Stereotyping Breeds Can Be Risky Business

We humans tend to be prone to sweeping generalizations. We judge large populations of people or animals by the actions of a few. 

This tendency extends to the various breeds of dogs: Chihuahuas are yappy little ankle biters. Rottweilers and Dobermans are nasty. Irish Setters are airheads. Great Danes are dimwits. Golden and Labrador retrievers are sweeties. The various breeds lumped under the catchall title of “pit bulls” are vicious. The list goes on and on, as there are almost as many stereotypes as there are breeds.

But the problem with these stereotypes, aside from the fact that they almost always unfairly characterize a breed, is that just about the time you think you have a breed pegged, a dog will come along that’s the exact opposite of the breed’s stereotype. 

Just ask an insurance adjuster who recently dealt with a claim from a home break-in.

The insurance company’s policyholder was a silversmith who had his shop in his home. That meant he had a considerable amount of this precious metal on his premises, and at his insurance company’s urging, he had not only installed an alarm system but the family dog was a Doberman. The burglar who broke into the silversmith’s home was an accomplished thief who had the necessary skills to disable the alarm system. 

Still, there was the Dobie for backup, right?

Don’t count on it!  

As luck would have it, the night of the burglary, the silversmith’s brother-in-law, who is a police officer, happened to patrol by the silversmith’s home and thought he saw something amiss with the back door. Knowing his sister and brother-in-law were attending a party that evening and their kids were doing an overnight with friends, he got out to check. When he found pry marks on the door jamb and the door opened to his touch, he signaled his partner for assistance.

They entered the home and caught the thief red-handed stuffing silver bar stock in a bag. As they were handcuffing the “perp,” the Dobie wandered into the shop and provided a couple of welcoming, happy “woofs” for the homeowner’s brother-in-law. The thief, who had been unaware of the Dobe’s presence in the house, had turned very pale when he saw the dog, according to the cop. But, Rolf, the Dobie, had only bothered to let his presence be known when a family member he knew arrived.

Rolf the Doberman, while a great companion, proved to be a complete flop as a watchdog.

When the adjuster came to the silversmith’s home to determine the extent of the damages from the break-in, the dog was still there, happily frolicking with the homeowner’s kids. But the alarm system had been upgraded and the unwatchful Doberman had been joined by a new puppy that the silversmith said had come from a long line of successful protection dogs, so he was hoping the new dog would turn out to be better at protecting his home and business than the Dobie: His “watchdog” skills turned out to be watching the burglar ransack the silversmith’s shop.  

The polar opposite of this people-loving Dobie, one of the nastiest dogs I ever met as a hunt-test judge, was a Golden Retriever. While this dog may have looked like a Golden on the outside, inside he had all the attributes of Richard Widmark in his most demonic portrayal of a homicidal maniac. He hated everything, human or canine. He was a driven retriever, as good in the water as he was on land, but woe betide anything that got in his way, because he’d likely as not take a chunk out of it just in passing. I still have the judge’s book that’s missing a major section of its cover, which this dog tore out when I dropped it in front of his nose at the last possible instant to thwart his attack on the dog that was honoring his retrieve in a senior test.

I can only imagine what the consequences would have been for any burglar foolish enough to break into this Golden’s house. Probably fatal. 

All Border Collies are great sheep herders, right? Wrong! At least not according to a lady at a dog show who happened to be sitting next to me. She said she was showing the son of a Border Collie who had absolutely loathed sheep and would have nothing to do with them. 

Rick, the Border Collie, wouldn’t herd sheep on a bet, but he happily herded ducks, cattle and even goats.  

“He came from a long line of herding champion Border Collies who had, for the most part, earned their championships by successfully herding sheep,” she says. “But” — pointing to the BC snoozing at her feet — “this guy’s dad wouldn’t herd sheep on a bet. No matter what we did or tried to get him interested, he was firm in his resolve to not work sheep. If sheep were the stock, most times he’d simply refuse to even enter the arena. Sometimes he’d go in, see the sheep, lay down and refuse to move. Other times, when he could be persuaded or forced to enter the arena, he’d attack the sheep. He was fine with goats and he loved to herd both ducks and cattle, but sheep? Absolutely no way. He eventually was very successful in herding competition, but not when the stock was sheep, so when I got a premium list and the stock listed was sheep, I knew to save the entry fee.”

Flash, the Clumber, believed he was a Saluki in a spaniel suit and that his feet were like wings unless his owner was on him every second they were in the field.

It is a “given” that Pointers can outrun a thoroughbred, have the horizon in their eyes and absolutely know that the best birds are always in cover at least a half-mile away. Well, maybe not. I judged at least a half-dozen Pointers over the years that covered ground like a lazy old spaniel. They worked slowly, carefully, back and forth, in front of their owners. These dogs were exceptionally well bred and had never been trained to work as they did. Strange as it seemed, this was their natural way of hunting. 

On the flip side, I once judged a Clumber that clearly believed he was a Saluki in a spaniel suit, because he covered ground like a champion racehorse and operated at ranges best suited for a 5-inch naval gun loaded with a Volcano shell. If he was hunting in the same county as his owner, he considered it working close. He could be reined in, but it was obvious that only very grudgingly would he stay within shotgun range afield. What’s more, his owner had to stay on him every step of the way or his my-feet-are-like-wings personality would immediately take over.

While the stereotype of Chihuahuas is that they are yappy little ankle biters, some of them won’t raise so much as a yip, let alone a yap — even when a stranger has invaded their owner’s backyard.     

A guy I know is a Chihuahua lover. He always has at least five and frequently as many as 10. You’d think in a pack this size at least one of them would be a yappy ankle biter. But I once walked up behind him in his backyard while he was doing some work in his flower garden and, in his words, “scared the livin’ bejesus out of him.” All his dogs were in the yard with him. None gave out with so much as a “yip,” let alone a “yap.” In fact, not one of the dogs in the entire pack made any noise at all. As for ankle-biting, I was in greater danger of being licked to death or smothered by lap-sitting kissers with these little fellows than being bitten.

All Newfoundlands love water, or so the stereotype says. But I know a Newfoundland owner who did everything any good retriever trainer would do to introduce a dog to water, and still wound up with a Newfie that hated water. Even a bath was a struggle with this particular dog.  

“I’d watched a couple of professional retriever trainers introduce young dogs to water, and it was so peaceful, gradual and gentle, with the trainer going into the water with the dogs and not doing their water intro until the pond had warmed up,” the owner remembers. “These pups quickly became happy swimmers that loved the water and it happened with no muss, no fuss. I loved what I saw and decided that was how I was going to introduce my Newfies to water. It worked beautifully for all except one.”

This particular dog, from the first time he put a foot in a puddle as a puppy, despised water and wanted nothing to do with it. No amount of coaxing, pleading or even coercion convinced him to change his mind. 

“I even put a flotation vest on him and tried leash-walking him into a beautiful, cool, sandy-bottom pond on a sizzling hot day in an effort to show him how nice going in the water could be,” the owner says. “Despite my constant reassurances that he was fine, when he didn’t have all four legs braced in the sand, he was screaming, hollering and fighting me every minute. I finally decided it just wasn’t worth the struggle. He was a great dog in every other way — good in obedience, rally and agility, a fine show dog and a wonderful carting dog. He just wasn’t a swimmer.”

Not every Newfoundland is a water lover.  

You don’t have to spend a lot of time around dogs to discover that little about them is predictable or absolutely always true. Elinor Karlsson, PhD, associate professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, in a study of more than 2,000 purebred and mixed-breed dogs published in 2022, found that behavioral traits in dogs are not specific for breed. The study also found that while genetics plays a role in the personality of any individual dog, specific dog breed is not a good predictor of those traits. 

For those reasons, and probably a lot of others, including the specific examples cited earlier, it is unwise to put great faith in the stereotypes attached to any breed. Because, the minute you do, some dog will come along and show you just how wrongheaded you were.