As a Labrador swam by me out to sea his owner said I hope he doesn't meet a seal

It always fascinated me that particular behaviors, like herding, can be so ingrained to a particular breed of dog. The dog is no longer in a setting where this is crucial to their survival, yet the urge exists. I do wonder for how many generations the behaviors would last, assuming the dominant genes were not surpressed. That is of course assuming genes are the factor that drives it. It's almost as if environment has little to do with the behavior in this case, other than having opportunity to exhibit the behavior.

Idk if the "herding behaviour" is a useful way to think of this. Imagine that we didn't speak the same language, you went for a swim in the ocean and I would go after you and dragged you back to shore while shouting (in my own language) "Oh my, that is so dangerous. Do you even know how many people drown like that? Stop this lunacy at once". Would you describe my behaviour as "herding"? Would you talk about generations, and dominant genes? Or would you just say "this person has some fear for my safety (well grounded or baseless) and seems to care enough about me to save me from the danger he perceives, while I can't convince him that it is fine because we don't speak the same language."

I was flabbergasted when I learned that herding dogs have the instinct to bite behind the legs, even of humans. It is a pressure tactic to make the herded animal go in a certain direction.

To me this is an (unpopular) argument against the tabula rasa theory of humans.

If such a complex behaviour can be congenital, who knows what behaviours are congenital in humans.

This analogy might work in a universe where dogs speak foreign languages in which they learn about concepts like danger, persuasion, and language itself. Sounds fun.

Tabula rasa theory is not close to plausible with the scientific evidence we have, unfortunately.

This sort of "herding behavior" isn't just noticeable when you go out to swim, but any time 1+ people are apart from each other. You can spot these dogs extremely easily when you have a bunch of young children playing together, and you can see the family dog paying attention and as soon as one strays away from the group, the dog will start engaging and carefully nudge the stray kid back to the group.

There is no inherent danger in those situations, yet the dogs prefer if everyone was together in a group. If that's not "herding", I might just not understand what herding really is.

Herding behaviour is so distinctive and so apparent in certain breeds that it's nonsense to dismiss like this. Peak HN arrogance.

Why is that unfortunate?

Edit: Just to clear, my comment was genuine curiosity, especially as true tabula rasa seems to mean we would lose benefits such as the ability to learn spoken language. The racist/xenophobic comments by a poster below is unscientific nonsense and not what I was trying to introduce.

bite behind leg doesn't sound so complex.

bite behind leg if multiple animals going towards X but animal A goes towards Y and biting will make A go towards X would be complex.

bite behind leg is simple and crude and by placing dog in right context produces complex and useful results.

> it's nonsense to dismiss like this

I'm not dismissing herding behaviour. It is a thing. But genetics is simply not a good explanation for the story here. Here we have two dogs of the same breed (Arthur and Lenny). One lets their owner swim freely the other doesn't. The difference here is not genetics (they are the same berad), this in my opinion is a personality difference between the two dogs.

Which is why I'm starting my comment with "Idk if the "herding behaviour" is a useful way to think of this." Calling it "herding behaviour" doesn't explain the difference between the two labradors.

> Peak HN arrogance.

So lovely. Would you say that to my face closewith? I was nothing but polite to you and everyone else. I'm a human here you know. Can you treat me like one?

One reason is because it will forever be an argument against equality by some who feel superior. Because some might believe they have the right to take decisions for others based on their perceived superiority, even if differences are incomprehensively multidimensional and humans who usually think of themselves as superior they lack terribly at other dimensions.

They probably think it would be nice if people weren't born with negative behavioral pre-dispositions

It is not polite to assume that you, after a brief amount of thinking with no background knowledge, have overturned centuries of empirical and scientific knowledge of canine behavioural heredity. It is astonishingly presumptuous. And it is, indeed, peak HN arrogance to make that assumption.

> in which they learn about concepts like danger, persuasion, and language itself.

Dogs definitely know about the concept of "danger". Roaring fire, a raised stick, or loud noises. These are all things which doesn't cause immediate pain but they react to avoid them. It seems from the story Lenny includes in the things he want to avoid the ocean while Arthur doesn't. That sounds more like an individual difference than a genetic predisposition.

You don't need to speak a foreign language to have this concept.

I don't know what is your definition of "persuasion". If it involves the behaviour of standing in someone's way and bothering them until they turn back then we can agree that Lenny seems to have the concept despite not having a language.

We had an Old English Sheepdog called Bob who let kids climb trees but only up to a certain height. If you went higher Bob grabbed your ankle and gently pulled you back to the height he previously "let you". Otherwise you could do whatever you wanted to do on the tree and he didn't care. Otherwise never herded anyone ever.

My point is not the language. More that if a chinese coast guard would drag you out of the sea you wouldn't be saying "yeah the chinese have a strong herding reflex". You would say "this person doesn't want me to swim", or "this person thinks I'm in danger and I can't communicate that I'm not".

How does the dog infer that swimming in an ocean is dangerous?

It still requires solving the symbol grounding problem. How does DNA code for the brain's network weights that correspond to things like the definitions [non-prey target], [goal location], [incentive], [coerce] and [back of leg], or some other suitable set of concepts?

> The dog is no longer in a setting where this is crucial to their survival

It is crucial to their survival. That's how they made it to this day in these numbers.

> It is not polite to assume that you, after a brief amount of thinking with no background knowledge, have overturned centuries of empirical and scientific knowledge of canine heredity.

I do not claim any such thing. Simply that the difference in behaviour between two dogs of the same breed cannot be explained with genetics. Lenny and Arthur share a genetic background. They do not share the behaviour. There is some other difference between Lenny and Arthur (or between the two swimmers!) which drives the difference in the observed behaviours.

I'm not saying genetics is not a thing. It is simply not the right lens to inspect this situation here.

> And it is, indeed, peak HN arrogance to make that assumption.

Which I'm not making. In any of my comments. So we are good then. :)

Reproduction and evolutionary success in breeding conditions are not the same thing as survival. No breeder kills off dogs with unwanted characteristics, they just don’t breed them.

How do you infer swimming in an ocean is dangerous?

Birds building elaborate nests is something I can't wrap my head around. How do you encode that in DNA, and have a (comparatively tiny) brain execute such complex social behavior?!

What kind of equality? Before the law, opportunity or outcome?

To me it sounds complex enough to bite behind the leg, not leg in general, and not the leg of a chair for example.

I do not think a dog has to solve partial differential equations for me to be impressed and think that complex behaviours can be innate.

Gets a face full of water and it stings its nose. Looses footing as it gets deep and doesn't like it. Hears the distant waves roaring and doesn't like it. Sees its human breath differently and move differently and doesn't like it. Looks at its owner and sees them getting small (just a bobbing head on the water) and doesn't like it.

Can be so many things.

Not even as far as that, the type of equality to not gas the jews or to not eradicate palestineans, or to not lynch black people.

What do you describe sounds like herding behaviour, yes. When I say it is not a good description for "this" I mean the behavioural difference between Arthur and Lenny. Maybe you read it as if I don't believe in herding in general? That would be indeed silly on my part.

What does this have to do with the discussion mate. I am very aware of cultural differences and incompatibilities, but have you seen the population pyramids of "White people's countries" with a capital W as you wrote it ?

> No breeder kills dogs […]

I sadly have to disagree as history tells us a different story, e.g.

"Back in the day, puppies without a ridge were either euthanized or culled at birth." https://healthyhomemadedogtreats.com/ridgeless-rhodesian-rid...

I learned that when I met such a dog the first time some years ago and the owner told me about this. And I would not bet that it actually is "history" nowadays.

There are insects with much much smaller brains than birds, that also exhibit quite complex nest building behavior.

I would say from reading the description it doesn't have to do all that, because it sounds like the dog is biting indiscriminately at backs of legs of any reasonable large animal, since it is also biting at the backs of human legs. So I think it doesn't really do any non-prey target reasoning, it just does target size X has back of leg, also I don't know based on description that it does incentive - what is the incentive of biting the back of human legs?

Evolutionary success is survival for genes.

Yes they do. Farmers will kill dogs who attack/bite sheep & cattle without much hesitation.

No, more basic than that - if there’s no “tabula rasa” (and people have inborn behavioral traits), then hate groups will use those traits (no matter how poorly proven or unlikely to be found across an entire group) to justify their belief system.

Is that something people think? As far as I remember, I never felt unsafe swimming in any large body of water, give the conditions are alright. Based on my own experience, I would assume people default to thinking bodies of water are not dangerous, but probably depends a lot on the location of your upbringing (which for me was on an island).

You don't know anyone who drowned?

No, is that common where you're from?

Dogs, in the US, are no longer an asset to use as a tool, such as herding, but merely a companion in the vast majority of cases. Agreed they became what they were in order to be useful enough to feed and care for, but different traits may be desired as a pure companion.

The behavior you're describing is instinctual. Difficult to relate to because we only see tiny remnants of instinctual behavior in humans. But I'd venture to guess that acting on instinct does not require any understanding of abstract concepts (or indeed the language in which such concepts would exist).