AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION.
G. J.
Webster.
There has
been nothing weirder for me than re-learning how to live with a dog in today’s
confined urban environments. A lot of my
dog owning had been in countryside and un-crowded suburbia where dogs were used
for work and occupational company. To
understand why my past experiences with outdoor country dogs didn’t apply to
indoor urban dogs I have had what I would call an interesting learning
experience.
I have read a
lot of big books with a little bit of useable stuff hidden over lots of pages.
I wasted months on-line seeking good content. I have heard repeated advice of
old-school pack leader teachings. I had
totally failed to urbanise my dog. I am
not a fan of ongoing training that doesn’t work.
What I want
to do as quickly and concisely as possible is to give you some really useful
habits that will help settle a reactive or unsettled pup into this urban fray
we call home.
I believe
that every dog is unique, as is every owner.
No theory will fit all, probably not fit many, most likely a fixed theory
of training will suit very few. I do
know there are some things fundamental to all people and all dogs and if
understood will resolve problems the urban pooch encounters.
Play is
important and although I will not continue to mention it, all training should
be backed up by play around the learning to enforce the lesson as a good thing.
What I will do is give you some insight and a
few proven tools to make urban living with pooches a more relaxed and enjoyable
thing.
I am always
willing to accept good new advice and will continue to learn what else works
from my current expert, a lovely girl dog, my four year old Alsatian called
Bindi.
I guess I should tell you a little about me
now.
I am a male baby-boomer, don’t hate me for
that. I have worked on Australian
livestock farms with sheep dogs, collies, cattle dogs and a three legged kelpie
called Rhama. As suburban pets I’ve
owned a Corgi called Mandy, a Scottish Terrier named Pippa, a foundling German
Shepherd rejoicing in the name Swagger, one tall 75kg adopted fawn Great Dane
renamed Symbol (he was formally called Prince), another tall, fawn Great Dane,
Bosco (gotta love Danes) and now in the UK,
a German Shepherd bitch from a long line of pedigree and police dog
genetics called Bindi. Bindi is an
Australian native word purportedly meaning ‘little girl’, which as she is 36
kgs and living in the UK is dually inappropriate. If Bindi is anything, she is mostly
inappropriate.
Each and
every one of my dogs has shared its own personality with me and shown unique
strengths and behaviours clearly to the outside world. Bindi is the definition of unique amongst the
unique.
My non-dog
related experiences include all the usual life things along with the unusual
successes and failures that come with trying to earn a living. There have also been far too many deaths of
loved ones in my life, starting for me with the death of my father when I was a
very young lad. My aunt gave me Mandy
the Corgi to help me cope with that, probably to give me something to divert my
emotions to, and dogs have been and will be forever in my life since then.
In terms of
career, I have enjoyed farming, selling, being an international corporate
executive, a business owner, and a habitual property developer. I’m equally fortunate to have been happily
married for more years than is polite to boast about. Most of these things have caused me joys and
pains in equal measure but always, at every stage, in every country, there have
been dogs involved. Every dog has taught
me something about myself.
In the rest
of this book I will work towards letting you know about tools and tricks that
will help learn how to correct our behaviour and the demands we place on our
pups. I lay no claim that these ideas or
tools are in anyway solely my invention.
Most have been adapted learning from others, filtered through my dogs
responses and some are tested on Bindi as she is the best student I have ever
had the mixed pleasure to be driven crazy by.
I have had to
change, to be more relaxed, to observe my pooch, to be kinder, to try to
understand what my dog responds to and is uncomfortable around. I hold no value in my old belief that to own
a dog meant I had to be the strong dominant pack member.
I still think
it is important that my dogs know they can rely on me, but now, rather than
dominance I like to think I can be a safe, reliable and friendly base in a world
which is getting more confusing the more digitally distracted and the more
populated our environments become.
That’s enough
about me, now let’s talk about
URBAN DOGS.
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