"Char" wrote in message
news
On 4/7/2010 12:43 PM, Thomas.F.Malone wrote:

There are some dogs that cannot be trained IMO Afghans and Irish Setters
but I think Greyhounds are worth a try.

There are no dogs that cannot be trained.

As the premise of "no bad dogs" and "all criminals can be rehabilitated".
Certainly there is a genetic component that determines basic intelligence,
temperament and trainability, as well as physical and neurological
conditions that may be inbred or caused by experience and environment. There
are some dogs and some people who simply cannot be trained or trusted to
behave in an acceptable manner in certain circumstances, and the privilege
to live in our society must be tempered by management, or terminated.

Saying some breeds of dogs cannot be trained is akin to making similar
statements about people of certain races. There are certainly some traits
that may be statistically more prevalent in some identifiable subsets of
both canine and human species, but a blanket statement about those
tendencies, and treatment based on them, is inexcusably racist. However, it
is prudent to exercise various degrees of caution based on generalities and
statistics, until the specific characteristics of an individual can be
determined.

There are exceptions to every absolute statement (including this one),
because it takes only one exception to prove it wrong, and the absense of
observed exceptions just means one has not been seen yet, especially if the
sample is small. A general statement of probability is reasonable. Anything
else is a lie, a damned lie, or [misused] statistics.

Paul and Muttley
www.muttleydog.com