Cropped, Docked and Chopped

In today’s society cosmetic surgery is a widely popular and socially accepted practice. This is also true in the dog world but I think there is a big distinction between someone making the choice to get surgery done on themselves and doing it to an animal that cannot speak up for itself. Indeed, dogs don’t get a say about whether or not someone will lop off hunk of their ears or tail. Although I can’t read the minds of dogs, I’m pretty sure that given the choice, they would shout a hearty “NO!” to the question of ear cropping and tail docking.

Dogs were originally selectively bred to perform certain tasks for humans and we did everything in our power to make sure they did their jobs effectively. To make hunting dogs more efficient we docked their tails so that they would suffer fewer injuries to their tails when running through thick brush. Guard and fighting dogs got their ears cropped so that their opponents (both human and canine) had less to grab onto.

Although I understand the purpose that man originally cropped the ears and docked the tails of various breeds, I still have a hard time accepting it. I believe that we are truly blessed to have dogs integrated into the human world and that we should appreciate our unique relationship with this once wild animal with gratitude – not by taking a scalpel to their bodies for our selfish purposes.

Even if I was to go along with cropping and docking for the purposes of enhancing the dogs abilities to accomplish the tasks they were bred for, why the hell would you do it to dogs that are used as family pets? Chopping off the tails of Weimaraners and Doberman Pinchers, and hacking off a large portion of a Pit Bulls and Boxers ears serves no purpose in the everyday life of the pet dog. It’s done only so the dog will look like the breed standard, which was created a long time ago by very different kinds of dog owners.

Besides my obvious objection to putting a dog under anesthesia unnecessarily to remove pieces of a living animal for appearance reasons only, loosing part or all of their ears and/or tail greatly compromises their ability to communicate. A good portion of a dog’s body language is conveyed with the position of the tail, as well as the orientation of the ears. There have been studies done that have found that dogs with docked tails can be significantly handicapped in conveying fear, caution, aggression and playfulness. The main way dog’s communicate and build their relationships with one another is through body language, and when part or all of their ears and/or tail is missing their ability to signal to other dogs socially is greatly hampered.

Now that most dog breeds in the U.S. are not being used for their original purpose and are being bred to be pets, I think it’s time that the general public demand that breeders and kennel clubs re-evaluate the standard. Let’s stop this needless mutilation of our dogs and rethink what we are really doing. Instead of going along with cropping and docking just because that’s been the tradition, let’s think what’s really in our dogs best interested and do right by our dogs.

Dog’s put up with a lot of our human foolishness on a daily basis, so let’s start treating them with the love and care that they deserve. Let’s raise the bar of our compassion and better shape the course of our relationship with our pals, the domestic dog.

Making Sense of Dogs

As many of you know I’m an avid reader and can’t resist a new dog book when I see it. Recently, I finished reading Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet and thought I would give you my quick review of the book.

Dog Sense is book based on the scientific study of the domestic dog and enlightens the reader by separating fact from fiction. Since the world of dog training has so many differing training styles and ideas on how we should relate and train our poochy pals, it’s nice to have a book look into the actual facts that are backed up by real research. There’s way too much speculation and assumptions being made by many dog trainers who are stuck in outdated and ineffective training methods (many of which are harmful both mentally and physically to our dogs), so I for one was very happy to see a book with so much detail and rock-solid research to enlighten the masses.

The book is packed with so much information I almost don’t know where to begin telling you about it. One thing that I found most interesting was the history of how the dog was domesticated from the wolf. Bradshaw lays out the evolution of how the wolves of yesterday became the dogs of today. I also appreciated his discussion on pure bred dogs and how they are so genetically unhealthy. The general public has long been disillusioned thinking that a pure bred dog is genetically superior to a mutt. I love how Bradshaw compares breeding pure bred dogs to having kids with your cousin. I think that really puts it into perspective.

The book goes on to set the record straight on why using wolf behavior as the basis of how we understand our dogs is inaccurate.

"The main [myth] ... is that wolves are essentially an intrinsically aggressive animal that is continuously trying to take over whatever group they find themselves in and dominate it. And the new wolf biology really exposed that as an artifact — that particular view of wolves came from wolves in zoos and in wildlife parks, where a bunch of unrelated wolves were basically put together and told to get on with it and, not surprisingly, they got on with it by being aggressive toward one another. The new picture of wolf society is that wolves are harmonious animals. They live in family groups. They get along really well together, and they're almost never aggressive to one another. The aggression comes out when two families meet, so they have very strong family ties."

The big downside of the book is that it is written by a scientist and can sometimes read like a textbook, which makes it a bit of a hard read (I got the audio book which makes it much easier to handle), and may have too much info and go into too much scientific detail for the average dog owner. He does discuss some actually ways to train your dog, but I found them a little superficial (which is fine because this is not a dog training book).

All in all I found this book very educational and enlightening. For those looking for a light, quick read about dogs, you will probably be a bit frustrated and disappointed. However, if you’re looking for a very detailed, scientific look into the world of the domestic dog and its ancestry than this is the book for you.

Timing is Everything

I’ve heard the story too many times to count and it goes like this: “My dog pees/gets into mischief/is destructive when I’m away from home, so when I come home I scold/hit/yell at him. And he knows he’s done something wrong because he always looks guilty when I come home.” Sound familiar? There are a number of variations to the tale but the gist of it is always the same. The dogs does something it shouldn’t, owner comes home, reprimands the dog and now the dog shows signs of guilt when they arrive home.

Here’s the dog’s side of this situation: “My crazy owner comes home and sometimes does some very bizarre/hurtful/cruel things to me, so I just make myself as submissive as possible so he’ll leave me the hell alone. It’s really scary and I’m starting to get really afraid of him.”

Trust me when I tell you that dogs DO NOT feel guilt in any way. They can’t make associations to past events – they live in the here and now. What happened one minute ago is gone forever, never to be dwelled upon by your faithful poochy pal again. Because of this simple truth your timing of when you give praise and corrections is critical to your dog’s ever understanding the rules you set for him.

Basically you have about a two second window of opportunity to lay on the praise or give a correction and have your dog actually equate it to the behavior. Two seconds – that’s it. If any more time goes by you’ve missed your chance to teach him anything. That’s why supervision is so important for puppies and adult dogs new to a home. If you’re not there at the precise time your dog makes the blunder or does something good, you’re missing value opportunities to instruct him how to live in your world.

I see this all the time: Owner lets the puppy outside into the back yard but is too lazy to go out there with him and merely watches from the doorway. The puppy ambles into the grass, pees and trots back to the house where the owner is happily waiting with a friendly voice and a yummy treat. Congrats, you just rewarded coming inside, which although may be nice, it’s probably not what the owner thought he was rewarding. The pup has no clue that was for the peeing in the yard – that was eons ago.

If you come home and your dog has misbehaved or had an accident. Take a big tall glass of suck it up, clean up the mess and move on. Reprimanding after the fact is not only ineffective but detrimental. I don’t care how guilty you say he looks, he has no clue what’s going on. He only knows that you are insane and unstable.

Since you now understand that you need to supervise to show your dog exactly how to behave, also remember that every dog is good much more than they are bad. So you should be praising him much more throughout the day than giving corrections. If you’re not praising 90% of the time on any given day, you’re missing just about everything. Even the most disobedient dog is good most of the time, and you should be letting him know.

Take a look at how you praise and correct your dog, be honest about your timing and do better tomorrow. When you do, you and your dog will enjoy each other a whole lot more.

So Many Good Dogs

This past weekend I had the honor of being a part of the Best Friends Animal Society’s yearly East Coast Super Adoption event. This year the venue was in White Plains, New York, where thousands of people came out in hopes of meeting their new furry best friend. Over the course of the weekend around 300 dogs and cats found new homes. And although that’s a pretty impressive number for just two days, there were still hundreds left in cages on Sunday afternoon.

My job at the event was to help people choose the right dog for them and supervise meet and greets between potential adopters (sometimes with their existing dogs) and the dogs looking for homes. During the course of the two days I was struck by how many great homeless dogs are out there. Many people think that dogs in shelters and rescues are damaged goods with issues and problems. But the reality is that this is rarely the case.

Most homeless dogs are there because of human error. Often people don’t think the decision through before they get a dog and soon realize that they are not able or willing to deal with the responsibilities that come with having a dog. Or they fall for the cute face without realizing that the dog is not a good match for their family or lifestyle. Or they are irresponsible and don’t get their dogs spayed/neutered and now they have puppies out there with no one to care for them. Sometimes the dogs do have issues that need to be addressed, but often they are easily treated with some knowledge and time.

What I saw this weekend was dog after dog that was just plain great. I couldn’t believe how many truly lovable and adoptable dogs were there. I remember seeing one big, super sweet Mastiff/Great Dane mix on Saturday morning and I thought, “Wow, this guy will be gone before lunch.” When I saw him still hanging around on Sunday afternoon I was shocked. How could no one have snatched this great dog up?

The reason was because there were so many other great dogs available. Dog after dog that I worked with impressed me. They were all so great. If I came to this event and saw the 700 dogs there, I’m not sure how I would ever be able to choose just one to bring home – they were all so deserving.

It was hard not to come home with one myself, but I always promise my wife as I leave for these kinds of events that I won’t come home with anything that barks or meows. And indeed I saw more than a few volunteers leaving with dogs that they didn’t necessarily intend to come home with.

The point is that dogs in shelters and rescues are not damaged or inferior. On the contrary, they are most likely healthier both mentally and physically than most breeder dogs. They are just dogs with bad luck.

So don’t ever judge a dog by the cage it looks through. Meet them and see for yourself how many great dogs are out there waiting. But beware; once you meet them it will be hard not to bring them home.