11 Greeter dogs, home and hospitality:
Dogs are not known to be the most exquisite greeters; they can be noisy, annoying, and ubiquitous!
Only two options are offered either upon someone arrival you lock your dog in another room (but be ready for some sort of reprisal)
Or turn him into a “pro” greeter via training.
Fine-tuning dog exuberance could be quite a task; even more if hospitality is your professional environment.
A proven technique (two steps) consists in not acknowledging your dog until he naturally calms down and quietly sits, then offer praises and eventually a treat.
Step two will be to have friends or neighbors ringing the door bell a few times a day and using the same ignore-praise attitude combo as described in step one.
As a summary your greeter to be dog must learn to keep all four paws on the floor.
Training suggestion: Put your dog on the leash and hook it on the door knob, have a friend or family member standing outside to ring the bell on your signal, repeat many times for a few days while applying the above technique.
12 Guard dogs (and Watch dogs):
A few breeds accepted as guard dog – Doberman, Belgian and German Sheppard (The Czech German Sheppard is very much in demand), Bouvier des Flandres, American Pit Bull (unfortunately coming with a rap sheet of its own!) and Rottweller to name the most recognizable breeds.
A guard dog has a well defined mission: Protect family and family’s living quarters.
A guard dog could be trained as a “Bluff dog” making believe that an armful attack is imminent,
Or he could be trained as a “Stop dog” that does not hesitate to engage in physical contact.
The watch dog is usually less intimidating in appearance and is not trained as a Greeter dog; as such anything disrupting the dog’s routine will trigger barking.
13 Hunting dogs:
Two main categories – Hounds and Gun dogs-
Hounds are subdivided in Sight hounds and Scent hounds.
Sight hounds hunt prey, by keeping it in sight and using their strength and speed to overpower the prey
Scent hounds use their sense of smell as primary hunting tool. (Nature provided them with deep nasal cavities)
Gun dogs are subdivided in Retrievers, Pointers, Setters, Spaniels and Water dogs.
Retrievers, as their sub-category name indicates, retrieve a prey and Pointers, point at a prey!
Setters go after small game such as quail or pheasant using their nose, then “setting” until the hunter catch up with the dog.
Spaniels essentially make small game bird taking off from thicket, bushes and tough to penetrate wooden area for the hunter.
Water dogs force water game bird to take off and retrieve them, indeed retrieve them only if the dog owner happens to be a fine Nimrod as water games are not the easiest preys to hunt, they swiftly take off, have speed and can fly quite high.
14 Mascot dogs:
A Mascot dog is not a breed per se although many mascots are from the Bulldog breed.
Generally speaking a mascot is equivalent to a good luck charm, it represents Schools, Universities, Sport teams, Groups, Organizations, Businesses and even Military may have one. (Often a rescued dog from battle ground)
Speaking of the battle ground Sallie was the Regimental Mascot for the 11th Pennsylvania Volunteer infantry, Sallie followed the men on battle grounds, at Gettysburg
She got separated from her unit, and returned to the battle line at Oak Ridge and stood guard to the dead and wounded.
In February 1865 she was deadly wounded and buried on the field of battle.
Sallie is now immortalized at the 11th Pennsylvania monument erected at Gettysburg.
(Credit: Dogrrific thanks the City of Alexandria excellent Animal Mascots of the Civil War article)
15 Military Dogs:
Associated with military units, throughout countries and for many centuries, Military dogs until the 20th century were not methodically organized in specific duties.
During First World War they used to find casualties, carried messages and other similar actions.
By the Second World War they were also scouting and used as sentries.
Nowadays Military dogs are part of a dog and handler team: MWD team (MWD stands for Military Working Dogs)
Among their duties are: Messenger dogs, they learn to equally work with two handlers so they can pass messages from handler A to handler B.
Mine dogs find booby traps, wires, mines and other explosives, however this calls for the dog highest level of concentration thus not totally reliable in combat conditions but invaluable during a patrol.
Patrol dogs are major factor in detecting ambush, as they can be found walking in point.
Sentry dogs are trained to warn their handler of unnoticed stranger approach.
Tunnel dogs a specialty developed during Vietnam, also used in law enforcement when doubled with dog sniffing training.