The demands on our dogs in the modern world

It seems like a very long time ago when our dogs roamed around wild nature as wolves, without shopping centers, playgrounds, cyclists and cars. If you look at some breeds, you can sometimes no longer imagine that the wolf is actually supposed to be the ancestor. Yet their behavioral responses show the natural heritage no matter what breed it is. Our dogs today, however, have to deal with a completely different environment. They have become an important part of daily life in most families and are taken on excursions into the city, for boating, to parties, they travel by car, train, bus or even plane. Also the expectations of society on how dogs have to behave in public have become more and more strict and less and less consideration is given to them. While I used to be told as a child that I should stop running when a dog comes towards me and walk past it slowly, today people jog or drive past our dogs rather closely.

And now our former wolf has to cope with this overstimulation and behave like a perfect student in public. After all, we don't want to be ashamed of him. It is possible to achieve this to a certain extent, but it requires a deep understanding of the strategies that a dog can use to cope and how these can be changed through functional behavior analysis and positive reinforcement of alternative behaviors. Our dogs didn't choose to live in our modern, hectic world and they deserve that we give them the right tools to help them adapt.