Getting a pet is a popular way to expand your family and make a friend for life. The dog is usually called man’s best friend. And all the love and care the dog receives from us is for many a way to take care of the animal.
According to the ethologist Erik Wilson however, there are a lot of problems with how we handle the dog in a modern era. In an interview with News24 he says that the dog mirrors us humans and that has contributed to it not being able to learn what it should.
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The dog mirrors the human
– It has become a new fashion in the dog world when it comes to dressage, which means that you should only praise and encourage but never correct misbehavior. That trend follows what we see with child-rearing as well, where children are given increasingly free reins where more and more social rules are removed. The biggest problem is the dogs who have their own will to be influenced by the new culture that has emerged. The really good dogs are misunderstood and in many cases euthanized because many cannot handle them using methods that do not suit that dog’s individuality.
“A new fashion in the dog world when it comes to dressage, which means that you should only praise and encourage,” says Erik Wilsson. Photo: Leif R Jansson/TT & Martin Meissner
The very connection with how we raise and are raised is reflected in how we raise and take care of our dogs. In many cases, it can have several negative health effects, says Wilsson.
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Erik Wilsson believes that there is a connection between how we raise children and our dogs. Photo: Martina Holmberg/TT
– The dogs reflect us humans. At the beginning of the 20th century, allergy was a very unknown concept, but the way we behave with everything from sterile environments to clean food also contributes to more and more dogs developing allergies, he says and continues:
– Mental problems are also starting to appear in the dogs. Ten percent of the population in Sweden uses some form of anti-depressant medication, which is also starting to affect the dogs, where we see exaggerated fears, reactions and also the number of reported cases of bite injuries on humans, which has increased by 30 percent in one year.
It partly coincides with an increasingly violent society, but also that there are underlying factors such as not showing respect or not reining in impulse control, which children can have difficulty with, he believes.
– Then there are no requirements and neither do our dogs. They should show respect for certain rules. We have started to handle our dogs the same way we handle our children. We pamper the entire system and while we boost the desire, the dog also becomes more sensitive to discomfort. If you curl children and dogs, they become more sensitive to discomfort.
He believes that a dog exhibiting aggressive behavior or fear can be linked to a curling method from the dog owner.
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Another big problem with our beloved dogs is that more and more of them also have problems with their physical health in the form of gaining weight. Something that can be caused by anything from the dog getting too much food to too little exercise.
– Dogs get too little exercise, just like us humans. Then dogs are basically carnivores that are used to eating in long intervals. If we do that, we start to have blood sugar drops, and dogs don’t get that kind of dip because they are better at using fat as fuel. On the other hand, they are always hungry and understimulation leads them to want food. It is our misguided love for the dogs that causes us to give them too much food. If the dog looks hungry, we give it food, which means that they get more food than they actually need, says Wilsson to Nyheter24.
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Ethologist Erik Wilsson believes that dogs get too much food and too little exercise, which affects their health. Photo: Janerik Henriksson/TT & Liselotte Sabroe
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