Pooch smooches educate community about dog behaviour
The Dog Dude and his pack visited a Cambridge expo on Saturday to show the community how to deal with dogs.
There many attractions on offer at the Cambridge Community expo – but the most popular was a kiss from Zena, the 80kg French Mastiff dog.
The Dog Dude Hamish Young and some of his pack, a French Mastiff, a German Sheppard, a Kelpie and a Papillon were out in force on Saturday at the expo to help others understand how to interact with dogs.
Many children approached the dog with their parents for a free kiss, where Young was able to show the youngsters how to meet a dog properly.
“Some dogs don’t like being touched on the head so some people could invoke a bite if they do that. The safest thing to do with unfamiliar dogs is just to pat them on the back of the neck,” Young explained.
More than 3500 people attended the expo at the Cambridge Town Hall where community organisations did their best to get others involved.
At The Dog Dude’s stall he taught visitors young and old how they could be a true pack leader to their dog, deal with their dog’s behaviour, and give it a balanced life.
Dog owners were able to realise that too much affection with not enough discipline was often the cause of dog’s bad behaviour.
“This acting out is the dog’s way of asking for pack leadership,” Young said.
Many visitors took home information flyers.
“If people take these flyers home, absorb the information and apply it to their dog in a calm, assertive manner, they’ll see a transformation in their dog,” he said.
“There are so many dogs in New Zealand who are unbalanced due to a bad upbringing from humans; they develop psychological issues from a lack of pack leadership which results in unwanted behaviour.”
ACC reported nearly 12,000 people were bitten by dogs in 2011 alone.
Hamish believes many of these incidents could be avoided if people understood dog psychology.
“Training your dog to sit, come, heel, stay is only half the equation, you still need to fulfil the dog’s primal needs that it has never lost even though the dog is domesticated.
“When meeting a dog for the first time a lot of people think they should hold their hand out, but this could make a dog bite them. I always say don’t look the dog in the eye, don’t say anything and never touch the dog. Turn sideways and let the dog come up and sniff you because if you control the dog’s nose you control the dog’s brain. Smell is how a dog meets, not sight like humans. Just ignore the dog and let it sniff you, then it will figure out you’re not a threat. When the dog’s finished sniffing you, it’s at this point you may now acknowledge the dog with a pat” he explained.
“Today I’ve helped a lot of people understand how to act around dogs, so now we’re one step closer to having less dog attacks and more balanced dogs.”
The expo’s organiser, Your Cambridge News editor Mark Nogaj, asked The Dog Dude to be a part of the event so that the community could improve on their relationships with dogs and reduce canine conflict.
“It’s good for him to be here,” Nogaj said.
“Because there’s so many dog attacks in New Zealand, people don’t know how to approach dogs. He’s teaching people how to be responsible owners and how people can be responsible around dogs, it’s great.”
For more information visit The Dog Dude’s website, http://thedogdudenz.blogspot.co.nz/
