic chewers, and dogs who haven't been able to be housetrained. These are reasons WHY dogs end up in a rescue situation to start with, and if you don't have the resources to fix the issue, may end up being euthanized for lack of space. (Actually, their idiot previous owners are the problem, unfortunately, euthanizing them isn't allowed).I think you simply do the best you can with the resources you have. Don't beat yourself up about the ones you can't save... even the really nice ones.Edit: and always a great answer from Koehler...

At the risk of turning this into a semantic argument (hey, I'm a writer, it's what I do), I disagree that there is a difference between "temperament" and "disposition". Tony's answer is excellent, however I think that what he calls "temperament" is simply "drive". It has nothing to do with the dog's temper, or personality, and everything to do with instinct.A dog that is excellent at its function has good drive, which has nothing to do with its temperament, per se. I have seen many hard-driving, maniac sled dogs who dive under the truck the minute a stranger approaches them, and I would say those dogs have temperament problems. It doesn't affect their drive. Their temperament? Shy. Their disposition? Spooky. Same thing. Their drive? Killer.As I said, this may be entirely semantic...but I can't make sense out of this distinction when the two words being used mean pretty much the same thing. JMO.(Cont'd.)That said, attempts to differentiate become moot, especially in terms of placing shelter dogs...whether they can hunt or pull a sled isn't really the issue, is it?Being frightened and overwhelmed by the situation is one thing, but if the dog's first reaction is to defend itself by biting rather than submitting to being handled by a stranger, I would not adopt that dog out. If a dog ever feels the need to snap, lift a lip at, or otherwise think about biting a non-threatening stranger, that dog is a liability.As animal_artwork said, the human must be the one in control. If that isn't a guarantee with a dog, that dog is a risk.