Regarding dog's behaviour in front of danger

[Bakkat]

Dogs are living creatures with their own will.
Dogs could not follow orders, flee in front of dangers, and so on.
Dogs could be a killing machine if they truly love their owner. They could be...
But as well, they could just decide to run away if the things gets nasty.
Another unworthy suggestion haha ^^'
Regards!

[PALU]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Dogs sometimes do flee when injured and sometimes fight to the death. They also ignore orders when enraged (as do companions). As to them following orders, well, just because the blasted dog barked a "yes" when I called it, it doesn't mean the bugger actually comes...

I've seen someone claiming different dogs have different personalities (brave/cowardly, energetic/lazy...).

[Bakkat]

Seems the behaviour is way wider than i thought through my experiences with dogs.
Any moderator feel free to delete the thread.

[StefanPravda]

The easiest way to see that they react differently is to take multiple dogs in one trip with you. I had 4 dogs a while ago, one of them, Lady, always attacked last, sticking around me. The other 3 were far away when she usually decided to join the party. I took her down because she was a bad example

[Atwood]

I've certainly noticed different personalities in some of my dogs - I wrote a post on it some time ago (possibly the one PALU is referring to) on the old forum: http://z3.invisionfree.com/UrW_forum/index.php?showtopic=8145

While it's hard to be sure if the traits are actually there or just the result of confirmation bias, the main traits I've observed that appear to be on a range are:

Courageous versus cowardly (how long the dog continues to fight before fleeing due to wounds)
Gluttonous versus light eater (how long the dog goes before barking for food, stealing food or eating unusual foods)
Aggressive versus calm (how much damage the dog does to prey, quickness to attack, time to calm down, likelihood of attacking its master)
Clingy versus roamer (how far the dog prefers to be from its master, whether glued to your side or entire world tiles away)

Specifically on the courage of dogs in fights, three of the dogs I mentioned in the other post make a good example of the difference with a fight we had with a Njerp. The three dogs all attacked on command without a problem. The Njerp had a blunt weapon and started swinging at the dogs, and almost as soon as the fight started Olli was running away. Rikori stayed fighting until he was unable to stand, at which point he dragged himself away. Likewise, Sammi continued attacking until he also collapsed, at which point he tried to flee. I then stepped in and killed the Njerp (I was almost dead from a previous fight when we stumbled across the Njerp, so I was keeping well back from him). Sammi and Rikori were a mess, both with fractured shoulders, elbows, legs and chests and a bleeding fractured skull for Rik, who spent the next several hours slipping in and out of consciousness before thankfully stabilizing. Olli, when he finally showed up, had a bruised shoulder. Olli did not get fed that night.

[shorun]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Dogs sometimes do flee when injured and sometimes fight to the death. They also ignore orders when enraged (as do companions). As to them following orders, well, just because the blasted dog barked a "yes" when I called it, it doesn't mean the bugger actually comes...

I've seen someone claiming different dogs have different personalities (brave/cowardly, energetic/lazy...).

i've seen different behaviors in my dogs. i got "jef" and "stavros"

stavros is very agressive, he fights hard and long and often gets wounded to.
jef is a bit more... cowardly is the wrong word here.. carefull! he'll run towards whatever i send it at but not actually fight it, he'll just "hang around" untill it can nip it's back!
so... i learned to FIRST release jef, he will get it's attention but not actually engage... then stavros who will go in full berserk style, wound and distract the prey and THEN jef will usually join in the actual fight.

i also found jef to return to me faster when the prey does get away, stavros will charge for longer (making me worry about his safety).

they both listen equally well tough, when i tell them to eat they heard that but when i tell them to get out of my cabin they are less likely to oblige (and i have had to remove them with a leach more then once). it's more of a pathfinding thing i guess but i find it hilarious. it gives em some realism

[Bakkat]

pretty cool, shorun. Sounds really nice