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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