COLUMN: Things you should not do with your dog
'Do not place them in situations where their instinct may lead them to have to defend themselves' – local dog trainer.
• Nadine Whittal, dog trainer writes:
There is a lot of material out in the world about dogs today. You have access to books, YouTube videos, DVDs, social-media content and so on. But be careful, not everything you see and read online is necessarily a good idea.
A good example of this is the TikTok trend to put your body in a strange and unnatural shape and the charge at your dog, cat or whatever other pet you have. You absolutely should not be doing this to any dog!
In fact, you should not be doing this to any animal. This is the equivalent to some stranger wearing a hoodie randomly running at you screaming as you are walking down the road. It is terrifying! From previous articles, you should know that scary situations can elicit unwanted behaviour from a dog, including aggression.
What’s more, you have worked hard to develop a strong, loving and trusting relationship with your animal. Doing something like this will erode that trust until eventually your dog avoids being close to you.
Other things you should not be allowing are having young children sit on, ride on or put their faces right up against a dog’s face.
Firstly, it is damaging to a dog’s joints to have a bouncing child on top of it. Secondly, if your child accidentally pulls the dog’s hair or kicks it, or screams in its face, it would be completely understandable for the dog to respond by nipping or biting the child.
Also read: COLUMN: That dog-handler relationship
You should rather teach children how to handle animals in a kind and respectful manner. Approaching the dog slowly, allowing it to sniff the child and then coaching the child on how to touch the dog without pulling its hair or hurting it are key.
Finally, be careful to expose your dog to prey animals like sheep and birds. If you are a decent handler, you may be able to handle this without any bloodshed, but for the most part dogs are predators and will chase prey animals. You need to be aware of this and not put animals into a situation in which they may fail your expectations.
Think carefully about what situations you expose animals to. They have natural instincts that cannot and should not be forced out of them. Do not place them in situations where their instincts may lead them to have to defend themselves.
