Right place, wrong dogs
LOCATION: CERTAIN ANIMALS NOT SUITED TO MODERN LIVING
People tend to offer attention for unacceptable behaviour out of compassion instead of rewarding acceptable, calm behaviour.
In most suburbs of the city, hounds can no longer see outside their domestic “prison” and barricaded gates. Guard dogs have very little to guard, except their own fears. Terriers have very little to hunt after they have eliminated the entire ecology of their small garden in a short period of time, then resort to digging to alleviate frustration. Retrievers have nothing to retrieve except household items.
A gregarious species no longer socialises with their own kind as they were supposed to. Many dogs live in solitary confinement for most of their time and when the occasion arises, they are placed in a communal situation.
Sounds such as lightning, thunder, fireworks, sirens, alarms and gunshots became exacerbated due to the echo effect in the design of townhouse complexes, which instilled a new range of sound sensitivities and phobias in pet dogs. Even gun dogs have developed fearful traits under these circumstances, although the owners are mostly culpable for reinforcing their neuroses. This comes from treating dogs as humans.
Cats were gradually becoming more popular as pets in many countries such as Switzerland, Austria, China, Russia, Brazil, France, Turkey, South Africa and certain states of America. There were many logical and practical reasons for the surge in feline popularity. Cats are mostly nocturnal, spend most of the day sleeping and are, therefore, more responsive when owners return from work. Cats socialise and imprint much earlier than dogs and do not require open space obedience training, just intimate intensive positive handling.
Cats can be left unsupervised safely in small apartments and cope very well with confinement. They have fewer behaviour problems than dogs and do not need to be walked. Owners do not have to clean up after them, except for hygienic management of their litter trays. People, through ignorance of genetics, purchase hyperactive, working breeds for modern claustrophobic properties and most dogs, instinctively, cannot tolerate the confinement for long. Most dogs are raised without training, exercise and discipline because the owners are uninformed or lazy or do not care or all of these attitudes combined.
Frustrated and anxious animals develop instinctive responses to help them cope with cabin fever which may be presented by pacing, digging, excessive barking, self-mutilation, tail-chasing and destructiveness, to mention a few behaviours.
Read more on this topic next week.