The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs
Copyright 2009 by Alexandra Semyonova — All Rights Reserved
Introduction
Myths about origin and nature
Myth 1: The dog is a descendant of the wolf. Because of this we should regard him as a sort of tame wolf in our living room.
The idea of the dog as a tame wolf has a huge romantic attraction for us. We imagine the great grey wolf of the northern regions of the Earth, a powerful wild animal weighing 160–220 pounds, who spends his days hunting deer, moose or elk…
Myth 3: Everything we know about wolves applies to dogs, too.
We’ve already seen a number of reasons why this isn’t true. The dog’s ancestor eventually became a dog because he left the ecological niche his ancestor may have shared with the wolf’s ancestors more than 500,000 years ago. The domestic dog…
Myth 4: The domestic dog is a hunting species.
We’ve seen that the evolution of the specifically domestic dog probably began when a few of his ancestors discovered human dumps as a new source of safe and easy food. It’s possible that these first dump animals were able to exploit the new food..
Myth 5: But my own dog is obviously a hunter, because he kills cats (or rabbits, or sheep).
A hunter is not just an animal that kills, it’s an animal that kills to eat. The behavioral sequence of a true predator that kills other animals in order to eat them looks like this: Scent > track > watch/orient > stalk > chase > grab > kill > dissect > eat…
Myth 10: Dogs live in a dominance hierarchy, with the Alpha dog at the top as the absolute leader.
One of the things we hear most about dogs is that dominance is extremely important in organising their groups. The story goes that their interactions are all about gaining and maintaining status. The dog with the higher rank dominates the dog with the…
Myth 11: Retake: Dogs live in a dominance hierarchy.
We have now seen that this is a rather evil human projection. Now we come to the question of what dogs actually do, if they don’t engage in dominance all the day long. If dogs don’t live in stable closed groups (which they don’t), and if they are constantly…
Myths about puppies
Myth 19: You can use a puppy test to pick the right pup from the litter
This myth was very popular for quite a while. People thought you could test a puppy and find out what her personality would be like when she grew up. The test consists of several parts. Does the puppy approach you without being coaxed, or does she seem…
Myth 23: You housetrain a pup by rubbing his nose in it when he has an accident in the house.
This is an old-fashioned myth that many of us are brought up with. Many people know better at this point, but many well meaning people do still believe in this myth. Since I still run into it very often, I have to mention it in this book — for the sake of puppies…
Myth 25: You can teach puppies to share with each other by making them eat together out of one bowl.
This is a myth that some (lazy?) breeders like to believe in. This myth is not only incorrect, it can also be damaging. One of dogs’ basic social rules is, ‘We enter each other’s personal zone only with permission.’ There is also the subsidiary rule…
Myth 28: Commands are the most important thing my puppy will ever learn.
The truth is, the most important things your puppy will ever learn are impulse control and bite inhibition. We’ve invented all these myths about dogs being wolves and wolves (thus dogs) living in a kind of fascist system, in which everyone has to do…
Myths about aggression
Myth 29: The domestic dog is a naturally aggressive species.
One reason people believe this myth is because of the romantic idea that the domestic dog descended from the great grey wolf (see Myth 1), which he didn’t. We now also know that the domestic dog isn’t a hunter, but that he became what he is precisely…
Myth 30: There is no such thing as a truly aggressive dog.
It’s true that the domestic dog evolved as a species in an environment in which there was strong selection pressure against aggression. Living near humans and their livestock meant that aggression was very bad for a dog’s chances of survival…
Myth 41: ‘What? How dare you growl at me!’ A.k.a. If your dog snaps or growls at you, you should punish this severely.
If you have read this far, you now know that a threat signal is just the way a dog tells you she is feeling very worried and insecure about what you are planning to do. Her inner state is out of balance (too much adrenaline, too much fear or worry), and…