Legends and mistakes

There are still a lot of people who believe in these old and well-known legends, including people working in the dog world, who train dogs with unsuitable methods (choke chains, spike collars, shock collars, violence) and treat them in the wrong way.

It is time for facts, knowledge, research and observation results of the last few decades to be known, especially for those people who work with dogs. This knowledge refers, for example, to:

• how dogs learn,
• results of observations of wolf, wild and domestic dogs' behaviour and
• what of the above mentioned can be applied to our living together with pets: how does a hierarchy work, how does a dog interpret human behaviour and gestures etc

Every female dog should pup at least once

Pre-programmed problem, because not every bitch is suitable. Perhaps she shows conspicuous behaviour (fear, aggression) or she has some health problems. This she will pass on to her puppies, what means more aggressive, fearful, ill animals will be born. Besides, what do you do with the other 10 puppies, although you only wanted 3 of them and you only have found a new house for 3 puppies?

In nature, not every animal of a pack reproduces! Wolves and wild dogs use to live in familiar groups with a hierarchy, in which only the leaders - alpha male and alpha female - reproduce. Why do some of them become alphas and others do not? It is because they have the best genes to face the challenges of their environment: They are mentally strong and balanced, brave, cautious and self-confident. They have a natural authority. They are neither insecure, nor fearful, nor aggressive. They are the ones who reproduce their genes, because only with such a personality one can survive in the nature. It is the natural selection.

I want my male dog to mount at least once

Above mentioned. Not every male is suitable as stud dog because of his character, his physical appearance, his health condition.

A barking dog will not bite

False. There are many ways to bark, with different meanings. Barking means first of all alarm: something is going wrong. The pack must get together.

Barking to a strange person can mean: Do not come closer! You are approaching my territory, respect my individual distance! The reason may be fear. If now the person ignores the dogs warning, continues walking towards the dog and the dog has no way to escape, he may bite. He had warned before!

A dog wagging his tail is friendly

There are a lot of ways to wag the tail and every one has its own meaning (one always has to consider the entire body language). Generally, wagging the tail expresses excitement.

A Terrier in front of a mouse hole will not welcome the mouse friendly.

Every dog is pleased to meet other dogs

Wolves and/or wild dogs are not pleased to meet another wolf or wild dog, who does not belong to their pack. On the contrary: He is a rival for food, females and territory. For this reason, he will defend his "belongings" from the intruder. But from our dogs we expect them, by nature, to welcome every other dog. Do we welcome every person?

"He only wants to play!" Apart from the fact that only a few couple of adult dogs really has the intention to play with another adult dog, every dog has the right to his individual distance, his condition and his fears. And there are a lot of dogs who are afraid of other dogs or only do not want any contact to other dogs. Please, show consideration for other dogs and their owners!

There is a reason when an owner walks his dog on the leash or puts the leash on his dog appearing another dog (scared dog, aggressive dog, ill dog, female in heat, etc., etc., etc.). Please, consider, that although your own dog really only "wants to play" the other one has the right, not to want this.

Adult dogs will not harm a puppy

False. In nature this applies only to puppies of the own pack. Unknown puppies will be killed.

The alpha female often kills the puppies of an inferior female of the same pack when this one really got to pup in spite of all difficulties the supierior female put on her to get pregnant.

Consider a dog older than 5 months a puppy

False. Puppyhood finishes between the 4 th and the 5 th month of age. Bigger breeds need more time than the smaller ones. It is the time when the mother stops behaving like a mother to them. From the 6 th month of age they are young dogs, getting ready to enter the puberty. Small breeds begin more or less in the 6 th month, big breeds in the 8 th month. (The female is in season for the first time, the male begins to lift his paw to pee).

A dog cannot be educated before he is 8 month old

False. The education should begin the first day the puppy gets into our life. Education means to prepare him for the living together with us and with the society. He has to know the rules for the living together. He must know what we expect from him, what is allowed and what is prohibited. If we wait until he is 8 months old, we would start the education exactly when the hormones - due to the puberty - turn our pet into a rebel (just like people).

Dogs older than two or three years cannot learn anymore

Yes and no. There are two kinds of learning. One is the social learning, the socialization, which should have finished at the end of the puppyhood. During this phase, puppies are very receptive. One positive or negative event can mark their behaviour for the rest of their lifes. In this phase they develop fear, but curiosity still prevails. We should take advantage of it, in order to prepare our pet for his future life and for his social environment, confronting him (only in a positive manner) with a multitude of scaring stimulus.

The other kind of learning - the learning of commands, tricks, every kind of exercises, behaviour like e.g. retrieve - is possible during the whole life of the animal. But what you can notice, (just the same as in people) is that an animal, who was mentally stimulated during the first months of his life, has more intellectual powers to learn new things.

Small seized dogs do not need education

False. By the way, this is the reason for so many problems, small dogs owners have with their pet. A toy dog - just like a big dog - also procedes from the wolf, he behaves and thinks canine. He, too, has to learn rules and norms and must accept limits and taboos in his life.

Commands must be given in a military tone

Silly remark! My voice, my tone, my volume have a lot of power, when I use them in the right way. If I give orders to the dog speaking in a low voice, nearly whispering, I force the dog to listen. He concentrates more. Try it once. You get the same effect with people, speaking quiet.

Praising your dog your voice should sound friendly, happy, high. Your voice must transmit that you are pleased and proud.

You only have to speak to the dog in a loud, deep voice and an aggressive tone when you want to interrupt undesirable behaviour.

Dogs concentrate more in the voice and the tone rather than in the words. If you use and vary your voice in the above mentioned manner, your dog really knows that your NO! is serious. The other way round, if you give all commands in a military tone, then the interruption signal NO! sounds the same as a normal command. You waste the power of your voice.

With spike collars or choke chains a dog learns, not to pull on the leash

False. You hurt your dog and he will not learn anything. During all his life he will wear this type of collar without understanding what we want him to do.

It is possible that dogs who are aggressive on the leash towards other dogs will increase their aggression because they associate the appearance of another dog with harm.

Dogs have a guilty conscience when they did something bad

False. The dog, who is used to be told off, when his owner comes back home, (because the dog made his pee or poo in the house or destroyed something chewing), this dog has learned that his owner coming home always is aggressive towards him. The dog sees, smells and hears very clearly that the owner is angry: Loud, aggressive voice, angry facial expression and gestures, threatening body language, high level of adrenalin. The poor animal starts now to communicate in canine language, that is, he applies calming signals and/or submissive body postures to calm down his owner: Tail between the legs, crouching, avoiding eye contact, turning away the head, maybe he hides himself, maybe he pees a bit, maybe he lays down and shows his tummy. And his owner, instead of reflecting does not understand that a dog only knows to communicate in the canine way. On the contrary, he interprets the calming behaviour as a sign for guilty conscience: Obviously his dog feels guilty. Besides, he behaves bad because he has the intention to revenge or to annoy, although he has been punished already several times. Unfortunately we always punished him hours after his action.

A dog sees, hears, smells, feels that we are angry, but he does not know why, if we do not catch him in the act!

Leading m y dog to the place he did something wrong, he will understand what I want him to say

False. Above mentioned. Dogs (and other animals, too) associate a negative or positive consequence only with their immidiate action, maximum within 2 seconds after he finished. Therefore I have to catch a dog in the act, when I want him to stop this behaviour. The best timing is even, when the dog is about to show the undesirable behaviour.

One can punish a dog also hours after his action

No. Above mentioned. A dog associates a punishment or a reward only within 2 seconds maximum after his action, that means in the act.

To get a dog housetrained I put his nose into his pee or poo

Awful. The only thing you will achieve with this is that your dog looses his trust in you. When one knows how dogs learn (a.m.) your dog never will understand what you want him to communicate with this rough treatment.

I clean it up and from now on I am more attentive to catch him in the act the next time.

Punishment of the dog by shaking his neck

False. This is not a canine suitable punishment. Canines use shaking the neck to kill small preys.

Punishing the dog twisting his ear

Awful. Absolutely unsuitable. The dogs ear is very sensitive, it can be injured seriously.

In order to punish the dog, you should hit him with a rolled up newspaper instead of with your hand

This is a not suitable punishment. Besides, dogs are not stupid. They can perfectly associate the newspaper with you and your hand. Canine punishments are, among others, the muzzle bite, pushing with the muzzle, throwing down the other. But, before, they warn: staring, getting stiff, growling, showing the teeth. We can imitate this behaviour and thus communicate understandable to our dog what we do not want him to do.

The dog understands each word

False. A normal dog can distinguish, during his life, about 50 words. But, if you talk to him with complete sentences, he only concentrates on the voice, on the tone and on your body language. He is not able to analyse the whole sentence in order to find the only word which you really want him to understand. For this reason, when you want to make your dog understood, you just have to use short orders and not talk a lot.

When you have several dogs, you treat them in the same way

Okay, when you really have leading qualities and your dogs accepts you as their leader. Depending from each situation you should then give preference to the dog who first behaves in a calm manner. In a pack of dogs calm behaviour always should be rewarded.

If your dogs do not respect you as their leader, then, first of all, you have to observe them to find out who is the leader amongst them. Prefer this dog. But little by little you have to improve your position, that means, you have to build up leading qualities, because if not, in the long term, there will be problems among the dogs and also from the dogs towards you.

Dogs and cats hates each other

False. Dogs are hunters. For this reason they chase everything that runs away from them, something cats often do. But if they live together in the same home, they learn each others language and they can become real good friends. The best solution is that they know each other since they are puppies.

A dog always has to drop everthing he has in his muzzle

He should give everthing to his owner, but it is a learning process. Thinking dog, for him it is quite normal to consider something he has in his muzzle his property. Depending on his character he will defend it or not, because every dog favours other resources. If he does not drop things voluntarily, then you have to show him step by step that he can trust you. Exchanging things with him, he will learn that it is worthwhile giving you his prey.

Petting my dog and talking to him I can tranquilize him in scaring situations

False. The dog will understand your attention as a confirmation of his fear, insecurity and worry. It could have some effect in the moment, but in the long term his fear will get worse.

My child wants a dog, so my child is responsable for him (walking, feeding etc.)

Please, never buy a dog for a child, or just because the child wants to have one. All responsability about the dog's health, feeding, education, walks and satisfaction of his vital needs is the obligation of the adults. A dog, however small he may be, (Yorkshire Terriers, Malteses are very popular dogs for children) is a living animal and not a toy. Dogs think in hierarchies. During the puberty and when they are adult, they will not recognize a child as superior (leader). Meanwhile the dog is a puppy the children are littermates, playmates for him. But with 6-8 months, when puberty starts (that is in human age about 12-14 years), the dog is already older than the kids. In his first year, the dog develops from a baby to a teenager. For this reason, adults cannot excuse themselves by saying that the dog belongs to the child.

Each dog must let himself be touched by unknown people

NO! No small, no big dog must stand this. Would you like to be touched by every stranger?

Dogs like to be greeted or praised by tapping his head

What a lovely way! Let's try it with another person. It is not pleasant, isn't it? Besides, in canine language all gestures coming from above mean dominance, threat, provocation. A social insecure dog could misunderstand these gestures.

A dog does not need to walk when he has a big garden

False. What a boring life. Soon he will know the whole garden perfectly. He needs olfactory, visual, tactile and acoustic stimulation. It is possible that, due to boredom and frustration, he will look by himself for entertainment that probably will not please us: digging, barking, escaping etc.