that are important for the everyday lives of dogs. However long you have known dogs, there is something new and exciting to learn.
THE NEEDS OF THE INDIVIDUAL DOG
JUST LIKE PEOPLE, every dog is an individual. Some dogs are sociable and friendly; they love to meet new people and other dogs, and so we should try to give them more of these experiences. On the other hand, some dogs are shy and timid and would hate to be forced to meet other people and dogs every day. That’s okay, because the important thing is that we recognize the needs of the dog we have and cater to them.
Individual differences were apparent with Ghost and Bodger. While Ghost was calm, sometimes aloof with other people, Bodger is desperate to become their friend. Having learned that sitting is required before he is patted, he secretly waits for just the right moment to leap up and lick the unsuspecting person on the face. And while Ghost was always so happy to meet other dogs, Bodger is choosy about who is allowed in his space.
There are two sides to considering the needs of an individual dog. The first is to do with minimizing experiences the dog finds negative, such as preventing situations where the dog is fearful (which may include avoiding the situation, teaching the dog to like the situation instead, and/or using medication under the guidance of a veterinarian). The second is to do with knowing what that particular dog enjoys. Do they love to play fetch or do they prefer to go for a swim? Do they love agility class or do they prefer to mooch about on a forest trail? It’s up to us to know what our dog likes and give them the opportunities to experience it.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HUMAN–ANIMAL BOND
WHEN WE GET a dog, we imagine a long, beautiful friendship, kind of like a canine equivalent of walking off into the sunset to live happily ever after. But although we think of dogs as our best friends, the relationship often breaks down. We know that:
•The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) says 670,000 dogs are euthanized every year in American shelters because they do not have a home.16
•The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior says behavior problems are the leading cause of death in dogs under 3 years old in the US.17 In the UK, behavioral issues are responsible for 14.7 percent of deaths in dogs under three (compared with 14.5% from gastrointestinal issues and 12.7% from accidents involving cars) according to the Veterinary Journal.18
•The American Humane Association found 10 percent of newly adopted dogs and cats in the US are no longer in the new home six months later (either returned to the shelter, lost, dead, or given to someone else), while the BBC reports 19 percent of people in the UK who buy a puppy no longer have them two years later.19
Clearly, for many people who start out with high hopes for a relationship with a dog, things go badly wrong. In part, this may be due to a lack of preparation. Between 18 and 39 percent of dog owners do no research at all before getting a dog.20 Of course other issues, such as a lack of pet-friendly rental housing or people becoming sick and no longer being able to care for their pet, may also play a role. Helping to prevent relationships with our pets from breaking down will make us happier as well as our dogs.
I think we all want to make our dogs happy, even if along the way we show it in different ways and sometimes do the wrong thing. We love to see a happy look on our dog’s face, and let’s face it, the bounding, bouncing joy of a dog is enough to make us happy too. As guardians, we are responsible for everything in our dog’s life, and it’s an understatement to say we are important from our dog’s perspective. So this book is not just about your dog—it’s about you and your dog, the human–canine partnership, and what canine happiness means.
“THINK DOG! DESPITE a wealth of research into the domestic dog and a greater understanding of how they behave, think, feel, and interact with us and their peers, many owners/guardians continue to treat dogs either as wolves or little people and/or fail to understand and acknowledge what dogs actually are. This can have a huge impact on their physical and mental health. For example, decades of thinking of dogs as wolves has contributed to a widespread use of management and training techniques that place dogs at serious risk of poor welfare. Similarly our failure to understand what it is to be a dog and what constitutes normal behavior can mean a poor quality of life through a lack of outlets for strongly motivated behavior such as playing, sniffing, and investigating. If dogs really are our best friends and we want them to be truly happy, then we have to think dog.”
—SAM GAINES, PhD, head, Companion Animals Department, RSPCA
2
GETTING A DOG
WHEN I WAS in my thirties, I dreamed of getting a dog. At the time I wasn’t home enough to care for a dog properly, so I dreamed of the dog I would get when my lifestyle changed. We would take long walks together through the countryside, and then I’d curl up on the settee with my dog and a good book.
I decided early on that my ideal dog would be like Diefenbaker in the TV show Due South, which was popular in the UK where I was living. On TV, Dief was a beautiful half-wolf, half-sled-dog who was loyal, independent, and deaf (or maybe only when he didn’t want to hear?). Over the years, Diefenbaker was played by six different Siberian Huskies. I did some research on the breed: “Not for first-time dog owners,” I kept reading, “escape artists,” “independent,” and “difficult.” Not to mention the shedding. Although some of this information was off-putting, I figured I could cope.
Of course, I didn’t get Diefenbaker; he only existed on TV. I was incredibly lucky to get Ghost instead. And I was not unusual in being influenced by TV and in thinking so much about the dog’s appearance rather than other factors. It turns out many people are like this—and unfortunately this is often to the detriment of dogs. What I know now is that if we want a happy dog, there are many factors to take into account when choosing what kind of dog and where to get them. But many people are influenced by biology or fashion.
BIOLOGY AND LOVING DOGS
WE KNOW DOGS are the descendants of wolves, but in the process of domestication they have changed in appearance. Now, whatever your preference for looks, there is a breed to fit (even if the original purpose of the breed was for work). Some of the physical features of dogs are puppy-like rather than wolf-like, which may tap into our natural desire to help baby-like creatures. Is it just an accident that dogs evolved these different features, and does it affect the way we feel about them?
The Russian fox experiment is a pioneering experiment into the process of domestication that began in what was then the Soviet Union and continues today.1 Geneticist Dmitri Belyaev had an idea that selecting animals for tameness would also lead to hormonal and other changes. He began a program to breed silver foxes. Only the tamest of each generation were selected for breeding, and crucially, nothing else was changed, so this was a test purely of genetics and not of handling or other factors. A second line of foxes was bred by choosing the most aggressive animals. During the first seven or eight months until they reached sexual maturity, the foxes were tested to see how they responded to the experimenters. Then, a choice was made as to which ones would be bred for the next generation.
Over time, as the foxes became more tame, other changes also happened. Prof. Lee Dugatkin, evolutionary biologist and co-author with Lyudmila Trut of a book about the study, How to Tame a Fox (and Build a Dog): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution, told me about the changes: “The only thing [the scientists] ever do to determine who is going
