Most of us look forward to have a dog. Dogs are best friends and companions. They are trusted and amusing. But it’s a big responsibility to have a dog. You will be have to understand your dog’s nature and interpret his body language and facial reaction. You should prepare your canine well before welcoming him and considering him a member of your family. It’s important also to know things or behaviors that would be harmful for your dog.
Here this guide will elaborate you 11 things that you should never ever do to your dog. Some of them may appear to you harmless but that can put your dog physically or emotionally at risk so be careful about your pups.
11. House Rules
If you want to have a dog to live with you and be your companion, you should know that it will be one of your family members. and as we have rules for our family members so too should we have house rules for our dogs to transform it smoothly from a shelter dog to a loving family member. they need consistency ever more than member.
Dogs have their natural behaviors not all of them will be acceptable in their new household. That’s why you should set some rules to make your dog follow and abide for a lifetime.
Here are some examples of these rules.
*Where you will allow the puppy to go in the house. do you mind if it wanders through the house or there are places it mustn’t get in such as a kitchen or a baby’s room.
*Will you let the puppy on the furniture? it’s important to decide from the beginning where it should stay and where it shouldn’t do so whatever your choice. Set this rule before it comes home to make it adapt to this ever when it grows up.
*Should you let your puppy jump on people it depends on your point of view and whether you see this is cute or bad behavior.
10. Petting your dog at the wrong time.
All of us consider our dog a member of our family. It needs love and affection like us but take care and know well when you should give it affection. Before giving your dog affection make sure it is setting calmly and relaxed not anxious, barking or excited. If you don’t do so you will reinforce their bad behavior.
9. Leave your dog alone in the car
It’s a big mistake to leave your dog alone in the car. Because parked cars heat up quickly even if they are parked on the shade. Even when you think it’s cool and cold enough or side, don’t leave your dog alone. According to researches from San Francisco state university, when the outside air temperature is a mild 70 degrees, within 10 minutes the temperature inside a parked car will be 89 degrees. After 40 minutes it will rise to be 108 degrees and it’s likely the dog will die of heat stroke.
8. Curtailing Sniffing
Dogs use their sense of smell to understand, discover and interpret things around them. They know what they want to know using sniffing. So it’s wrong and unfair to prevent your dog from practicing a trait related to its nature as a dog.
So asking a dog to go on a walk without sniffing is like asking a human to go for a walk without looking at anything except for what is exactly in front of them.
7. Telling Them Off
Sometimes telling your dog off isn’t the best way to tackle a dog’s bad behavior. It’s best to train your dog at certain behaviors and correct ways to act and what not to do. It’s much better to train it than to punish it. If You are beating and punishing your dog, you are not addressing or solving the problem, you are making it see you as a source of pain.
You will make it scared and confused and expect pain from you without knowing the reason for this cruelty. It’s important to know that your dog won’t be trained or disciplined with force. Instead, use the reward-based system .Constructive and positive training methods help your dog learn the proper behavior through conditioning, which is the best way to discipline a dog. Also, encouragement is the best way to help your dog good behavior from bad.
6. Use the wrong collar
First, you should choose the right kind of collar. It’s a personal decision. There are different and many kinds of collars. You need to use the one which best suits the needs and the nature of your dog as well as a place to attach his license.
There is a flat collar. It’s the most widespread type. Which allows you to change the length of the collar. Also, there is a breakaway collar. This type was created for dogs to spend a lot of time outside. If your dog is an inquisitive with the state of an explorer this collar will be perfect. There are many other collars from which you can buy what suits your dog
5. Not understanding your dog’s language.
It’s your responsibility as to know and understand what your dog needs and wants. Understanding the body language of your dog is s very important part of communication with it.
dogs’ body language is different from that of humans. It involves unique methods for communicating including barks, whines, growls, and others. So it’s important to know well what your dog needs and wants when it uses one of these methods.
Here are some examples,
When a dog wages its tail it means that it is emotionally aroused our excited. To interpret and understand the dog’s emotions look at the speed and direction of the wages, the faster the wages are, the more the dog aroused.
When your dog yawns it means that it’s stressed and tries to calm itself by yawning. When your dog’s ears are up, the eyes are bright and the tail wages rapidly or means that your dog is happy and wants to play with you. Actually, your dog always tries to tell you something by using its own language so it’s wrong and a big mistake not to know and understand its signals and language.
4. Use a crate as punishment
It’s a very wrong and ineffective method to use your dog’s crate for punishment. Never use punishment with a luxury dog’s kennel. If you do so, then you turned a tool of management and a place for relief to a prison. your dog won’t feel safe again in it. you will make it hate the place in which it’s supposed to feel safety, relieved and relaxed.
3. Taking The Toys And Things Away From Them
How would you feel if someone took your toy and food suddenly? You would feel bad, right? In the same way, the dogs feel bad upon having the food or toys taken away from them.
From dogs’ perspective, their toys are valuable like a bowl of food or a bone. They feel the same what we feel when someone takes our own things that we love. Taking your dog’s toys away from it will make your dog aggressive. Instead, you can give your dog a toy as a reward when it does something good.
2. Never Use Human Shampoo On Your Dog.
Never use human shampoo on your dog. The best shampoo for your dog isn’t your human shampoo.
Human skin and dogs skin aren’t the same. An important component of skin is the acid mantle which is a lightly acidic layer that covers the skin and serves as a barrier to protect a porous topmost layer from environmental contaminants such as bacteria and viruses.
When we use soaps and shampoos we wash away this layer of acidic oil. That’s why most human shampoos and soaps are formulated with moisturizers to replace the protective layer that subscribes away.
Human skin has a higher PH balance than a dog and human shampoos can be harsher and stripped more of that acid mantle from a canine skin leaving an environment with bacteria parasites and viruses that can run rampant. Dogs also have a habit of licking their paws and coats and human shampoos are often formulated with ingredients that aren’t meant for ingestion.
So for these reasons, it’s never a good idea to use human shampoo on your dog. You should choose a shampoo that formulated for a dog’s skin and coat.
1. Seeking Emotional Comfort From Them
There are people try to have support from their pets or their dogs. By a pair of puppy-dog eyes or a swipe of the tongue when their dog catches them crying. Actually, dogs are experts at human communication.
They appreciate our tears and sadness. They respond to a person’s emotions, For these reasons we shouldn’t cause a bad mood for our dogs by trying to get emotional comfort from them.
