Yes I would trust my dogs to stay at my side while walking through land containing livestock
Densil - I take it from your comments that your dogs primary role is to *work* in addition to being pets?
While I admire the level of control you obviously have over your dogs (in the same way as I admire guide dogs, or police dogs) - I have never claimed to be experienced enough to train my pet dog to such a standard and so would fail a dog in my care if I was as confident as you are that it would never express it's natural instincts
I do not want, nor need, a dog which is trained to the advanced level you describe - and as there are so many failed working dogs in all professions, is it realistic to expect
all dogs to achieve that level of control/behaviour?
Surely if a dog is not allowed to 'make a mistake' it is not learning anything at all ( except that everything it does is ok!) how is it ever going to learn that there is a right and a wrong?.................
I would be very worried if I couldn't trust my dog to be left alone for a short time and behave in an acceptable manner in the house by the age of around 12 months.
I don't think dogs understand "right from wrong" as you describe - they are motivated and driven by consequences - if they know somthing is rewarding, they do it more frequently
As I said, I
did leave him alone without being penned before he was 12 months old..........but it was a gradual process which eventually finished at around a year, at which point I never felt the need to use his pen
I think it would have been very unfair to have withdrawn it overnight rather than gradually - not only would it have increased the risk of him damaging the home, but it may well have caused other problems, such as anxiety due to lack of confidence in the space available to him