The way we live has changed - maybe we need to change how we choose our pets too
75%+ of the worlds dogs are unowned street type dogs. They’re domesticated to an extent, but they’re not captive. They’re free to breed to adapt to their environments through the generations, they’re free to move their bodies and find their own enrichment, they’re able to form social bonds of their own choosing and unfortunately through selection pressures dogs that are unsuitable for that environment don’t survive to pass on their genes. As a result, while many may be lacking medically you also see very little reactivity or general behavioural issues. In some ways, they have better welfare as an overall population than a lot of our western pet dogs because although they may not have the fanciest food or the plushest beds, they’re out living the life they have been designed from their genes up to live.
Meanwhile in the western pet world (an oddity among dog kind!), we’re in the process of re-learning this lesson. We are frequently seeing owners selecting for looks without recognising the functions that come along with that thanks to our artificial selection over the centuries and millennia - the eye, the stalk, the grab bite, the different levels of sociability towards strangers etc. And as we have lost the more natural ways of choosing and raising dogs - breeding towards the lifestyle they’re expected to live, traditionally being outside working with or for us in most breeds - we have also seen the rates of reactivity, anxieties and other behavioural challenges skyrocket. This isn’t a coincidence.
As a trainer I would love to help you provide a more enriched, canine appropriate lifestyle for your dog that works for the family too. We can give them really big fulfilling lives with activities that scratch the genetic itch for our unemployed dogs. We can also train through these behavioural issues head on with behaviour modification strategies, solid obedience, life skills and a general “cut it out” when needed because that’s important. I love this work, especially when owners are excited to learn about their dogs and give them outlets appropriate to their breeds.
But until we start looking at whether the dogs we are selecting as popular family pets for the average modern working lifestyle are really the most appropriate for the lives we are providing as a whole, I’ll never be short of work as we chase this genetic tail.
The next time you’re on the hunt for your next family member, please choose the puppy or dog or animal in general that behaviourally fits your current reality. Not the lifestyle you aspire to, or that you remember from growing up on the farm or out hunting every weekend. By the nature of genetics, these might look different to the dogs we have traditionally grown up with - behaviour and looks are very much intertwined at a base level. But our lives look a lot different to what they used to be too.
