Behaviour patterns in retriever dogs

Retriever dogs are used by hunters rather than farmers and must not be the one to eye, stalk and chase the prey, and so these sections of the sequence have been hypertrophied or minimised.

Their motor pattern should look like:

... ORIENT ... > ... eye ... > ... stalk ... > ... chase ... > ... GRAB-BITE ...

This means that the dog becomes oriented to the environment and the prey that is being hunted, and to a small degree is eyeing the prey but only to remain oriented in truth. Once the hunter has shot the prey, the chase takes the dog to the prey and the grab-bite is exaggerated to have the dog retrieve the prey.

Retrievers are well known for loving a game of fetch as this allows them to act out the motor pattern that was bred into them - you show them the object allowing them to orient, then throw the object allowing them a small amount of use of the eye, stalk and chase, but allowing them the satisfaction of the grab-bite in order to retrieve the object for you.

Why don't livestock guardians retrieve or play fetch?

Livestock guardians are extremely poor at playing fetch. It is interesting to note that often the maremma will 'fetch' an object when thrown the first time, but will be unlikely to return it to you, but will simply run away with it, and if you take the object and throw it a second time they are more reluctant to 'fetch' it, and try it a third time and they are likely to look at you as though you are obviously a simpleton if you think they are going to engage in such behaviour!

I know a maremma that used to delight in catching the cricket ball during a game, then taking off with the ball, causing the children to all have to chase her to fetch...

Maremmas are unlikely to ever play these kinds of games with you!

This article is broken into topics for your convenience:

Intoduction to temperament	Basic of livestock guarding temperament
Nature of a guardian	The characteristics of guarding livestock
The Attentive breed trait	How your livestock guardian pays attention to the animals it protects
The Trustworthy breed trait	Livestock guardians must be trustworthy to not harm the animals it protects
The Protective breed trait	Your livestockguardian must protect the animals it lives with from all predators
How livestock guardians do their job	What do these breed traits mean together to show the behaviour of a good guardian?
Differences in individual dogs	Not all livestock guardian individuals behave the same way - why not?
Puppy behaviour	How do livestock guardian puppies tend to behave?
Motor patterns versus Intelligence	How much dog behaviour is true intelligence and how much is driven by motor patterns?
Examining Sheepdog Behaviour	Typical behaviour traits used by dogs that 'round up' their livestock
Examining Retriever Behaviour	Typcal behaviour of retriever dog breeds
Examining Fox Behaviour	A fascinating breeding trial with fox behaviour