Great Pawsibilities supports you and your dog's need for companionship and coorperation.

Here you'll find articles concerning dog behavior and pet owner tips. Check back often as new articles will be added soon!

Sarah came home from work and pulled into her driveway. She took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly, worried about what would soon greet her at the door. She does this every weekday and is about at her wits end with what to do about Buddy, her 2 year old Black Lab. Buddy is basically a good dog- he doesn’t chew furniture, he doesn’t make a mess in the house while she’s gone, he’s great in his crate, but when she comes home Sarah senses that there’s something wrong with Buddy. He’s very barky, paces back a forth with his ears back and his tail goes a million miles a minute. If Buddy could talk, Sarah thinks he’s like to lie back on a psychiatrist’s couch and discuss his anxiety problems. Sarah takes him on walks after work when she can but he’s so full of energy and yanks at the leash to sniff and chew everything on the sidewalk and she’s so out of energy that sometimes it’s hard.

Sarah can’t put her finger on exactly what’s “wrong” with Buddy, but she knows he’s not as happy as he could be. Sarah wants to do what’s best for Buddy, but if she can’t name the problem, she’s not sure how to fix it. This is a very typical situation in today’s cities and suburbs. Today’s dogs don’t live the same kind of lives dogs did even 3 or 4 generations back. Ask anyone from our grandfather’s or parents age and they’ll tell you stories about how dogs were let out when the kids went to school, they roamed the neighborhood with other dogs and chased cats and squirrels, and knew to come home around dinner time.  Dog food wasn’t even invented until the <fill this in> so before commercial dog food was available, dogs were fed the leftovers from human dinner- and this was considered normal. You got a dog when Fifi and Simon from down the street mated and had a litter of puppies. If your yard was small, as long as the owner let them out often enough, they usually had enough freedom to roam around and play with other dogs and do general “doggie” things.

In today’s society, dogs are confined to a smaller area and interact with much less than the dogs before them. In our effort to protect them from injury and disease, many dogs may live out their lives seeing no more than the same 3 or 5 same dogs and never leaving their 100x 100 foot yard. Their natural canine instincts are never fulfilled. They have food, shelter and complete veterinary care, yet they lack the exploration of what their dog genes yearn for them to express. Just like with humans, the use of technology and the fulfillment of every physical desire still lacks the wholeness of lesser known aspects of a dog’s behavior and mental stimulation needs.

Dogs are expected to do things today that humans have no expectation of in any other species. To be locked up inside for 8-12 hours a day, then expected to lie quietly by their masters feet and wait for their master to bring them food, decide to either take them out or skip walks, not provide a job or any mental stimulation, not be able to run and chase and chew anything around them. They’re required to not react with their ingrained behaviors such as barking at things that startle them and they’re expected to encounter foreign objects and people with calmness while never speaking the same language as the person holding the leash.

People visit foreign countries every day and if you don’t speak the language can have a very difficult time figuring out what the proper customs are. If an American were to visit Japan and not speak a word of Japanese, although the language barrier is steep, the American can usually find a way to communicate whether thru body language or pointing or hiring a translator. If you didn’t study Japanese culture before leaving for the trip, there can be many surprises overseas with things as simple as what to eat, how to find and use the restrooms, social greetings and behaviors, and polite etiquette in social gathers. If humans find these situations difficult when interacting with people who don’t speak the same language, imagine if you were an entirely different species! Your body languages are not similar, and something as benign as smiling to you may be taken as a threat to another!

 There are a number of things dog owners can do to help ensure their canine partner’s well being. Bones, play toys and time, exercise, relaxation, mental stimulation

Check back soon for our first talk on Bones-a Doggie necessity.