Thoughts of a Canine Therapist – Our Views on Dogs Needs to Change

Therapy 4 Dogs

May 15

I'm quite saddened to read that a survey done by the zigzag puppy training app has found that 25% of puppy owners would give up their puppy for displaying undesirable behaviours

I was even more concerned that half the people surveyed want their puppies fully toilet trained at 8-12 weeks with toileting in the house being listed as an undesirable behaviour in such a young pup

In another study published by frontiers in vet science back in 2021 it was estimated that 72-85% of our pet dogs displayed undesirable behaviours from answers owners gave to questionnaires.

Here's my problem with this……

These are undesirable behaviours AS WE SEE THEM!!

We take these animals into our homes and then want to "train" all of their natural traits out of them.
We force them not to be themselves and to do what we want because it suites us without a second thought for their needs, thoughts or feelings

I'm not even going to comment on the toilet training because that's a whole other post where I could go into how long it takes to toilet train a 'HUMAN' child compared to a puppy, (and who's the inferior species? )

What I am going to say is that this needs to change. We need to stop thinking that the human need is greater and more important than the dogs (or any other species for that matter).
My dream is for a world where general training and behaviour is switched around and rather than training the dogs to be accepted members of society, we teach humans how to accept their dogs as individual living beings.

I know it won't happen in my lifetime, we can't even be nice to our own species when they're different so I don't hold out much hope for our dogs, but my promise to them is to keep trying