| A World O' Words
article Dogs in Chains
by Joyce Harmon There have been several horrible
tragedies in the local news lately, stories about children being
mauled, even killed, by the family dogs.
All these stories had one element in common, and no, it wasn't the breed of the dog. It was the fact that the dogs were kept chained out in the yard. This to me makes the tragedy so much worse, because the family, surely inadvertently, took a loving creature and made it dangerous. Because what is a dog, if not a pack animal? If you know nothing else about dogs, learn this! A dog is a pack animal. A pack animal needs a pack. You and your family should be the dog's pack. To be pack members, you have to spend time together. If you have one dog and it lives chained in the back yard, that dog has no pack. A dog without a pack is a psycho dog. If you have several dogs, those dogs become their own pack. And you are not a member. Don't mistake what I'm saying here. If you have a kennel or a dog run where the dog spends part of the day when you're at work, that's not the problem behavior I'm talking about. I'm talking about the situation where the dog is always chained in the back yard, and sees the owner once a day at feeding time. When you're at home, the dog should be with you and with the family. Yes, it's more work that way, the dog needs to be housebroken and otherwise trained, but as a member of your pack (and it is YOUR pack that the dog is joining, not his pack that you join!), the dog is not a danger to you and yours. My dog's pack includes three cats! The two older cats are treated with the respect due to tribal elders - they drilled that into her when she was just a pup. The younger cat is Maggie's best buddy, and they chase each other all over the house. But however rambunctiously they roughhouse, and despite the fact that Maggie is five times Sam's size, nobody ever gets hurt. But some dog owners don't consider their dogs pets or family members. The dog to them is a watch dog or guard dog, and they genuinely do not want it to be friendly with their children, apparently fearing that would 'soften' the dog. This attitude is what is so incredibly dangerous! First, watch dogs warn. That is, they bark. This is really the most useful function any dog can perform for home protection - most intruders will avoid a house that has a barking dog of any size. It's not the danger from the dog that keeps them away, but the danger of getting caught because the dog is making a lot of noise. So to serve as a useful watch dog, the dog needs to be in the house and can be ANY size. A mouthy Sheltie can be as effective a watch dog as the biggest, meanest Rottweiler. Then there's the issue of 'guard dogs'. A true guard dog is a trained guard dog, handled by a trained guard dog handler! To get a big dog and keep it isolated in the back yard to make it mean, and think that gives you a guard dog is simply begging for trouble! Yes, the big psycho packless dog will be a danger to an intruder - if an intruder ever shows up. But your kids are always there. Look at it this way. How often do you expect your home to be the target of an intruder? Once every ten years or so? (And that seems mighty high to me.) That means your 'guard dog' would be a threat to your intended target for one day out of 3650, and a threat to your own family for 3650 days out of 3650. Like they say, "You do the math." Is it really worth it? Is crime a real problem where you live? If you live in a high crime area, a better investment than a so-called 'guard dog' would be a good burglar alarm. The alarm might have a higher initial purchase price, but look at the upside. You won't have to keep buying heavy bags of burglar alarm food. And you know the burglar alarm won't kill your own children. Back to World O' Words copyright 2005
by Joyce Harmon
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