I am interested in other peoples experience of their Deerhounds temperament towards other breeds of dog and how the other dogs cope/react with this.

Deerhounds and hounds in general are a new (2years) breed to me and I am still learning all their little foibles.

Among the things that have struck me about our lovable breed are that they are very gregarious towards people and dogs, but can be a little over zealous with both.

Mac can play a little too rough sometimes with our other dogs and normally ends up getting a telling off from one them.

Is this a general trait of the breed ? Is it ever a problem for anyone ?

I've only had Murphy for 31/2 yearsso he is new to me too, but he is ok with other dogs. He can be a nuisnace though and if he spots one whilst off the lead and before I have a chance to grab him he is off like a shot at 300mph, which generally gets the other dogs back up, well it would mine too! If it is younger than him he can be dominant, never aggressive though, but he will jump in and out pecking at him until he gets told off. I prefer him with bitches as dogs can eye each other up! but that is just my experience. I find some dogs like to have a go at him when we are road walking, perhaps because of their size but Verenav has read somewhere it could be because of their submissive look and arched body, tail btween the legs etc. Which sounds pretty accurate.
On the whole, he is good and never aggressive which is the main thing, I have more to worry about than Deerhoun, Border Terrier thinks he is a Rottweillwer at the moment

Every dog Mack meets has a go at him. I think it is because a) he holds his tail high (not very deerhound like at all) and b) he is entire.

He has had dogs growling inches from his face and doesn't batter an eyelid. He just wags his tail and tries to get them to play. He doesn't read signals at all which is a worry.

Daisy has ripped off most of his face fur in play and he never gets cross with her even though it can look sore sometimes. He is a big softy!

Ben always wanted to play with other dogs but can get very rough. He was often attacked in his first 18 months but would just back off, he did receive some bites and on one occasion needed many stitches. When he got to about 2yrs 6months he started retaliating and jumped on any dog that attacked hime and pinned it down on the ground without causing injury although he would growl in a very fierce manner. He also pinned a couple of dogs down that did not appear to attack first although I suspect there was some aggressive eye contact. I would guess that he just became a bit "jumpy" and acted out of fear.

He plays roughly with our terrier and has often had bites on the face, he jumps on the terrier and pins it down while roaring very loudly. He has never left a mark on the terrier despite being bitten on the face, nose, mouth and even having blood drawn.

I think overall that he deserves some of this due to how rough he can get playing with other dogs but handles attacks in the best possible way in so far as he stops the other dogs attack without biting and causing injury.

A point of interest is that it is mainly collies, some labradors and spanials that seem to be most aggressive towards him. He's also had problems from some lurchers. While walking along the canal once we passed a couple with a young lurcher on a lead, when they were about 100 yards away they let it off the lead and it ran back and attacked Ben from behind, obviously it has some sort of big problem with him to do that!

I also had a neighbour with a German Shepherd that hated him and would jump a wall and attack him when we passed. Luckily Ben just pushed it over and it rolled along the pavement and seemed stunned enabling its owner to get it under control. Another case was a Jack Russel that ran under his legs and bit him, since then he will panic if a small dog tries to go under him.

I don't know why this has happened so much, I can only guess its similar to a tall child who gets bullied and picked on because he is big. Also of interest is that he's never had problems with female dogs only males.

I agree, Labradors seems to have it in for Mack with a passion! They are such nice dogs as well usually.

hi, i find that my two deerhounds are very freindly but they do rush up to other dogs when they see them. (Befor i get a chance to catch them.) But they never fight, but some dogs want to have a go at them and i have found the most aggresive dog is the lab.

My bad experiences have been with Bull Terrier breeds, as they like to be 'top dog' and see a dog towering above them makes them go.He was once bitten by a Golden Retreiver, mine was on a lead and the other dog rushed up and had a go.
If I see people with Staff's I usually ask them to put them on the lead, the looks they give you! but another experience is the owners don't understand the breed of dog they have got or it's capabilities. I don't want my boy fighting, the sound is worse than the actual fight, but it isn't a pleasant sight.

My little grey boy is far from adult, so I cant speak for him. But I share the experiences with agressive labs, and Staff/pitt folks who know less than nothing about the breed they "must have". My borzoi does not like retrievers. Both him and my wolfhound tries to calm other dogs down, but if they get attacked, so help the other dog. My borzoi took an attacking amstaff apart (even if he misses 1/3 of his teeth). He is so fast, that the amstaff never had a chance, his jaw snapped into air all the time.

The good thing about the muscle dog folks is that they mainly take their dogs for a walk in the city where they get seen. If we walk in the forest, or at the beach we only meet the retriever folks, but that is also enough.

When we used to walk Dana at off lead areas the worst experience we had was with a Mastiff. They greeted and then the Mastiff attacked without provocation. We didn't realise till after the woman left that the bite on her neck had punctured her skin. Another attack came from a kelpie x but that was possession over a stick. The kelpie tore the skin that stretches from thigh to abdomen. I stitched her when we got home but it is a difficult area to keep together.

Lockie on the other hand does not like terriers. He can be very cocky at shows and I have to keep a tight lead and vigilant eye. He doesn't growl or lift lips but will lunge. He can be a bugger. If I distract him with treats he doesn't care. I'm hoping this is just an adolescent thing and that he will calm down as he gets older.

Murray tends to charge up to other dogs (before I can get him on the lead)but he only ever wants to play. He will bark and bark at them to get them to respond but their response is usually to get aggressive towards him. The worst dogs to be aggressive to him are labs especially the choclate ones!
Luckily, we have got to know the regular dogs on our walks now but as Murray is getting older I am expecting him, once in to the terrible teens, to get into some rumbles.
He is pretty good on his recalls which does help a bit but once another dog makes an apperance Murray goes into 'hysterical mode'

As I said earlier in my post, Ben sems to be targeted by a lot of Collies and Labradors. Today somebody gave me an interesting explanation.

Labradors were kept on many estates that bred game for hunting. As well as their hunting roles thay were encouraged to ward of poachers and their dogs. Many poachers would have had large hunting dogs such as Deerhounds, Lurchers etc.

Collies are used by Sheep farmers to herd the flock and were also trained to ward off poachers with large hunting dogs as above.

In both cases todays dogs inherit these tendancies from their ancestors. I'm not sure if it it's true or not but it does sound somewhat plausable.

Sounds plausable, but it might just be a dog thing, intact dog thing. Bitches tend to be a bit more friendly.

Murphy was out with my husband earlier when a woman entered the field with a Bedlington. Off he charged, 300 mph to say hello. The Beddy was going through that change, you know, cute playful puppy to turning into a Rottweiller (terrier thing) and he chased Murphy away, nipping him. Murphy ran like the wind, by which time my husband had walked over and started talking to the woman. They just let the dogs sort themselves out buy which time the Beddy nipped my dog, he put it in it's place, vocally, he never touched the other dog.

Also remember alot of dogs feel threated by a DH's sheer size and stand up for themselves incase this big dog is going to attack.

I think that you're probably right about it being a dog thing. Ben seems to act in much the same way as Murphy to other dogs. If he meets a female he is very wary and respectful, he often takes 3 quick steps back, but if a male threatens he reads it the riot act. (His bark is far worse than his bite, in fact he never bites)

Odelle is the same, she plays quite rough with my other dogs. Not deliberately nasty but just rougher than them.

Yep , the rough play is astonishing at first - but I also always can see how my 4 are training in their play , training to bring down a huge deer . No wonder their play is fast and hard usually . They do the full bodyslam , try pulling - in full flight - on whatever limb or tail or fur is available , try to trip every which way and , they do make A LOT of noise when at play - when they hunt , they are obviously quiet , only bark at whomever they treed . And then the wrestling , this seems to be for sheer fun and is also a lot of fun to watch. I love it when mine start palying - but do not allow more than 1 at a time to play with another breed - if we should meet others at all .
Here the worst culprits - aggressive towards deerhounds - are Shepherds and , especially , Huskies and Huskiemixes .

Verena

Verena

Have just had my son and little 3 year old granddaughter up from Cornwall for the w/end. All my dogs and Murray in particular have been excellent with her and have made the w/end extra pleasurable by being so good

My 18 month old nephew Finlay came round in the summer, I put the dogs in the 'big garden' as there were people, babies and food everywhere, my brother in law, a lurcher man, picked Finlay up and put him in with the dogs, who loved him and licked him. I was more worried about him being knocked over than bitten, but both the dogs were brilliant. The Border Terrier adored him and sat with him all the time and was squeezed constantly by baby.
I also have my 10 month old nephew Clement to stay. We have babygates every, which for my peice of mind is great. There is always that element of worry, especially when the baby/child isn't yours and I would never leave them alone with the dogs. The dogs are more fascinated with babies than anything.
I bought 3 children up with up to 7 dogs at a time, all Lurchers (DH cross) Greyhounds and a terrier was always present in the kennel and we never had a grumble or a growl and mine as babies would crawl all over the lurchers. It is different with your own kids.

We also had a Saluki, whilst she was good with the kids, she was a weird dog, only liked my husband, if I took her out over the fields and let her off, she would come home to see her Dad. Not my cup of tea, very aloof.