So every Spring, the pounds and rescues fill up with more abandoned dogs. Anyone who has owned a dog for long is going to know that housetraining a dog isn’t usually a long term process yet still people will dump their dogs if they are not clean about the house, as if expecting this part of the dogs development to happen by magic. Well, it doesn’t. Even the most superficial research into the process of bringing up a  dog is going to point this out, so why is it still an issue for so many people? When pups are first born, they pee and poo only when their Mother licks their stomach and rear to encourage the process, and very helpfully, she will clean it up too. By eight or nine weeks, when most pups move on to their new home, they will generally seek out a spot to relieve themselves. Almost instinctively the pup will look for some place away from their bed, so yes, they will leave their parcels and puddles behind the sofa, under the TV or out in the hallway while your attention is elsewhere. Like so many other things, they have to be taught that you would rather they didn’t do things this way, the process is after all an entirely natural one to them. It doesn’t happen because the dog is innately bad or dirty and to presume so, or to punish the dog is stupid beyond words.

Nobody wants to hear of children being bitten or harmed by dogs, but that the dog nipped a child is another oft cited reason for giving up on a pet. Obviously I’m not talking of the horror stories where a child is savaged by an out of control dog, but for a pup to bite playfully is entirely natural. As a part of a litter, pups will nip and barge each other, and the response of their littermates will tell the pup when it has gone too far. Once removed from this environment, the pup depends on you to set boundaries in this and many other behaviours which, in it’s mind, are entirely natural. Again, I make no excuses where a child has been harmed by a dog, but so many times when some less dramatic incident occurs it is still the deciding factor that sets the dog on a path to destruction. After spending more than fourteen years with Leica I’m pretty sure I can safely stick my fingers in her gullet (or elsewhere) to administer medication but I recognise too that some actions can still cause her discomfort or unease. Younger dogs will not have built up enough experience to trust that no harm is intended when a child hugs them round the neck for instance, and equally no child is born with an inbuilt understanding that a dog will try to communicate displeasure or fear through body language or vocalisation. Dogs can, and do, react quickly to stressful situations and their instinct for self-preservation may manifest itself as a physical reaction.

Housetraining a dog, setting boundaries and developing trust all take time and patience. Integrating a dog into a human environment demands at least a little understanding of how a dog actually thinks. That the dog may ultimately pay with its life for our shortcomings or thoughtlessness is something we should not be allowed to forget.