Doggie Incarceration

I am a firm believer that we as a society must be responsible dog owners and keep our dogs where they should be when we are away. These days both husband and wife work a full time job as well as manage the household, making it necessary to kennel, crate or confine our dogs that are left at home.  The problem lies with the busy lifestyle that most people lead these days.It leaves our beloved family pet in exile from the family pack, extreme boredom and all out doggie incarceration.

I am a mother of four great kids and own two dogs as well as have a full time job and run my own business.  I can certainly appreciate having a lack of time to deal with the dog at times. I do understand leaving the house at 5 am and returning with barely enough time to get dinner on the table before football practice. However, I feel we need to really evaluate how our dog may feel about the life he lives, after all this life is not of his choosing. We, the owners, choose how our dogs live from day to day.  In assessing the situation we need to ask ourselves a few questions. Is he fulfilled and happy? Is he an integral part of our family pack? Is he getting appropriate exercise and stimulation? Is he getting appropriate interaction with the family pack?  A lot of dog owners feel that because they provide food, water and shelter that their responsibility to the family pet is complete. However, I could not disagree more.  When taking on a family dog, we need to consider it to be an addition to our family.  Our family pet is not a robot and can not simply be shoved into the closet or on a shelf until we have time for him.

What we need to consider is that dogs are pack (family) animals,  they must be an interactive part of a pack (family) to thrive.  Dogs are also intelligent and emotional animals.  They, like humans, bond with their family and when they are away from that family they actually suffer emotional pain. They know and respond to our emotional state as well.

Now... that being said, at risk of "humanizing" our family dog, we all know that dogs are also hard wired by mother nature to be just what they are "dogs" and certain things need to be provided in order for that hardwiring to be satisfied so that negative behaviors do not form.

A great deal of negative behaviors we see our dogs display, can be avoided simply by giving our pet more of what he actually needs to thrive and fulfill more of his hard wiring.  So many times I have people say to me, "he chewed my favorite shoes because he was mad at me". I have to let you in on a little secret, dogs are not out to get even with you or exact their revenge because they are angry.  Most of the time the dog chooses something of yours because it smells like you, and he is in need of your affection or attention in some way. Dogs do not "get even" or do things because they are mad at us as owners, its simply not in the psychology for a canine. I know that blows most of our thinking out of the water but it is the truth.  If we can take a long hard look at how our pet actually survives every day and compare it to what is actually desirable for a canine living within a human family pack, I would bet some changes would be in order.  We need to consider not only what he needs as a species but also the needs of the breed, the temperament of our specific dog as well as the size of our pet. For example, some breeds need tons of exercise and some need very little.

We can avoid tons of negative and annoying behaviors by simply giving the dog something that is missing to satisfy a drive (ingrained desire) that he is hard wired with. Such as "prey drive" the desire to chase something that is running. We can satisfy prey drive and get a good amount of exercise by spending twenty minutes throwing a ball and letting your dog retrieve it. This activity also puts an end to to a lot of the high energy trampling and crazy running through the house as it relieves a lot of pent up energy.  This is also very good bonding time with your dog.

We can also relieve begging at the dinner table and gain a bit more control of our pets manners at dinner if we can spend a bit of time playing ball and then feed our pet his dinner before we sit down to eat our family meal. This is not an answer to all of the begging your dog will do but it will help with some of the issues I see with dinner time.  I got a call from an individual once who was having a big problem with her puppy and the family meal time.  I went to the families home to observe and hopefully devise a solution.  Well as you can imagine it was a very active and busy family with very little time to care for their very sweet puppy.

The normal day for the puppy was sleeping all night in a crate, then let outside to do his business at 6am, back inside and into his confined area with only 10 minutes to interact with a rushed family.  Most of that ten minutes the family was annoyed because the puppy saw the rushed activity as play time and became overly stimulated and wanted to play.  The family was away for about 9 hours, and returned home the puppy was let out to do his business and because the wife was starting her dinner schedule the puppy was put in the back yard so he would not be under her feet. While this is better than confinement, the puppy was still alone and without any interaction or stimulation. Puppies left without any kind of direction in their activities and play time will come up with some pretty creative and not so pleasant ways to entertain themselves.

So dinner was served and the family sat to have their meal while the puppy stared in the back door, after 10 or more hours I'm sure smelling the food cooking had this young dog watering and belly growling. As the family sat to have their meal the puppy began barking and jumping on the door. The woman says to me, "this is what we go through just to have our dinner". I know my face was locked on a blank stair as I could not imagine why she was not able to understand that this young puppy needed to eat more often than twice a day to begin with. But also imagine being alone all night then all day, anxiously awaiting for your beloved family to return. Then when they do you are shoved out the door for more alone time while they laugh and interact over a meal.  This puppy was simply communicating not only his hunger but also that he really wanted to interact with his family as well. Dogs must satisfy pack drive, they are not hard wired to be alone.

The answer to the issue she had was simply some schedule rearranging.  We included 10 min per day before dinner was started to play ball and interact with her puppy.  We incorporated some obedience skills in order to stimulate the puppy mentally.  We then fed the puppy his evening meal before the lady started cooking her family meal.  Then finally, the puppy was blocked in a large portion of the kitchen with her while she cooked so she could talk and interact with no risk of the puppy getting under foot. The puppy was given plenty of toys and also given a toy that could be filled with food in order to further stimulate him. This family didnt realize that how this puppy was living was causing his behavior problems. So in doing some minor adjusting of the schedule to include more interaction with the puppy, the family was able to satisfy several areas of this puppy's life and now have a very well behaved family pet.

I hope this post was of some help to you, please give me your feed back.

Stefanie