As trainers, we sometimes prefer pure breeds, we know how they are, how they react, their flaws, their weaknesses, their merits, what they're good at, what they're not,etc... practically everything about breed have been studied, researched, observed, etc...For more extensive study, we even draw up the family tree of a pup, "is it coming from a champion line?", "How's the temperament of the parents?" and so on. I myself started out with a beagle, because it suited my lifestyle, the body size, its appetite, what to expect in training, how would it behave, the list goes on. All these anticipation, all these expectations, are naturally available when we go for a pure breed, preferably coming from a breeder, when it is still a pup.
Let's flip to the other side of the coin: Yearly, we have millions of dogs that end up in shelters/dog pounds. Some had homes before and they either ran away or got abandoned, some never even made it to a home and was directly sent to the shelter from pet stores. Sad story but it happens more than you can imagine (hence, going back to key message, never get from pet stores or dog mills, only buy from responsible dog breeders).
Now, you're trying to get a new dog, you've never had one before and this is your first round. You have a kind heart, where you feel that pure breeds will mostly get a good home, might as well go to a shelter to adopt a dog there. It's noble and admirable, but do you know what you're getting yourself into? Of course I'm not suggesting that adopting a dog from shelters is a bad idea, it is a great idea! If you're not into showing dogs or dedicating yourself to contribute in the breeding business, getting a pure breed and adopting from shelter has not much differences when it comes to "getting a dog into your life". There are just a few points where you need to be careful. (Please note that my points covers for both pure breeds and mongrels)
Parenthood
As the dogs mostly are abandoned, 99.9% of the time you will not know the history of the dog, how the parents are, how are their temperament, what had the pup gone through with the parents, are there any complications during birth or "puppyhood", was the pup aggressive, dominating or dominated among its peers........? All kinds of questions that would lead to how the pup behaves naturally, all remain unanswered due to the lack of history. To me, that would be the biggest flaw. Things get complicated when its not a pure breed, mixture of different breeds would cause mixture of attitudes, attributes, characteristics, markings, chances of disease and sickness, strengths, weaknesses and so much more. It might not all be bad, but it might not all be good. True story, my family adopted a pup that was mixed with German Shepherd (M) and Rottweiler (F). What was produced was a tall, strong sized rottweiler, with a longer muzzle and more importantly, weak hips (contributions of the German Shepherd gene). The mix could make so many possibilities, but sadly it is hard to predict what type of dog will be produced, for better or worse. Sadly, more often than not, mongrels usually turn up in the shelters more than pure breeds, at least that's the case for Malaysia, which makes the mixture effect worse as we might be looking at 10 or 20 generations worth of combinations and we don't see any characteristics of their original ancestors, other than that yellow fur-ed body.
Characteristics
Other than parenthood-contributing-characteristics, being in a shelter, you never know what had happened to the pup. Can you imagine yourself being abandoned by someone that meant everything to you, caged in, no freedom and cramped with other scared humans? The same goes for dogs as well. The trauma on the dogs psychology is hard to predict, just like humans, some are stronger than others. A royal blood might not be as strong mentally as a normal human being, same goes for pure breeds and mongrels. Bottom line, we just never know what kind of a dog we are taking just by observing it for a few hours.
Age
In a shelter, there dogs that are not a year older and there might be closer to death than you think, although sometimes you can see the certain indicators on age on some dogs, there are some that you can't see them obviously. The dog that you bring home might be a seven year old when you think or the shelter thought it was only two.
With all these points to consider, branches out to more questions, such as training method, food input, allergy concerns etc... things that you may need special or unique attention. Although getting a pure breed dog from a highly reputable breeder might not decrease the same complications to zero and all the above might still happen, but it might clear some doubts on how to tackle the problems with the clear history, for example, mom is allergic to chicken, pup might be allergic to chicken too.
However, after all said is done, these are the rewards for adopting:
Appreciation
As I've mentioned, a dog might be traumatized after it's brief stay in the pound, if a good person is willing to adopt it to his/her home, the dog might show high appreciation to the owner, being extra loyal. I personally know a Japanese lady, who adopted an electric-collar-over-abused black German Shepherd. At first it was totally scared of humans, not able to comfortably interact with strangers, and even had doubts with the owner herself. But a year later when I met them, he was just like any other healthy dog. If the owner has the determination to train and expose the dog to a better life, it might appreciate its twist of fate from worse to better and live a better life than dogs that don't know about hardship. This might also help with training as well.
Doing Society and Humanity A Favor
Sadly, we have enough assholes in the world to cause a long chain of supply of abandoned dogs, by adopting, we are helping to get these poor souls to homes so that they can lead a normal life. No one or nothing deserves to be abandoned, especially after it has given all it's heart and soul to the person. It's just not right. But sadly it happens, and luckily some of the greater ones in the human race, does recognize that adopting is more suitable than purchasing. For that, I guess, there's still hope for humanity.
To make it perfectly clear, what I stated above are not pros and cons, but points to consider if you're planning on adopting a dog. Cause the last thing we want is to have an adopter abandoning an adopted dog, because what he/she got was not what he/she wanted. To me, it doesn't matter if a dog is bought from a breeder or adopted from a shelter, if you're willing to spend time with it, give it your love or train it, regardless of where the dog came from, it will be a happy dog.
So till next time, Woof!
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Training: One Step @ A Time
As trainers, we tend to set our expectations when we train a dog, of course the expectation vary when it comes to which type of dog. Rottweiler, good guard dog, good bite work. Doberman, good guard dog, good bite work. Sheep dogs, good work dog, good at herding. Hounds, good work dog, good at smelling. The list goes on. But are these skills usable when it comes to real life? I don't recall Malaysians using hounds to find hares as prizes of hunts, nor, sheep dogs used to herd in the cows and goats when they scatter.
Except for guard dogs, which most typical owners would need to guard their house, factory, warehouse, whatnot, most natural habits of work dogs are not trained to perfection or, even worse, ignored. I, for one, provides basic training, which covers heelwork, sit/down stays, recalls and everything we would anticipate in a normal dog to behave well, regardless of whether his a pure breed or a mongrel. The rules of training are simple, dog must listen to what owner commands. You do good, you get praised or treats; you don't, you get punishment or, for the lucky ones, ignored until you do it right. This training is quite simple for almost any owner to follow and is the basic of them all. The goal here is to have a dog that can behave well in public and is willing to listen to the owner.
Of course, even for obedience training there are quite a few levels, first you have basic (AKA Canine Good Citizen CGC in the Malaysia Kennel Association MKA), then you have Pre-Novice, Novice and Open. The levels differ where in basic levels a leash is required and higher levels do not, and of course higher levels would have higher difficulties of skills and commands. As we move higher on the levels, the expectation of obedience is higher where the dog is required to stay in a spot, even if the owner is out of sight.
Now, what about the next step? As I've mentioned, obedience training is for obedience only, which might not work for every dog. Some could be lazy, some hyper-active. Just like government schools are not for every children, obedience training might not be the best thing for your canine companion. Instead of obedience, there are other training like, Agility, Dancing With Dogs (DWD), Bitework, Guidance even Therapy. Dogs can branch out to so many types of roles, it is the handler's job to identify which.
Now still, other than what I've mentioned before, you might still find that your dogs don't like what they're doing. An example, a beagle, he might not like agility (likes to smell the ground), DWD (the ground, again), Bitework (are you kidding me?), guidance (this is mostly taken up by Retrievers or Labradors), Therapy (not suitable for all kinds of dogs just like not all humans can be therapists).
Then what's next? This is where you might need to understand your dog better, what does he like? Perhaps smelling the ground? It's annoying, I know, the dog loves everything on the ground while everything is going on above of his head. But perhaps you could utilize this? One of the exercises in high level obedience training actually uses 9 handkerchiefs, where one of them are used to wipe the handler's hand. Without the dog looking, the used handkerchief is placed with the other 8, and the dog will use his nose to pick the used handkerchief. This training will need months or years to train, but perhaps this would be one of the best ways to utilize the dogs natural instinct. Instead of forcing it to do something that it does not want to do, maybe the handler could create an exercise so that the unwanted habit is used for fun instead. The exercise could be short or long, it doesn't matter, but ultimately the handler uses the habit to make it obey.
I'm a fan of long walks, going for 5KM or 10KM walks during the weekends means letting my girls use up their week long energy for that one and a half hour. They reach home, exhausted but they enjoy it. At first, the girls would walk faster than me, cause of their high level energy in them, but after a while, they'll start to re-adjust their speed as they begin to feel tired. Now for me , key point here is to ensure that they are fully focusing on the walk, no sniffing around, no wandering off, constantly staying on my left, sit when I stop, that kind of stuff that are similar to basic obedience training, but in the real world, beside roads, buildings, cars etc. To me, it's an achievement that my girls are used to this kind of walks, as 1. They get to have different experiences during the trainings, 2. I get to show other people how as simple as walks can be used to train their dogs, creating more awareness.
Dog training is offered almost everywhere, and there are even more unique and special training methods for special dogs, you just need to research through the net and through books or magazines. It is key essential where a dog is fully trained and his energy drained, mentally or physically. A trained dog is always a better dog. Hence, you just need to spend more time with the dog, get to know him, understand him, just like you would with a child. There's no way to treat two dogs the same, just like humans. You just got to know more, and lay out a training method for him. Talk to a trainer, read, trial and error, there's no right or wrong in this, it just depends whether you want to make the move or not.
Till next time, woof!
Except for guard dogs, which most typical owners would need to guard their house, factory, warehouse, whatnot, most natural habits of work dogs are not trained to perfection or, even worse, ignored. I, for one, provides basic training, which covers heelwork, sit/down stays, recalls and everything we would anticipate in a normal dog to behave well, regardless of whether his a pure breed or a mongrel. The rules of training are simple, dog must listen to what owner commands. You do good, you get praised or treats; you don't, you get punishment or, for the lucky ones, ignored until you do it right. This training is quite simple for almost any owner to follow and is the basic of them all. The goal here is to have a dog that can behave well in public and is willing to listen to the owner.
Of course, even for obedience training there are quite a few levels, first you have basic (AKA Canine Good Citizen CGC in the Malaysia Kennel Association MKA), then you have Pre-Novice, Novice and Open. The levels differ where in basic levels a leash is required and higher levels do not, and of course higher levels would have higher difficulties of skills and commands. As we move higher on the levels, the expectation of obedience is higher where the dog is required to stay in a spot, even if the owner is out of sight.
Now, what about the next step? As I've mentioned, obedience training is for obedience only, which might not work for every dog. Some could be lazy, some hyper-active. Just like government schools are not for every children, obedience training might not be the best thing for your canine companion. Instead of obedience, there are other training like, Agility, Dancing With Dogs (DWD), Bitework, Guidance even Therapy. Dogs can branch out to so many types of roles, it is the handler's job to identify which.
Now still, other than what I've mentioned before, you might still find that your dogs don't like what they're doing. An example, a beagle, he might not like agility (likes to smell the ground), DWD (the ground, again), Bitework (are you kidding me?), guidance (this is mostly taken up by Retrievers or Labradors), Therapy (not suitable for all kinds of dogs just like not all humans can be therapists).
Then what's next? This is where you might need to understand your dog better, what does he like? Perhaps smelling the ground? It's annoying, I know, the dog loves everything on the ground while everything is going on above of his head. But perhaps you could utilize this? One of the exercises in high level obedience training actually uses 9 handkerchiefs, where one of them are used to wipe the handler's hand. Without the dog looking, the used handkerchief is placed with the other 8, and the dog will use his nose to pick the used handkerchief. This training will need months or years to train, but perhaps this would be one of the best ways to utilize the dogs natural instinct. Instead of forcing it to do something that it does not want to do, maybe the handler could create an exercise so that the unwanted habit is used for fun instead. The exercise could be short or long, it doesn't matter, but ultimately the handler uses the habit to make it obey.
I'm a fan of long walks, going for 5KM or 10KM walks during the weekends means letting my girls use up their week long energy for that one and a half hour. They reach home, exhausted but they enjoy it. At first, the girls would walk faster than me, cause of their high level energy in them, but after a while, they'll start to re-adjust their speed as they begin to feel tired. Now for me , key point here is to ensure that they are fully focusing on the walk, no sniffing around, no wandering off, constantly staying on my left, sit when I stop, that kind of stuff that are similar to basic obedience training, but in the real world, beside roads, buildings, cars etc. To me, it's an achievement that my girls are used to this kind of walks, as 1. They get to have different experiences during the trainings, 2. I get to show other people how as simple as walks can be used to train their dogs, creating more awareness.
Dog training is offered almost everywhere, and there are even more unique and special training methods for special dogs, you just need to research through the net and through books or magazines. It is key essential where a dog is fully trained and his energy drained, mentally or physically. A trained dog is always a better dog. Hence, you just need to spend more time with the dog, get to know him, understand him, just like you would with a child. There's no way to treat two dogs the same, just like humans. You just got to know more, and lay out a training method for him. Talk to a trainer, read, trial and error, there's no right or wrong in this, it just depends whether you want to make the move or not.
Till next time, woof!
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