“A Mans Best Friend”
Aug 14 2009
Dogs are surprisingly variable between breeds, but still they have many things in common.
There are over 800 different breeds registered in the Western world alone. Even knowing that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish from one breed to the other this variety is amazing, because only a dozen human ‘breeds’ exists.
People started domesticating dogs 8000 years B.C. Experts agree that the ancestor of our dog is the wolf. From an evolutionary standpoint 10.000 years is nothing. This is why we still see dog behavior that is very much related to wolf behavior.
Dogs are exploratory:
Dogs teach themselves by exploring the terrain, very much like young infants. Funny enough it is thought that a dog has the same brain capacity as a 2 year old kid. As they learn by trial and error things might get damaged in the house. Dogs don’t understand the difference between a precious carpet and grass. I recommend therefore that you train your dog to play with special dog toys. You should further teach him what acceptable behavior is in his new family.
The toys should be different from human objects. For example a rawhide bone is better than a rubber ball, which can be confusing especially if it is similar to children’s balls. But normally the problem is solved by scent. Dog toys may look like the child’s, but they certainly don’t smell the same.
When exploring outside you can bet that your dog will do some digging. If you don’t watch your dog when he is out in your garden he’ll surely start digging. If you don’t want that to happen supervise your dog, especially in the first months of his life. To avoid him destructing your plants you can use bitter apple or cayenne pepper paste.
They are scavengers:
Dogs will eat deer droppings, even when they are on a perfect diet. They’ll chew on dead rats, eat grass and ingest a wide variety of things that can even do harm to their stomachs. And they’ll repeat the behavior again and again.
As they are incapable of learning from past eating mistakes, you should take care he doesn’t eat anything poisoned from the street.
Just try to live with it. There are so many positive traits that make up for it, that it is a small price to pay. Enjoy your dog as an extremely loyal companion and have fun when taking him out on a walk. Isn’t that the reason why we like dogs so much?
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