What Essential Things Do I Need for a Dog?
Last week a client posed a very interesting question to me. "What essential things do I need for a dog?" As simple and literal as it could have been taken, I decided to be honest with them:
Time. Time I strongly believe is the most crucial part of mastering a happy dog. Without your good guidance and time, the animal is as good as nothing. You can have somebody giving a dog the greatest toys, sleeping accommodations, best kibble and reverse osmosis water with added vitamins and minerals and have a hair pulling nightmare if you’re only going to throw an hour of time per day with them.
On the flip side, you can spend some real time with them, feed them table scraps and hose water, let them play with a tree branch and consider yourself well accomplished. Dogs don’t see the glamour in expensive objects like we do. As long as the dogs body & mind are occupied with a steady number of vices (Cheap free vices) you will have a good animal. Some of the best dogs I’ve seen as far as behavior, lived with bums on the street.
They had food, shelter, water when it poured, but most importantly…They had someone with time. How it usually goes is “Happy owner, happy dog” “Miserable owner, miserable dog” They reflect us pretty well. And what paints the chicken before egg or egg before the chicken misconception is the time spent. Is the dog misbehaving because I didn't spend enough time with them or am I not spending enough time with them because they’re misbehaving?
A relationship with a dog is similar to any other relationship. If your not really into it, it isn’t going to work. If your child misbehaves in the middle of ShopRite, what are you going to do? Leave them home for the rest of their lives? No, you have to deal with it, fix it, teach them how to behave and move on. And if you don’t know how, you need to find help.
Too many people falsely fall for those adorable puppy eyes, not realizing its those same puppy eyes looking back at them when they turn their backs; when things get rough; leaving them in a 5x5 cement cold block; getting back in the car, turning up the radio, leaving them like a bag of used clothes. People just give up too easy these days. Anyway! enough about the sappy shit. Essential things for a happy dog? Time. And if at any time, you need help, find it. Don’t give up. Never give up.