Straw dogs? Few simple steps to put a correct imprinting over the owners…

I was eight years old and I was walking with my loved dog taking him on a leash; I remember the paralyzing fear at the time when I saw an alsatian coming towards me and the terror when my dog, getting rid of the collar, attacked it to defend me and and ruling the situation, I screamed but and none came or appeared.

I lived in a rural village where nobody, even now, has learned not to let their dogs free on the street.

Today owners are forced by the law to put an underskin microchip in the neck of their animals, cats, dogs, horses and so on.

This thing, in theory, should prevent the owners from abandoning their pets but it’s useless: if the animal gets out of its residence region (sometimes even out of the province) the signal doesn’t work anymore being out of range (this means that if, unfortunately, we lose the dog away from home, so we won’t find him, being unable to catch the signal emissions).

Apart from this digression on missing/abandoning animals (unfortunately an usual thing in Italy), the real focus of the discussion would be the use of muzzle.

I realize that a lot of dog owners are opposed to the use of this rash medium, because they often think that their dog is a “good guy”, but if the size of the animal is around twenty pounds, I think most owners would be better use this mean, the muzzle. It’s my personal advice, based on common sense.

I don’t think that a pedigree make a dog good or bad but the important thing in the education of the animals are their masters’ behaviour: each animal, like every living thing, has got its own character and its education could be established according to its character, this doesn’t mean that it’s born good or bad but that in some cases we need a steady hand and maybe in another situation it is better to be sweet and calm with it.

A lot of people, here, think that their dog an evident symbol showing a sort of social status position (a strange kind of hierarchy of conventional symbols of mass deception) so this “men’s friend” become a sort of tool to distinguish themselves from the others: they don’t learn to know it and so, “once upon a time” a lovely dog rebels against strangers or against its own master.

Some time ago I remember that I was impressed to see and a sweet Saint Bernard changing the eyes’ expression, at the moment that the hand of his master was touching  his head, I had the impression to see a flash of hatred for that man and, so, I asked him if this big puppy had bitten someone in the past: sure it did it! It bit the hand of its master (probably as a warning, otherwise some suture points couldn’t be enough).

One of my dogs, for example, “hates” children: they did so many tricks on her, with the silent complicity of their parents who looked at me astonished when I asked them to move away from the fence because my dog could bite, that I never bring her near a baby and I also pay attention when I walk with her on the street (always and strictly on leash) because she could bite someone without fear (I think it can be considered a natural reaction of her, feeling the instinct to bite naughty kids, but the rational and strict control of the owners must be vigilant over their pets, in order to guide them and limit their inner instincts).