So You Want To Adopt A Dog? By Amanda Mc

You’re aware of the pet overpopulation problem, and you don’t want to do anything to contribute to it. In fact, you want to help and adopt your next dog from a rescue group or shelter. Before choosing your new best friend, here are some things to think about.

Are you really ready for a dog? Dogs are loyal companions who bring us love and joy. However, it’s important to remember what their care requires. Do you have the time and resources to exercise, train, feed, groom and vet a dog? How many hours a day would your dog be alone? What’s the plan if you go on vacation? Is everyone in the family completely onboard with adding a new family member? Do you have enough space? Think about your life honestly and be realistic.

Take a dog on a trial run and foster before adopting. Perhaps the smartest and easiest thing you can do to make sure a dog fits in with your lifestyle and family is fostering first. Rescue groups are always looking for fosters, and will make an effort to place a dog with you inline with your wants and needs. If you fall in love, great! As the foster parent you can adopt the dog and make him yours forever. Not exactly what you are looking for? Your foster dog is perfect for someone out there, so keep him until he’s adopted and you can try out another. Enjoy the satisfaction and selfless act of saving multiple lives!

Don’t overlook adult dogs.

Puppies are unarguably adorable, but it’s important to remember they are a lot of work. Untrained, high energy, and much smaller then they ultimately will be, puppies are not always well suited for busy schedules, inactive lifestyles, or very young children. In an older dog, you can find a wonderful companion with fewer behavior issues and less exercise needs. The love they give and joy they bring in return is just the same.

Don’t generalize based on breed. Just because you heard Pitbulls are killers or Chihuahua’s are yappy, does not mean it’s true. Educate yourself on breed stereotypes, and judge each particular dog you meet individually.

Avoid making an emotional decision. Visiting a shelter is no doubt a sad experience. Your heartstrings are tugged and you feel sorry all of the homeless dogs. Save yourself even more heartache later by not letting these emotions guide you to adopting a dog that might not be right for you or your environment. 

Enjoy the process of adopting and you will find the perfect dog for you!

Exercise and Your Dog By Kathie Savitski

Does your dog bark too much, pull on the leash, eat things like expensive shoes? Well, is your canine companion getting daily exercise? Many times this will reduce or completely solve unwanted behaviors as long as it is supplemented with basic training. Your chewy mutt could turn from terror to triumph in a short amount of time with some good workouts!

From the day you bring your dog home, structured exercise should be your number one priority.

Our canine companions watch our routines and learn them. I recommend a daily walk of at least an hour, and, if at all possible, first thing in the morning. Most breeds need some sort of exercise and we cannot expect our dogs to be happy if we do not strive to make them so. Dogs in the wild migrate together to hunt, and this natural behavior results in both bonding and large amounts of exercise. A large backyard is great, and so is having a dog that lives indoors, but most pups need more than this as they will become complacent and bored in backyards and we wish to drain our dogs of excess energy, not bore them. When we drain our dogs of excess energy, they become much more pliable and trainable. This is why it is important to research the breed you have or are wanting to adopt so you understand their energy levels, as some breeds may be a little over the top for a particular family’s activity levels.  

As a trainer, I personally feel that we need to have our dogs walk on leashes without pulling us all over! Because a dog thinks differently than we do, they are either following or leading; there is no in between. If we are following them on a walk, that makes them more powerful than us...not good. As part of the solution to this problem, I recommend an obedience class, especially for puppies. The classes teach us to bond with our dog and provide socialization for puppies, and many times they include a section on how to control your dog while walking them. Also under the eye of a trainer you will learn to be confident in asking your dog how to cooperate with us. You should NEVER be unsure of yourself when walking your dog. The classes help us humans know the right timing for a correction and how to give it so that you are always in charge when walking. This is so important that it can not be stressed enough.

Agility is a wonderful way to bond with our more active dogs. There are also search and rescue classes for breeds that hunt, or have exceptional noses, such as beagles. Therapy dog classes can help you and your softer breeds, such as golden retrievers, to learn to work together. It is in a domesticated dog’s DNA to want to work with us, and often one another, so these classes give us the ability to give them that and still have fun!

If you feel you cannot keep up with a dog because of health, time, or injury, a great alternative is the treadmill. A dog can learn to have a great run on the treadmill and this is a fantastic alternative to dog parks or agility training. If you don’t have room for a treadmill, many times there are pet walkers available for nominal fees and they can help get all of that pent up energy out of your canine companion.

To me, watching a breed doing its "thing", such as hunting, chasing, going into the water, is the most beautiful sight in the world. I took my Aussie herding, and since Australian Shepherds are a natural herder by trade and breed, I sat and watched the astounding affect on his brain and how naturally he did what he knew he was meant to do. The sheep almost trampled me, but my lovely Aussie, Murphy, was a completely different dog afterwards – happy, and fulfilled, like we want our dogs. Setting our dogs out to do what they are meant to do helps them refocus themselves on us, and it brings calm to them because of the amount of exercise they get.

We love our dogs, and they love us; but we must remember they are canine. They were bred to work alongside man. They want to please us but we MUST always keep in mind that they have needs when it comes to exercise and movement. When we give children all they want without equipping them by rules and structure, or let them play inside all of the time with their new game systems without laying down the rules and giving them a chance to get out and be kids, we find them spoiled much of the time. The same goes with dogs...a dog that does not submit to his owners request is considered a spoiled brat, and we have the ability to control this for the most part.

To break it down simply, when a dog, much like a child,  is not shown structure and discipline they never learn self control.  When our pets want to chase cars, bark and jump at strangers, and when we have to cater to the bad behavior of our dogs, something has to give, and usually the first step is putting your dog to work and exhausting them to get all of the tension out. But we must always have hope with our dogs; they are much more trainable than people!

I covered the exercise aspect of training because without it your dog will acquire more bad behaviors than usual. Chewing, digging, chasing cats, barking. All of these things will be corrected much easier if you have sufficiently drained your dog of energy. At a time, we needed these animals to help us in the fields, keep the wolves away, and be our watch dogs to make sure no one stole from us. We gave that energy to them, and expecting them to simply not use it is asking too much of them. From the farms to even large ships, dogs were bred for specific functions. Let's help them be happy and fulfill these needs so they can become the balanced, beautiful creatures that they are.