11/07/2022
I got stuck in traffic this morning and of course began thinking about dogs.
Imagine a day where you wake up, eat dry cereal and go to work. On your way to work you’re stuck in traffic and frustrated. You want to go faster and get to where you’re going! When you get to work you have to sit alone in an office. You’re allowed to eat on your lunch break but nothing else. You drive home in more traffic and eat more dry cereal and are told to immediately go to bed. Sometimes you’re allowed to have fun on the weekends but more often than not you have to do chores.
You’d be miserable. Utterly miserable.
This is how a lot of our dogs lives look. They get up and eat dry kibble. They go for a rushed walk on a short lead, not being allowed to stop and sniff or run and play. They sit in a crate or an empty room all day at home. They go for another rushed walk on a short lead, eat some more dry kibble and then get put to bed.
In my ideal world EVERY dog would have a day with joy in it. Every dog would have a class or a club or an activity they love every day. Every dog would have fresh food and plenty of chance to sniff and play off lead. The ideal world doesn’t exist though, especially in the current climate (both economical and weather!)
You don’t have to change your life to meet your dogs needs more and nor does your dog need to be perfectly trained to enjoy life more. Try;
- Adding some fresh food to their diet. See what tastes they like and don’t like!
- Looking up some dog sports and signing up for a class.
- Going for a walk and letting them sniff for as long as they like. Doesn’t have to be anywhere we deem exciting. Industrial estates often have the best sniffs!
- Hiring a secure field for an hour.
- Invest in a long line and explore a new walk together.
- Look up trick training tutorials on YouTube and have a play. Doesn’t matter if you fail to teach the trick as long as your dog and you are smiling at the end.
We need to honour our dogs more. More and more in modern society, especially in the UK, it’s the done thing to get a dog and for it to be a family dog but our dogs are incredible, beautiful, smart and intelligent creatures that deserve more than dry biscuits and a march around the block.
Our dogs don’t live for very long compared to us, and they give us their all and question nothing. Honour your dog and don’t relegate them to ‘office life’. They deserve so much more.