Glenorchy Gazette NOVEMBER 2021 17
Pet Talk Community News The Eastern Shore Sun proudly supports Ten Lives
Ten Lives
12 Selfs Point Road, New Town Open Mon - Sat 10.00 - 4.00 Sun 12.00 - 2.30 6278 2111 tenlives.com.au
FOSTER
Open your heart and your home Foster caring can be one of the most rewarding and uplifting aspects of volunteering. Our foster care program is an essential part of our work looking after our kitties. You don’t have to foster all the time, fostering even for a short time - a week or two - helps with our vital work.
How can I help? Fostering is a truly wonderful experience which is extremely rewarding for you and lifesaving for the cats or kittens you care for. Some of the reasons our kitties need foster care before they can be adopted are: • Shy or timid • Too young • Illness The Ten Lives Cat Centre provides full support and everything you need to care for a cat or kitten in your home. We provide: • food & bowls • kitty litter & trays • toys, blankets & beds • 24 hour support • medicines and vet care You provide: • a loving environment • care for our cats and kittens You can find out more about the Ten Lives foster care program and other ways you can help at tenlives.com.au
Every cat has a story.
Are you part of it?
#FOSTER
Graduating from dog school The Dog Grumbler I BELIEVE that much of what a dog needs to learn to be happy and successful in life is best taught by other dogs. We leave pups in the litter until eight weeks of age or so, because they need to learn basics from mum and siblings. They need to pick up knowledge about themselves, the world and their place in it. As I have pointed out before, three out of four dogs never live in a human home. These dogs learn everything they know from other dogs and personal experience and have done so since they were wolves. They were equipped for this long before we started moulding them to our needs. Nature set this up and we can learn much from the way dogs learn from each other. They use sound, scent and body language and touch. Sound works much for dogs as it does instinctively for humans – they hear over twice our range of frequencies, but rising and falling pitch indicate the same things. We use baby talk with infants and dogs because it works – it doesn’t convey anything too specific, but a baby, like a dog, understands rising and falling pitch better than words. We know dogs have noses much better than our own. Most animals do — but dogs have specialised in the smell of humans. For the last forty years, I have worked on the assumption that dogs can smell human hormones. Dogs are body language geeks. They recognise us more by the way we move than by the way we look. Then there’s touch. Dogs don’t have much range here – in terms of communication
they can lick, hold, nip or bite. Your dog won’t lick people it doesn’t know or like. A mother dog does not teach a pup how to behave by waiting until it does something good and then licking it. She waits until it does something wrong and expresses disapproval the only way she can — she growls, snaps and smells angry. She picks up her pup by the scruff of the neck and takes it where it should go. She works on her pup’s natural control point, the neck. This is where a dog perceives tactile communication from others. Pick it up this way and it knows who is boss. Knead it here to release oxytocin in both parties and it will love you right back. Dogs play this way. Pups learn this way. They play fight. They hold each other on the ground. People see this and panic – they separate dogs that are playing and learning. If a larger or older dog is holding a pup down every time it rises and the pup is not squealing in distress, it’s just a game and the repetition is integral to the pup’s mental development. This is why I avoid halters and harnesses — I want to teach a dog, not control it; not train it to pull a sled. To stop a dog fighting, don’t pull it away from its adversary, lift it by the collar — and some loose neck skin if you can get a handful — lift its front paws off the ground and then move it away. This is much better understood. This is why chokers work, not because they strangle or cause discomfort, but because they mimic a mum’s grip. Some people think a leash is to stop a dog
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Ten Lives _ Gazette - 2 Cats 1 Pic Blurb _ ADOPT.indd 1
30/08/2021 1:40:27 PM
running away. For me it’s a training aid – a means of communication remembered from the litter. Sure, you can train a dog using only positive reinforcement if you live long enough, but you won’t be doing it any favours. Your dog wants you to sound and smell
upset when it does the wrong thing. It wants you to respect and use the language it came with. And the best teacher is another dog — a well behaved, well trained dog will always be a positive influence. Second best is a patient human who communicates in the dog’s own language.
SCOTT HUNT
The Black & White Dog Book Provides one on one solutions for behaviour problems. All breeds, all ages. No dogs too hard 0439 444 776
Ziggy.
1300 732 377 1300 732 377 www.onroadoffroad.edu.au www.onroadoffroad.edu.au
RTO 60071 RTO 60071
