Know Your Pooch
VK Joshi
The writer is former director, GSI, and an avid animal lover. His understanding of man's best friend comes from over six decades of dedicated association with it
Apologies for a rather terse title, but often dog parents create such situations that I find their pooches perfect, while the parents squarely blame them. “My dog has become a nuisance,” cried an owner on the phone the other day. He was very upset because he had spent a fortune importing his Yorkshire Terrier (Yorkie). He complained bitterly that his dog barked incessantly, chewed off his own bed, and made puddles all over the house. Above all, he said that the dog did not allow himself to be groomed at all. Imagine, after having spent more than Rs. one lakh, you land in all these problems! But I don’t blame the dog. In my opinion, no dog is bad; the owners are to blame.
If this friend had asked me beforehand, I would have advised him to read about the breed and gather as much information as he could before making such a commitment. He and his daughter had attended a dog show and were very impressed by a gorgeous Yorkie with its hair on the forehead tied neatly with a ribbon. The dog walked gracefully with his owner in the show ring, stood perfectly on a table and calmly allowed the judge to inspect his teeth, run hands over his back and sides and feel him all over. They immediately imported this expensive puppy. Things were okay for about the first two months. But the moment the family tried to groom their pup at home, the little animal began to growl and bare his teeth. One day, the owner forced the dog to accept the brush, and the dog snapped in open retaliation. By the time he was five months old, he started barking at every little sound, and in another month, he was barking incessantly at guests from the moment they arrived.
The pup had arrived in a beautiful crate with cosy, high-quality bedding. One morning, the owner noticed the torn mattress with polyester fibres filling the crate. He hurriedly took out the puppy, which was coughing badly, yet did not permit the master to clean its mouth. Then, the owner noticed that after the dog passed urine, a few drops of blood often dribbled. A veterinarian was consulted, but it proved completely impossible to administer any medicine orally to the aggressive dog. Hence, the vet advised injectable medicines, for which the dog had to be pinned down forcibly. The moment he was freed, he would charge at the nearest person. The bleeding stopped, but the dog started making puddles all over the house, though he had been successfully house-broken. Then the owner rang me to help him find a way to dispose of the dog. I told him plainly that this was not my job. Instead, I made him mail me a comprehensive list detailing all of the dog's bad habits. This was essential to help me analyse the situation and find the root cause of the problem.
In addition to the specific problems mentioned by this Yorkie owner, there are many more bad habits that plague domestic dogs, such as jumping up on people, begging for food at the table, whining, digging, counter or dining table surfing, leash pulling and chasing cars or stray animals. The list of bad habits is pretty long, and there are still many more behavioural issues that have not been included here. Many people remain under the false belief that nothing can be done about it. But if we take the time to understand the causes behind such behaviour, we can at least try to find an effective cure. Now, while a vet may have an excellent solution for curing a bad behaviour that stems directly from a dog’s physical ailment, he or she may not know how to handle problems arising out of purely psychological, environmental, or instinctual reasons.
So, we must look at the primary causes of bad behaviour, which generally include breed characteristics, age, the living situation, owner preferences, physical ailments, emotional stress and sexual drives. Some breeds, like the Dachshund, were historically bred to hunt burrowing animals like badgers and skunks. These dogs were deliberately bred to have large, wide, spade-like paws for shifting earth, a jet-shaped body, a pointed and long muzzle, a remarkably deep chest and an incredibly loud, shrill bark. Therefore, if you intend to buy a Dachshund, you must understand these inherent characteristics of the breed.
Dachshunds do make lovely pets, but it takes a tremendous amount of effort, patience and consistency to train them to perfection. Furthermore, their long, elongated bodies are structured such that their urinary bladder is almost always under physical stress. Because of this anatomical reality, they find it very difficult to hold their urine back for long periods compared to other breeds. When you bring home such an intense bundle of pure energy, you cannot simply expect your puppy to sit idle, stay quiet, and snooze all day long on your expensive sofa! When I got my very first Dachshund bitch, I was completely unaware of all these intricate breed details. I have always emphasised that your pet must have a specific, designated place of his own to live comfortably, like a crate that opens frontwards. I placed my Dachshund puppy Minty, barely 10 weeks old, gently inside her cage. Exhausted from the journey, she fell fast asleep.
In the dead of the night, I was suddenly awakened by the incredibly loud, piercing barks of Minty. I rushed out and found that she had somehow climbed all the way to the top of the three-foot-high wire mesh cage and was actively struggling to climb down the outer side. Since it was the summer season and my green front lawn was quite safe and enclosed, I decided to place her outside in the grass. The next morning, I found that my entire, beautiful green lawn had been thoroughly dug up during the night. It was not that Minty was a "bad" dog; her very genes had compelled her to do that. As the weeks went by, she started piddling all over the house, despite my best efforts to house-train her. If she was left alone even for a brief hour, she would instantly dig up the lawn, destroy the flower beds, or tear into any patch of soft earth she could find. Then I decided to read extensively about the breed and learn the hard way how to properly manage and "cure" a headstrong Dachshund.
Likewise, Terriers—including the tiny Yorkshire Terrier—were originally bred to make a loud, persistent noise to flush out hidden prey for the human hunter. Therefore, you should never expect your Terrier, even a tiny, toy-sized Yorkie, to remain quiet for long periods of time. It is simply against their biological programming. It is always better that you read thoroughly about the specific breed you are interested in acquiring before you bring them home as a pet or a show dog. But you might ask, “What if I choose to adopt a stray dog from the street?” In that case, you simply have to wish and pray that the stray has inherited fewer bad qualities and more good qualities in its mixed genes. But the core methods used to cure these behavioural problems will always remain the same, regardless of the pedigree.
The Dachshund and the Yorkie are inherently hyperactive, and so are other small breeds like the tiny Chihuahua, the Miniature Pinscher, and even the Spitz. Apart from the genetic character of these specific breeds, you must understand that smaller breeds as a whole tend to be significantly noisier than large dogs. One of the primary reasons for them being so loud and defensive is simple geography and perspective. To understand a small dog's worldview, try to lie down completely flat on your stomach on the ground of a busy city pavement and look up at the world. Every single human being looks like a towering giant; every moving object seems immense. Small dogs bark loudly to protect themselves from this perceived vulnerability. When owners fail to understand this perspective, they end up reacting poorly, compounding the dog's anxiety and creating the very behavioural monsters they later complain about.
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