As you can see in all my articles I am not a fan of having a dog just for fun, nor I am that breed of dog lover that is actually a slave of the dogs, I like to be blunt and call a knife a knife, not pretending that a dog is smarter than it is or that it will be able to act like a human.
What means for you as a dog owner the lifestyle of a dog owner? Is a chapter where many owners fail and fail big time. Having a dog changes ones lifestyle and schedule more than can be imagined.
Let's start with the differences between men and dogs, regarding lifestyle.
Dogs love routine while men don't. People tend to forget their partner when it comes to routine in a couple, and at that moment the neighbor or the work colleague becomes more appealing. For the dogs is the other way around, routine means safety, routine is life and is good, is the best thing that can happen to a dog. Doing the same things every day makes them better at what they do, keeps them safe in a sense that they know what to expect and what comes and helps them to keep a balanced behavior.
Exercise is another difference, even if one can argue that humans need exercise too, it is true, we need exercise but there is still a big difference. Ok, it depends on the breed, a Chihuahua needs less exercise than an Afghan Hound. Why exercise is so important for dogs, and we can be couch potatoes for our entire life? First of all the nails of the dog are growing like our nails, we cut them, they are supposed to be worn down by walking and since the dog walked on this earth long before we invented streets and asphalt you can imagine how long should be the walks to keep them short and nice. In our help comes the modern technology and asphalt but this does not help our dog's joints. Put it short ... you need long walks and runs in forests to keep the nails short and help your four legged friend to be fit and healthy.
At least one dump a day keeps the doctor away, maybe this one sounds strange. In our case ... we can live without complications, even without hemorrhoids if we don't go every day to ride the porcelain pony, for dogs gets complicated because with every stool they empty their anal glands. The anal glands are the ones who produce the "scent" specific for each dog (if you wonder why dogs always smell other dogs asses, and they do it every time) this substance is used to mark the territory, not only the urine, and also to identify each dog. When they are not emptied because of not having a stool or having only soft stools (see the eating and food part below) those glands become infected and leads to discomfort and many times skin rush and other associated skin problems.
Estrous cycle in females is just twice a year but can keep up to 3 weeks each time, the result is that your dog bleeds 6 weeks per year. You can say, ok, but our females bleed monthly for few days, a dog is better, just two times a year, no problem .... BUT if we humans have sex anytime anywhere but we tend to avoid sex in the bleeding time, for dogs is a bit different they reproduce only when bleeding. The female will not allow the male until she ovulates, this is somewhere in the middle (i will touch this subject in other post) and they will sure produce a litter. This means that for a dog owner are about 6 weeks a year when he has to keep the dog in leash and hope that no male will be there to start the parenting process, not to mention that during this time the female dog becomes less responsive to your commands and is keen to meet other dogs, also urinates like a male (very often and just to mark the territory) announcing everyone that she is available.
Eating, we got used to eat daily three times a day, dogs can do it once a day and some vets are recommending to keep it once a day for adult dogs to keep their ancestors habits, and makes sense since a pack does not hunt three times a day. Also they can go without food for two days without problems, they are build for this, in nature they are not successful every day, while we are far from the times when our ancestors were just hunter-gatherers. Another problem is the food, we like to think that our friends are omnivores, it is true that some of them eat some veggies (don't ask me why because wild dogs don't dig after carrots). The rest is just that we got them used with ... or they come from a line of dogs that are not dogs anymore. The dogs are built to eat meat, fresh meat, or sometimes putrid meat from the corpses, their stomach produces powerful acids that kill any bacteria and dissolve bones. The vitamins are taken from fresh meat, not from processed one, the teeth get cleaned by chewing bones. Don't kill your dog with dry food and salads!
Learning process is a long and hard one for dogs, they need exercise to remember the words for orders and the actions to be taken. I am not talking about the instinctive ones like in hound dogs, or retrievers or shepherd dogs. Try to learn one of them to do the task of the other ... will take some time and will not be fun for them. If we as humans can learn a lot of things dogs have limited "memory slots" and sometimes simple tasks can take days to learn and months to master, this does not mean your dog is stupid (there are many stupid dogs especially from breeders - I will explain why in other posts) it means you need to have patience, lots of patience and remember that they love routine, or maybe that method is not good for that particular dog.
Social hierarchy - this is a big subject for a next post.
There are also other differences but I consider that the ones listed above are the ones that are more important. What do we have in common with our dogs?
Grooming is one thing we have in common and we both need, brushing our hair, keeping our ears clean, washing (but for dogs is not healthy to wash them everyday), assuring that the nails are not to long or splinted, and clean teeth.
To get attention is another thing we both strive for. I would say that we want to get attention from anybody while the dog wants to get the owner attention, to be useful, to be loved and to interact socially.
Dominance and fight for higher place in hierarchy is another common thing. When a male is in a pub tends to show off his masculinity if is someone who wishes to challenge him or is a female around. The same thing can be seen at male dogs, with a submissive dog they will have no problem as long as that dog knows his place and when is a female around starts the competition, especially if that female is in heat. The same thins goes for females who will react to other females and will get aggressive if their position is challenged. Another similarity is that a dog will try during its life to advance socially and get in the alpha position, like we try to get to a management position.
To sum it up, we have common points and differences, it is important to know them, to observe them and to respect them.
As humans we tend to forcefully impose our lifestyle and believes to the others, we do this since we climbed down the tree or exited the water or we were banished from paradise (depends on the reader). Look at America .... the Europeans imposed their religion, life style and shit to the native americans, now they are imposing "liberty and freedom" in middle east; Christians tried to impose their religion to whatever territory they had occupied whether was Africa, Asia or America, Muslims imposed their beliefs to all occupied territories; it is a never ending story .... we can't accept differences, must be our way or the slaughter way.
Dogs are different, we must accept it, we must not force upon them our shitty lifestyle and beliefs .... dog weddings, dog clothing lines, dog style, dog glasses, dog bling, dog perfumes, dog stylist, dog nail polish ... all of them make me puke and wonder if we ever have a limit and decency. I wait for the first dog that is into a religion or something.
If you are a human and your IQ is at least in the middle range, please try to use your rational brain and learn to accept that even if you have a dog as a pet, not for utility ... is not your barbie doll or your slave that must do whatever your brain farts ... like becoming a vegan. Read some biology, learn how a dog is built, some things about ancestry of dogs and keep it a dog not an abomination of nature. Your dog will be happy and you will be a happy owner. Your dog is not happy for the new shitty dress you just bought for it ... it is happy that you offer some attention while you put that awful dress on, try to talk with your dog the same way and pet it and you will get the same reaction - use your brain!
No comments:
Post a Comment