I don’t think dogs (or other animals by and large) have the ability to mask their behaviors and “Pretent” to be something they are not. A much more likely explanation for what you are describing is that over the first few months in a new environment they were “trained” to do things that were not intended and unwanted.
For example, lets say a dog gets fed a bone everytime it barks. The owners think they are doing this to take the dog’s mind off whatever caused it to bark in the first place. In a very short period of time the dog will figure out that it gets fed whenever it barks - and, no surprise- will bark all the time. It wasn’t an instance of a barking dog hiding its tendency at first so that the new owner would like it. Rather, it’s an instance where the owner trained the dog to bark all the time, even though he didn’t mean to.
My in-laws have owned two chows. Both were not raised around young children and were not used to them, which let to a couple of nip/scratch incidents, nothing serious.
If this dog seems calm and mellow, try him out. The only thing is chows have a lot of hair, so you will need to keep it combed and trimmed. It gets messy real fast.
The only chow I’ve ever known was owned by an old lover of mine. His name was Adam. He was possibly the meanest dog ever. He would just growl if you looked at him. I remember always hiding behind my friend when that dog would come in the room.
He told me that when Adam went to the vet to get groomed, they had to put him out or he would bite someone’s arm off or something. He no likey getting groomed.
But, the fact that he looked like a teddy bear made me want to hug him. Never got close enough though.
As kelly5078 says, they are one person (or at most, one family) dogs, and I think this may be a source of many problems with them: they’ll be submissive to their key person but try to be “alpha” to everyone else. If their person isn’t “top dog”, or is but isn’t respectful to other members of the household, the dog will pick up on that and behave accordingly. Chows are rather stand-offish and can be stubborn about training, not because they don’t understand what is being asked of them but because they just don’t want to do it. You can train them to do anything you like; you just have to be patient and consistant, and negative reinforcement seems to be pretty counterproductive with them. If I got one now I’d try the “clicker” training with them; choke collars and the like have no effect.
Since the animal in question isn’t a puppy you don’t know what kind of socialization it has had in the past but you can still take efforts to socialize the dog by taking it for walks and meeting people and (definitely) take a discipline class. As far as the chasing, they do definitely like to chase squirrels, cats, rabbits, and other fast-moving furries, but I’ve never had a problem getting either the full or half-chow dogs I’ve had to understand that housecats were not to be chased. Still, any dog who has been abused (as you prospective canine apparently has) might be prone to acting out.
One thing that hasn’t been addressed are medical issues. Although chows are medium sized dogs their stature (stocky and wide-hipped) and genetic predisposition makes them prone to hip dysplasia later in life, and they tend to have more problems with glacoma and entropion than average. I suspect this discomfort and disability is what causes some chows to become irritable later in life. As noted, chows are clean dogs–they aren’t prone to roll in feces or roadkill like some dogs, and aren’t greasy or smelly–but they do need regular grooming. Also, they seem to have more issues with seperation anxiety than average, though that can be addressed with training. They don’t really seem to be “pack” dogs insofar as needing other dogs to play with, but if you do have other pets they’ll definitely want to be at the head of the hierarchy, which lead to conflicts between our full and half chow dogs.
Oh, and they’re great guard dogs; they’re naturally protective of their pack and property, and despite being only 50lbs or so, tend to look and act like a much larger dog. I’ve heard a few anecdotes of chows letting a burgler in a house and then cornering him. When defensive or threatening they look like a miniature bear. Both of mine had very “soft” mouths, though I trained them early on to take food gently and not bite down on hands.
So, there are definitely some tradeoffs. I like them and would have another (though my preference at this point would be for an Aussie Shepherd-ish mutt if I had the time and facilities to keep such a creature), but the decision should be based on the personality of the particular dog.
Trunk, I’m going to take exception to your last statement on this list. There are breeds that are more difficult than others, and I agree with the posters who have said that chows are one of those breeds. Having said that, there are very few dog breeds who cannot be good dogs, if the owner knows what to expect and how to train and socialize their animal. Certainly, all the Dobies, Rotties and German Shepherd Dogs I’ve met have been well-behaved, pleasant animals. However, all their owners knew the hazards of owning those breeds and had taken the time to train the dog properly.
Chows, like most Asian dogs, are rather more dominance oriented than many Americans realize. In temperament they are much closer to Siberians or Malemutes. As such they are best behaved when they know that they are not the alpha animal, and they know that they cannot achieve that position. This doesn’t mean that you have to abuse the animal to control it, just that when it does start disobeying, you reign it in.
If the OP has experience training dogs, I’d say take a chance on the chow. If this would be your first foray with a dog that will try to challenge you for the alpha position, you may want to take a pass.
This is incorrect. Purebred chows do not all have short snouts. Both of my chow chows were purebred with papers and have/had foxy faces. Most of the ones that you see in the show ring do have the smooshed faces though.
As Stranger said, chow chows can be difficult to train. They only do tricks when they feel like it. They are aloof and catlike and generally don’t give a shit if you praise them or not. The stereotypical chow chow can’t even be bothered to take a treat if it means doing a trick at times.
OK, time to go outside and give my little girl a hug.
The short snout is another one of the abhominations the AKC has done to dog breeds. As with the Shar-Pei, the preferred “show” characteristic is a foreshortened and wrinkled face, the breeding for which has resulted in many of the genetic and congenital problems that crop up in purebreed Chows (and other breeds…what a terrible thing the AKC hath wrought upon the once dependable German Shepherd).
To elaborate: whereas shepherd and retriever breeds are willing to train all day as long as you keep them occupied, chows (like beagles or hounds) have a limit to how much instruction they are willing to take in one sitting, so you have to break up the training into shorter, more frequent periods, and stop the training before they lose interest so that they don’t get the idea that they can control you by not paying attention. I never had any trouble training my lads the basics (sit, lay down, stop) but never got either of them fully competent on “stay”. They’d stay if they wanted to, or as long as I had an eye on them, and then push off when they felt like it. OTOH, I didn’t have to housebreak either of them; even the half-chow, which we got as a 6-7 week old puppy understood about going outside from Day 1. (SmaBut when he was in his teenage years he’d lay a pile on the carpet when we weren’t looking specifically to spite us. That lasted for about three weeks, then back to normal.
When I went to see the chow today, I discovered that he is partial to men. He loved my boyfriend but was indifferent to me. This other dog who just came in, however, sat in my lap and was the sweetest, calmest dog ever. I decided to take her because she seemed so terrified of being in the pound and I feel 99% certain she would never hurt anyone. Also, she’s quite fat and the cats could outrun her or jump onto something and get away if she went all Cujo for some reason.
It all turned out OK, though, because when I went to the desk to tell the lady I wanted Sasha, she said, “Good, because the chow was just adopted.” So it all worked out. My boyfriend’s bummed, though, because he felt the dog really liked him. Too bad.
Sounds like it worked out for everybody; I’m glad to hear that she was adopted. I’ve got a soft spot for chow dogs. My favorite dog ever was a chow/golden retriever mix, and he was just the best. Very even-tempered, loved playing but could keep to himself as well, great with other animals, and he bonded to me instantly and kept it up even after I abandoned him to move cross-country and wasn’t there with him when he died. ::sniff:: I need to be alone now.
Sorry about that. What’s the new breed? Have fun with her!
Maybe it’s petty, but I want to be #1 with my dog. I know chows tend to fixate on one person, and if that person where the boyfriend and not me, I’d feel bad. This way, I have a dog who’s afraid of men, but I think that’s because she’d been treated badly in her last home. She apparently lived with 4 men and a child and was very close to the child and fearful of the men. Her former owners say she was surrendered because they got a new dog who was mean to her. Mmmhmmm, is that why she flinches so badly when a man lifts his foot up anywhere near her? She definitely has that omega dog vibe, which could be good b/c she won’t mind if the cats are above her in status. She lived with cats before and she likes to play with them but wouldn’t hurt them, and I believe it because she is so gentle and nice.
Mixed. Her name is Sasha, which is a decent enough name. She has the brown and black face markings that rotties and shepards have, but a beige chin and neck. Her face is long and pointed like a hound’s. The fur on her face and neck are very silky, and her body has longish thick black and grey hair with a dense undercoat. Her tail is shortish fluffy. I think maybe part shepard, part collie? She’s also quite fat, and seems to be pretty lazy. She’d rather sit next to you with her head in your lap than run around, but she WILL run around and lose some of that weight. She looks like a fuzzy hippo right now. I picked her because of her sweetness and softness and that look of utter despair and lostness in her eyes. I can’t wait to make her feel happy. No one will kick her here… well, no one human. I can’t speak for the cats.
RubyStreak, I happy everything worked out for everyone.
I don’t like the look of foxy looking Chows. (No disrespect to hajario ) The point is to have a dog that looks like a bear with a ruff like a lion, not a fox. You want them to look like this
I want to get another Chow, but I was thinking of trying a smooth coat this time, but my wife doesn’t like them because they don’t look like Chows. To her, they look like some generic spitz.
Of course we also want to get a bullmastiff and a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (stupid Ein on Cowboy Bebop). We might never get around to having kids, just a house full of dogs.
The hair will get EVERYWHERE from any dog like a chow, husky, etc. Insane amounts of hair. I grew up with a chow/german shepard dog mix that was super sweet and playful and amazingly protective of her “kids”.
If you’re literally looking for a dog to “run” with you, and it gets warm, a chow will have a hard time with the heat.
I’d go with a lab mix. There’s about a billion of them out there for adoption.
Most chow people would agree with you. I know I am in the minority in my opinion. The show dog people say that my dog looks “snipey” which is a bad trait in the ring.
I want to chime in on breed stereotypes with a personal experience.
We had a doberman when I was a kid. We were first time dog owners (my dad, my brother and me) and adopted her as an adult dog from some friends of ours who had taken her in, but already had 9 dogs. Midge was a great dog. I never saw her exhibit a single aggressive tendency. She was attention loving and sweet. She was deathly afraid of the vacuum cleaner and thunderstorms. As a watchdog, she was useless. If anyone had broken into the house, she wouldn’t have even woken us up, unless the assailant refused to pet her.
Naturally, I have a problem with breed stereotypes. I’ve known many sweet dobermans, rottweilers, and pitbulls. I have seen aggressive examples of each of these breeds, except dobermans… curiously.
It’s the stereotypes and people “playing it safe” with puppies that causes so many adult dogs to go unadopted. If you’re working with the SPA, they’re going to make every effort to make sure that you and the dog are a good match. They don’t like having animals returned to them. Careful supervision and good training are needed to assure you won’t have a problem with the cats, but nothing is completely safe. You can see from reading all the posts that every chow, and every animal is different. Adopt the dog, give him a loving home. If things will absolutely not work out, the SPA will take him back. But the only way to know for sure is to bring him home.
) The point is to have a dog that looks like a bear with a ruff like a lion, not a fox. You want them to look like 
