To those thinking about getting a dog: please consider a shelter first.
- You are potentially saving a dog's life that would otherwise be put down.
- They are often initially cheaper than buying a dog from a breeder.
People rightly focus on the strong moral argument of the first point and they even emphasize the second to imply that it's a good self-interested choice too. But they advocate so strongly that they often omit the real downsides:
- The long-term cost may be higher. There are breeds that are known for significant health problems, but many breeds don't have them and if you buy a puppy of those breeds, their health is closer to being a known quantity. With a shelter dog, you are rolling the dice. There is maybe an argument that hybrid vigor makes shelter mutts statistically more healthy, but that has to be balanced against the facts that (1) the dog may have ended up in the shelter because of health problems or (2) the dog's life pre-shelter may have caused health problems.
- There may be long-term behavioral problems. Dogs in shelters may have been feral, living on the streets, abused, or relinquished because of behavioral problems. If they were feral and weren't potty trained well as a puppy, you may never train them out of marking. Even if the dog was homed, the kind of people who don't spay and neuter their animals (thus leading to puppies that end up in the shelter) are often the kind of people who don't train them well either. There also seems to be a correlation with shelter dogs coming from dog fighting communities. You see a ton of pitbulls, which are wonderful sweethearts when raised right but are not when they aren't. Even non-pit breeds may have been abused as bait dogs.
I love the dog I got from a breeder, and I love my shelter dog (who is snoring next to me as I write this), but the latter was not the pure win that shelter advocates often make it out to be.
The right way to think of it is sort of like getting a used car: it can save you money and be a morally good choice (in the case of a car, less waste and better for the environment), but it's also an unknown quantity where you need to do more due diligence to know what you're getting into, or accept that you are taking a risk with higher variance.
But, unlike with a car, you're signing up for the dog for life.
So, yes, please consider a shelter first. Any future dogs I get will likely be shelter dogs. But consider it cautiously and take your time finding the dog that is right for you.
If I had to do it again, I'd get an easier breed.
I know this is right - but I feel obliged to point out that this is true with a new puppy too.
Training dogs properly is work, and inconsistent or incomplete training only gets harder and harder to fix. Plenty of dogs in shelters are there because owners could not rectify their own mistakes. Not from malice, or lack of caring. Simple unknowing incompetence.
Don't be too quick to judge those who give dogs up
The important point is that dogs go through developmental milestones just like people and when you get a dog that has already finished its puppyhood, you have lost the opportunity to be present during those milestones and train the dog. Dogs can learn as adults, of course, but correcting bad behaviors is a lot harder. When you get a younger dog (shelter or not), they are more plastic and easier to train.
Yes, of course, it's on you to actually do that training well, but at least you have the chance. When you buy an adult dog, which is what most shelter dogs are, you're kind of stuck with what you get.
* Always have treats in your pocket
* Avoid triggers (dogs) but whenever Lily sees one at a distance, give her a treat
* If she acts aggressively, don't yank the leash or shout, put a treat at her nose and call her name
That's it, in a nutshell. It works for basically any behavioural problem in any dog. (Of course, the breed will have its own personality type - they all do). 6 months later Lily would go nose-to-nose with a rabid chihuahua and remain calm. She was one of the best dogs I've ever had. Still miss the old thing.
She died last year, and we rescued 2 greyhounds (brother/sister). Dorrie is fine but Merlin was, for reasons unknown, afraid of certain types of street light. Which is a massive pain in the ass of you live in a city. We followed the exact same rules, and within a few weeks he was ignoring them. (Still gets spooked at random stuff, like the moon, or light reflected from a kitchen knife onto the ceiling)
Similarly he has problems with other dogs (not with our other podenco, who he loves). He is insecure, stares, starts to go full aggro if they stare back etc. We try to be as careful and consequent as we can. The good thing is he is a very fast learner, not as stubborn.
We give him praise and treats typically after he did well on an encounter (which we keep at fair distance as well). It wouldn't occur to me to give it to him beforehand.
Your method seems simple and I get why it would work, but it's counterintuitive. Can you elaborate? It is something that worked specifically for her for some reason? Or do you think the simple conditioning thing just works. My intuition would be that he has to show the desired behavior and then gets praise/treats. What do you think?
To begin with, practice randomly when there is no trigger. Have a sneaky treat ready and say the dog's name. If it's difficult to begin with (because they don't know their name), try putting the treats into a small plastic container and shaking it, or taking the plastic packaging of their treats. They learn to respond to that noise very quickly. Words are more complex, but if you say their name when you make the noise they'll start responding to that too. Always carry accessible treats.
5 months since we adopted untrained (pretty wild) greyhounds, I can get either of them to sprint to me by calling their name, sit, high-five, lie down... no matter what's going on around them. That response makes it easier to discourage cat-chasing and to reduce their prey drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)#R...
The idea is that you can't feel opposing emotions simultaneously. So if you can make the dog feel relaxed (by giving a treat beforehand), it interferes with their ability to feel anxiety.
They aren't earning the treat for choosing not the be anxious. The positive emotional feeling from the treat prevents the anxiety from occurring.
It felt like i was applying for a job.
At the next place I tried they basically threw the dog at me.