Recipe for a Shelter-Dog

While hopefully no one would deliberately make one, shelter-dogs are unfortunately, very easy to create.

See attached article on creating a shelter dog:

That adorable squishy puppy that you brought home can quickly grow into an awkward adolescent dog that if not trained properly, is likely to exhibit a lot of doggie behaviors which are unacceptable for humans. Jumping up, chewing, barking, not to mention using the living room as a potty, are all behaviors that are likely to get the dog confined hours on end to a crate or booted out of the house.

Choosing the wrong training method can ruin a dog. Scientific studies have shown that using positive punishment may stop a behavior temporarily, however it doesn’t instruct the dog to do the right behavior. This creates a culture of increased punishments and few rewards; the results are often fallout behaviors where a dog may shut down, become fearful or fight back. And fighting back is a one-way ticket to the shelter.

Television programs too have helped create the illusion of the perfect dog. Everyone knows that Lassie was wired to please Timmy, but Lassie was a dog actor with may stand-in Collies that were trained to perform various stunts. Your dog is ‘wired’ to please himself and the average person who doesn’t use this valuable knowledge to motivate his dog can feel slighted. This faulty thinking is yet another justification to send the dog packing.

Before your dog becomes another shelter-dog statistic, we hope you consider whether you have time for a dog before you bring one home; find a certified professional dog trainer who uses rewards based positive reinforcement techniques, and then spend the time properly adhering to the training program. Training can enhance the human/hound experience, which means more time attending dog-friendly places and very little chance of sentencing him to a possible life of confinement in a shelter cage.