The Top Five Worst Reasons to Get a Dog

The Top Five Worst Reasons to Get a Dog

Dogs can bring so much love and joy to our lives. Dogs can also bring our lives a lot of stress. However, when you chose the right dog and for the right reasons you will find the right match for your family. Choosing a dog for your family requires research and patience. Once you narrow your choices down to a few breeds and avoid the reasoning below you will be able to live a happy life with your new dog.

1) It's just so cute! Everybody wants to have a cute puppy or dog, but cute is not a reason to own a dog. You should research the breed before choosing a dog, not after you bring the dog home. Each breed has its personality quirks and needs. Some breeds require more exercise, while other breeds require mental stimulation to keep from getting bored.

2) This breed is all the rage with celebrities! Just because a celebrity has a certain breed does make that breed a good match for you or your family. Unfortunately many celebrities chose dogs by how easy they are to carry or how cute they look in a certain outfit. Never chose a dog because someone you admire has that breed of dog.

3) I want a manly breed! Many single men or insecure men, decide that their breed of dog speaks of their masculinity. Without research they decide that they need a big, muscular dog. Men tend to chose bully breeds and large dogs, but bully breeds and large dogs have unique needs. Bully breeds in particular require special training and a dominant leader.

4) My kids want a dog. No matter how many times your kids assure you that they will be responsible for the dog, you should no matter. As soon as the novelty wears off you will have to beg them just to keep the water bowl filled. Be sure you are prepared to feed and exercise the dog on your own before buying or adopting a dog.

5) I want to teach my kids responsibility. Puppies and dogs are not a good way to teach your kids responsibility, that's what chores are for. I do think that owning a dog is great for kids, but do not try to use the dog as a teaching tool. Dogs have their own way of teaching kids love and kindness. The best way to teach your kids responsibility is through example. Treat your dog with love and respect and you will teach them more than any lecture could.

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MAN’S BEST FRIEND

MAN’S BEST FRIEND

Dogs accompanied us from primitive camp sites to agricultural settlements to the massive cities in which we live today. They made these transitions so successfully because they re highly effective at adapting to changing conditions. A dramatically wide range of shapes and size helped them through these transitions, but it it their varied natures that have made dogs the most popular pet in the world today.

With help from us, dogs have evolved different characteristics to survive the varying environment in which we place them.

Today, there are over 400 recognized breeds of dogs. These breeds exist at our like. We create new breeds and combine or else old ones completely according to our needs or the dictates of fashion. Because of this, it is sometimes argued that dogs are an unnatural and wraped product of human intervention.

All breeds of dogs are the product of artificial rather then natural selection. Even the asustralian Dingo and the Papua New Guninca singing dog, which mate without pressure of human selection, are the result of our intervention, because thousands of years humans introduced “domesticated” dogs to those locations. All of our canine companions today are the result of the practical, aesthestic, economic, or even vital needs of preceding Human generations. Some dogs are independent, while others have been breed to be more obedient.

We sometimes confuse what suits us in a dog’s behavior with what is naturally best for the dog itself, making the mistake of thinking that the more trainable a dog is, the more intelligent it is. In fact the interactable stray dog who survives by its own wits might be more intelligent that dog who jumps through hoops at its owner’s command. My retrievers, lying on the floor by side, are not their result of natural survival of the fittest. Although they are a large and strong, they would be too gentle to survive for long in the wild.

In spite of all our intervention, however, elements of the dog’s ancestry can still be seen in our pets. Even in those breeds that are the most dramatically different from their wolfs roots-tinny breed such as the pekinges or Chihuahua, or delicate looking dogs like the Italian Greyhound-the bedrock of their original wild behavior survives. They still like pack animals. They still have the sense of a hunter. They court, mate and rise their young in the same way as other independent canine species such as the wolf. These facts of our companion are often over-looked. Because we share so many needs, emotions, and pattern of behaviours with dogs and because we have been influencceing their characters for thousands of years, it is easier for us to think like than like any other domesticated species. But we must remember that, although we share our homes with dogs, they differ from us in many ways.

In order to know your dog completely, it is vital to understand that, just as we sometimes think our canine companions as human in stage disguise, they think of us as rather odd dogs. We might be bigger than them, we certainly can smell different, and we able to do, awesome things like use ovens, but they can still only of us as other dogs and treat us accordingy. Their relationships with us are all based on this fact. To the core of its being even the smallest and fullest dog will always remain true to its roots, a wolf in disguise.

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NAMING YOUR DOG

NAMING YOUR DOG

Choose a short, clear name, that is, easy to say. Choose an unusual name, too or else. On future occasions, when you are hunting with others or at a group training class, there may be several dogs with the same name and three or four will come running up whenever you call your own dog. Do not call your dog (puppy or adult) by name all the time. The dog will cease to pay attention, and the call will go unheeded. Without its mother, its brothers and sisters and away from the place where it was born, the young puppy will feel lost and bewildered in your home.

To speed up the adaptation process, bring with it something which smells of its mother and it sibling : a piece of material or even some straw, to make it more comfortable in its basket. A few days before you go to fetch your new puppy, take to the kennels, the blanket or mattress that will be used in its basket so that it becomes impregnated with the smells of the place where the puppy has lived so far. Take it home again with the puppy so that it will be like taking the puppy’s own smell home with it.

It has already been said that in the absence of the mother or siblings puppies need to be close to something hairy, soft and warm or they will whine and whimper rather than sleep. There is a good reason why a puppy whines too. It is, in fact, complaining so as to obtain its mother’s aid. If you make it feel safe and secure with you, it will not whine. For the first few days, put a small clock inside the warm, soft mattress : its tick will remind the puppy of its mother’s heartbeat, a dog that cannot be called is of house.

A good response to a call depends not on the dog, but on you, when the dog has learnt that it has a name, it must learn to react to it by coming happily to its master or mistress. So its name must be associated with something positive : rewards, stroking, words of praise. If you call a puppy to you to scold it or worse, the point of the call will be lost. If you have to correct a mistake made by the puppy never use its name when doing so. The dog should equate its name with positive, enjoyable things, it must come to you readily wherever it may be. And is this easy to achiev ?

Of course : as long as you do not make any mistake, call your puppy in particular when it is hungry and when you actually give it its food. Call it also when you see that it is already coming towards you. Greet it with warm words and lots of stroking, make it very clear that coming to you when called will always be to its advantage. Tell yourself over and over that a dog that cannot be called is of no use and that a good response to a call depends not on the dog, but on you. Tell your self, too, that it is useless and harmful to say the dog’s name if you are going to shout at it or correct it. This will undermine the effectiveness of the call. If you do not make any slips, you will soon see your young trainee wherever it may be, running up to you, tail wagging, at the first call.

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SOCIAL CONTACT AT THE RIGHT TIME

SOCIAL CONTACT AT THE RIGHT TIME

A dog with three to seven weeks old id the most impressionable in social behavior. And this is the period when a dog should be exposed to more and more influence of people and situations. Without getting to know or being with the people, dog will stay aloof from people. They will become far more reserved and less open to training.

The very opposite happens if from birth, they have been stroked by people. It makes them learn different smells and experience different touches. When you are choosing and training a dog, it is important to take this process into account. The ideal situation is when a puppy realizes in its training period that people are friends and companions with when it can play, learn from and work with.

Dogs are often ready to befriend other domestic pets like cats, horses, rabbits and poultry. Dogs consider themselves rewarded by the mere presence of human being. A puppy that has no people around will quickly grow sad. People are becoming aware of the importance in training or abiding by the various cycles which correspond to the nature, and the physical and mental growth of the dog. Now a days, it is no longer possible to train dogs by trying to segregate the various breeds on the basis of their particular expertise : hunting, guarding or companionship. Lets remember that all dogs are at once hunting dogs, guard dogs and companion dogs. We better take into account the whole range of canine psychology if we want to achieve the best results. From birth to the age of 50 days, the puppy needs both its mother’s care and human exposures. We must ensure that the very young puppy knows us by the time it is of 20 days or slightly more but no more than 50 days.

Well between 70 to 90 days, it can free for itself, survive outdoor life. When it is four months old, it starts learning the first lessons of cooperation, tracking, hunting, defence attack and collaboration. And these foundations of collective life are consolidated by the time puppy is six months old. By 10 months, the puppy is regarded as an adult, who has learnt the essential things.

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Dog Selection

Dog Selection

It may not be easy to decide which sex you want to adopt. One obvious drawback of bitchs is their reproductive cycle. A family may object to their heavy vaginal discharge. And surgical neutering or contraceptive do add to the cost of keeping a bitch.



HOW TO ENSURE FITNESS AT THE TIME OF ADOPTION

The main thing is to ensure that whatever breed or sex you are adopting your puppy is fit. The following tips are most likely to help you in this regard :

1. A healthy puppy is happy to be picked up
2. Its body should feel firm and relaxed.
3. See to it that the ear flaps and canals are dry and clean.
4. Then examine its tongue, gums and teeth. If they are pink, it is a sure sigh of health. The teeth even and sparkling.
5. Make it a point to see that the puppy you choose has clear and bright eyes. It should be able to keep its eyes wide open. It should not blink too often and paw at its eyes.
6. Run a swift hard through its coat. If black dust or sores are noticed, the puppy will feel uncomfortable. And that obviously is an indication of ill-health.
7. Don’t forget to examine the anal area. It should be free from liquid stools or stains.
8. It is always better to postpone your, buying the pup than be taken in by the breeders excuses.
9. If there is any doubt about whether the pet has been vaccinated, or not, get if vaccinated again to be doubly sure.
10. Follow a strict regime and schedule of vaccination against distemper, parvovirous, leptospirosis, hepatitis, rabies and kennel cough.

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