So, we see how ineffective is the capitalist-imperialist approach to dog homelessness. The current popular methods match with liberal/fascist duality of imperialist society.
First, the individualist approach to dog rescue, that meticulously places one dog in one bourgeois home at a time, and drifts toward massive medical experimentation by veterinary pharmaceutical companies and random, uncoordinated birth control initiatives. A recent dog I worked with spent a year in group and veterinary boarding, then three months with a foster, before finding a home with a wealthy couple. Applicants to adopt this dog were denied for having insufficient income to care for it, and I am not saying that to criticize the practice. Overall, at least a few thousand dollars were spent getting this individual dog an extremely comfortable home.
And on the other hand, the city spay & neuter initiative, for people who can't afford a vet, is a truck you have to line up at 5am to hopefully use when it's in your neighborhood, and some dogs become scared of idling trucks forever because of the procedure. Otherwise - most vets I know charge around 1 low-level restaurant worker paycheck. I guess we also have Drew Carey's reminder on the TV. that probably works to get people to somehow obtain spaying and neutering better. I bet guys with machismo ideas about neutering hang on Drew Carey's every words
Second - the spates of violent culling, which are done more obviously in countries where stray dogs are common, but in Amerika happens constantly in humane little batches at an ineffective rate. It has nothing to do with stopping uncontrolled dog reproduction, but is a method of liquidating dogs who hate and fear humans too much to integrate into human society. Or someone tired of them, or they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have been contacted by landlords asking me to help them remove a dangerous dog left behind by an evicted owner. I tell them to call animal control, who will disappear the dog. The configuration of this society makes this the only logical response.
Mirroring the widespread problem of domestic abuse and neglect in Amerika, there is a serious problem with people not understanding the cost of dog ownership or tiring of their dog when it's not a cute puppy anymore or its behavior becomes too difficult and dangerous to control. These dogs often die. And on the other hand, I meet many dogs who are severely obese, under exercised, and given either inappropriate mental exercise or none whatsoever, who face wildly inappropriate punishment and scolding. Not to deny that these dogs can also feel happy, but their happiness is constricted by pain and boredom. And to me this is a form of fascistic neglect, where parents are set about their lonely goals of doing whatever they determine it must take to keep the piss from ruining the floor and the barking from waking the neighbors.
By the way, kudos to NY Daily News for putting 'Hero Dog' in sarcastic apostrophes
The communist approach would be to meet the needs of the poorest dogs, where they are. To end bourgeois individual relationships with dogs, based on patriarchal possession. "A dog is a MAN's best friend" is the old configuration of the phrase. There's no science in those words; it's a lie. Dogs love lots of people. They love people they see on a routine basis; they love people who provide them with the good things in life. Some dog behaviorist could probably come up with a dog love scale which weighs quality-time-units against the dog's initial nervousness value to predict a greeting excitement category, to help people who want to do literally the least they can to get their dog to like them. Anyway. I have a lot of ideas about how this might look. A community approach to befriend stray dogs and provide them with food and shelter where they are - reorganizing their lives to be about friendly interaction with humans - and removing reproductive control of the species from the hands of individual capitalist breeders. Ending or resetting the concept of breeds, the twisted end result of eugenics that have long ago lost their accumulative purpose in the tide of overdevelopment.
If caring for a dog can remind us that other creatures, and the earth's ecology, are inflicted with our guardianship, perhaps group responsibility for dog welfare can help fulfill our moral obligations through communist cooperation. If you want to try this at a low level, I hope you can adopt a stray dog or cat - not by yourself, but with some group of people who work well together and have good relationships. At your workplace, apartment building, org, favorite bar... You might decide to assign a chore wheel, agree on expenses, whatever your group wants to do, but you'll be surprised to find that people are ready to care for a pet and recognize its needs without anyone taking sole responsibility, if the tools to meet those needs are provided.
Anyway, I just wanted a thread where I can occasionally post about dogs. I have some experience working with them so please ask dog related questions for myself or others to ponder. Post about your own dog or experiences with dogs. I am pro-cat but don't know as much about them.
Edited by swampman ()
Maybe this is a problem particular to our current expectations of how dogs should behave with us, but I've found that a group (eg my own family) will have members teaching the dog different things and make the dog confused about how to behave.
Also (could be speaking from limited experience here) the dog sometimes chooses a master, and will listen less to other people
Also people in India starve to death while the country exports massive amounts of soy to make pet food for the imperialist nations.
The pet economy is low key one of the cruelest.
Gibbonstrength posted:my sister has a house in a bourgie neighbourhood and her neighbour is a middle aged lady with an adult son who lives there. the son bought a malamute and a german shepherd and they live in a pen (cage basically) lets say 4 by 6 metres if that, halfway under the house so they get very little sun. the dogs look healthy enough but they bite each other and bark a lot during the day and are clearly very anxious. i have never seen them be walked (though im not there often). having done some work at my sisters the other day and observing the dogs i feel compelled to call the RSPCA since they can come take a look. i doubt theyd take any action against the owners but itd make the owners aware that people in their street are judging them, which could compel some behaviour changes. on the other hand I would hate for the dogs to be taken off them and killed. but i find the latter unlikely since its not major mistreatment just standard white cunt braindead neglect of an animal, the most universal feature of suburban deadbeat dudes.
You can probably contact a reputable dog trainer in your area for $50-100. Take your time finding someone who has some kind of professional qualification (I refer to a trainer I know who has a specific AKC certification) and who states that they will not use punishment or aversive training techniques. Then your sister can give a paid appointment as a gift to her neighbors. They might expect the session to be about teaching to dogs to sit on command, but if the dogs are in fact neglected the trainer will see that and do the right thing. This is probably the most proactive thing you can do. If the dogs are currently fed and given shelter, but are also completely untrained and dog- and human-aggressive, they might be in the last home they will have, at the moment...
xipe posted:Maybe this is a problem particular to our current expectations of how dogs should behave with us, but I've found that a group (eg my own family) will have members teaching the dog different things and make the dog confused about how to behave.
Also (could be speaking from limited experience here) the dog sometimes chooses a master, and will listen less to other people
The challenge is exactly the same for children. Adults lack basic coordination about what to teach kids and kids grow to embrace partisanship. If they're raised frightened of strangers and are given comfort by safe adults to bury that fear, they can become violently protective of perceived threats to their group. Whereas children who are raised to face, understand and deal with their fears tend to do ok.
A quick way to help a group of people start being consistent with their dog is to put things in terms of, what do we want to reward the dog for doing? But often times, trying to get people to cooperate on caring for a dog exposes the problems in the group. Grandma violating democratic centralism by feeding it chips... Roommate is passive aggressive, ignoring the barking for ten minutes and then yelling at the dog for two... Many times, I've wanted to tell people, your dog's behavior is undesirable because your relationship is dysfunctional. There is a huge part of dog training that takes advantage of this tendency, it's the "board and train" industry. Which has many legitimate uses, but some part of their business is made up of the people who ask to take their dog for a weekend to train it not to eg. bark at strangers. Basically parents who will send their kid to military school if they fail regular school one year. And there are reputable ones who will do the right thing and take your money while saying up front "We will do our best but guarantee absolutely nothing." And disreputable ones who are flashing back to the shit they did in Guantanamo during sessions.
Anyway, I just want to mention a tool that can alleviate a shit load of tension in some situations. It's called the flirt pole. Here is an extremely good video demonstrating how the flirt pole works. The game has very specific rules that the human must enforce, and less active people can still get the dog exhausted. Many dogs show undesirable behavior because they are just under exercised.
https://vimeo.com/26279876
rolaids posted:Also people in India starve to death while the country exports massive amounts of soy to make pet food for the imperialist nations.
The pet economy is low key one of the cruelest.
I just try to remember that in reality there are resources enough both for dogs and for the poor, and if dogs were just wiped out, there wouldn't be much increase in charity to the homeless.
Caesura109 posted:Ive seen three different cultural approaches to dogs in the Muslim world, if they are from a place like Mauritania, the only dogs are utility dogs - on the level of livestock in their mind - or dangerous wild ones (almost got mauled by one there)
If you are ever in a place with lots of stray dogs who might bite you, many dogs have learned to run away from humans who reach down to pick up a stone to throw. If they haven't learned it, then.. actually throw the stone I guess
AZ_IZ_OT posted:I am thinking of buying a dog to cry at, what is the most emotionally resilient dog
If you haven't owned a dog before, I recommend signing up with a local foster organization and taking care of dogs who are waiting to get adopted. You'll learn more about what dog personalities you and your habits match up with. And if you love a foster dog enough you can choose to adopt it.
Very occasionally I get to work with an owner who adopts older dogs so they can spend their last couple of years in comfort, but that takes money and effort.
AZ_IZ_OT posted:I am thinking of buying a dog to cry at, what is the most emotionally resilient dog
Mutts. They have less health issues in general as well.
dogs are great and not only bourgeois.
is it me or has dog ownership got more helecopter parenty and expensive, everyone i know insists on keeping the dog indoors all day, buying cages/expensive food/specialized toys, and never letting them off the leash to swim in a pond or play with other dogs.
i miss the dog i had growing up, i never taught her any tricks but i could walk her anywhere without a leash and she always understood what i wanted her to do. in her old age she got wild af and figured out how to escape the yard when we werent home. after a while we figured out she'd got a second family on the side
Horselord posted:is it me or has dog ownership got more helecopter parenty and expensive, everyone i know insists on keeping the dog indoors all day, buying cages/expensive food/specialized toys, and never letting them off the leash to swim in a pond or play with other dogs.
i miss the dog i had growing up, i never taught her any tricks but i could walk her anywhere without a leash and she always understood what i wanted her to do. in her old age she got wild af and figured out how to escape the yard when we werent home. after a while we figured out she'd got a second family on the side
I've always worked in a dense urban area, so I don't know so much about suburban dog habits. The rural dogs I know are treated in this idyllic "non helicopter" way, but also those dogs only end up meeting like 2 others every year. In general, this trend is just keeping up with the pace of overdevelopment, right? People find ways to eat the fruit of exploitation even faster. Where I live, there are probably 50-60 dogs within a block of me, and a good third of those are poorly socialized. There's also insanely illegal traffic (infinite speeding 53' trucks) fifteen feet away at all times, and I know traffic density has increased 20-30% since uber&c came to town. So you just can't do off leash walking until the training is really solid.
But on the other hand. When I am doing walk training for a dog, I know for sure that I get perceived helicopter-parently by people who don't know as much about dogs in general or the dog I'm working with in particular. Dogs enjoy having clearly communicated rules that they can follow. I imagine that it gives them a sense of control over the world. The concept of "tricks" implies something useless done for the pleasure of a master. But if you teach a dog the command "wait", the dog has a job to do which becomes inherently rewarding in the doing. In part because it opens up a new realm of communication that is about working together with your friend to reach a good outcome. But also - think of the anxiety involved in knowing that you're about to go for a walk that you've been waiting for 4 infinitely boring, uncountable hours, but nothing you do can open the door any faster, you still have to wait for the door to be opened by someone who could never understand urine like you do? So you're just kinda freaking out, doing just, anything? Yelling, running around, jumping on your friend to get them to hurry the fuck up? And whatever combination of these things seems to work best is what you choose to do at full tilt every time for the rest of your life? Whereas if they would just tell you to hold still if you want to go out, you would hold so still that your temperature would actually plummet because your molecules slowing down? To connect the word "wait" and a hand motion to the act of holding still across contexts requires lots of practice, correction and reward, so for some walks, that's all we're doing. Walking a few feet, practicing wait, and using praise and exercise as rewards.
Your childhood dog sounds really cool, and that's what life can be like when it doesn't matter if a dog chews on stuff, pees where it wants, or otherwise interact with its environment in a more dogly way. Out here... dogs will eat chewing gum and fuckin die
swampman posted:Your childhood dog sounds really cool, and that's what life can be like when it doesn't matter if a dog chews on stuff, pees where it wants, or otherwise interact with its environment in a more dogly way. Out here... dogs will eat chewing gum and fuckin die
i didn't grow up rural or suburban but in one of the shittiest and most dangerous council estates of a town with an population of about 110k in the developed part, my house within five minutes walk of several huge ass factories on one side and a coal mine on the other. how you would get dogs is a neighbour would be too dumb to neuter so the street would get a bunch of free mutt puppies
i don't know where you get the idea that my dog was never taught commands. like i already said i could tell her where to go, what to do, to stop etc. she wouldn't even move from one room of the house to another without being explicitly being told to, which is a lot better than the dog i live with now. he knows corny nonsense like how to shake hands for a treat but doesn't understand "no"
like i could walk the dog i grew up with by saying "we're going for a walk" and she'd perfectly follow me without a leash. if i took her to the park i could say "go on" and wave my arm and she'd go for a run and do her dog stuff. if I called her name she was streight back at me
the new guy is super affectionate but he's also a huge dummy who'll decide to sit down in the middle of a road as a car is coming, so that he can wait for a friend. for someone who went to "puppy training" he sure didn't get taught much beyond to shit on the grass
Edited by Horselord ()
You could teach the dog you live with a game. The game is "lie down on your bed" and then he gets a treat at intervals while lying down. Increase the intervals over time and start incorporating eg. leaving the room while he is down. Increase the intervals to like 20 minutes, then any time he's doing something you don't like, start the game with the command. Just a thought. I'm kind of dominating this trhread if you couldn't tell. All my enemies GFY
sometimes, if he's sure what direction the dog is, he'll let me walk him that way. its happened more than once that i'd take him in that direction for like ten minutes without seeing another dog or cat and then he'll just intently sniff a random car and forget all about it
why must i, chase the cat
i think its interesting the different views of dogs depending on ones upbringing/place they grew up. in some areas dogs Do Not live inside - i mean, snoopy had a freaking dog house. i cant help but think that is moderately cruel anywhere where it drops below, say, 50 degrees or anywhere where it is over 85 degrees with any sort of humidity. so basically everywhere. however, those dogs definitely enjoy more stimuli than my dog who only gets on average 45 minutes outside on a given day, except weekends when she gets several hours
random, unsolicited opinion: working dogs are the absolute best. they are smart, loyal, and very trainable. you just have to go into it knowing that theyre gonna need a good amount of exercise, hopefully in the form of specific tasks. i believe that the vast majority of dog behavior issues are because of owners who don't manage their dogs' energy levels. a tired dog is a Good Dog