Aïkiou company is pleased to announce its new partnership with Anne -Lise Paul, Vet Technician, canine and feline behaviourist to help you discover a series of articles talking about psychology and animal behavior. We hope you will learn more about it and you will enjoy our new columns . These will be sent every two weeks , alternating subjects dogs cats. We wish you a very good read !
Did you know that most of our dogs are unemployed ?
Indeed, many of them have nothing to do all day , and circling . Some are depressions , others sleep constantly, and still others develop a multitude of disorders related to boredom and lack of exercise. Yet it has not always been so. When we go back to the time of the first wild dogs, who cohabited precariously with men, one realizes that humans and dogs have established a partnership based on cooperation , involving trade on both other . In addition , the dog protects the house from intruders , some participating in the hunt , others helped keep the herds in exchange for their men provided the food and shelter , so to say.
At the present time , and in recent decades, a new phenomenon , the dog ‘is’ doing nothing ”. Nothing other than being a pet. We have thus passed from a domestic dog pet dog with genetic changes that this implies .
Before dogs were selected first and foremost for their physical and mental skills to their abilities ( sheepdogs, guard , hunting … ) and not only for their aesthetic characteristics. Their utilitarian role (guard, hunter , shepherd …. ) having gradually disappeared in favor of social and emotional role ( child substitute, spouses , friends , exercising or simply companion … ) , n ‘ or having the same goals or the same constraints , we arrived at the following aberration our dogs are currently selected for their physical appearance mainly to strong damaging expense of their behavioral traits . This has disastrous consequences for two things:
– There has never been more dogs with behavioral problems that currently
– There has never been more dogs without activity (ie unemployed) today.
The second is often the cause of the first !
Fortunately there are solutions !
To overcome this lack of activity, many experts have studied the issue . Joel Dehasse , Belgian veterinary behaviorist world-renowned , has developed a simplified business model , to classify canine activities into five main categories . It appears that the dog needs an average of 3 to 5 hours of activities per day . Every dog ??has heard different energy levels : some breeds such as Border Collies , need more activities, both physical and mental . Other breeds have a little less necessary, but all need exercise and games. The activities are divided into 5 categories:
Locomotor activity : walking, walking, running , agility , swimming …
Intellectual activity : games requiring discrimination or finding items …
Sexual activity : mainly for breeding , generally pets are sterilized
Voice activity : barking , singing, screaming , not really appreciated by homeowners
Chewing activity : eating, chewing slats, rawhide bones , toys , ropes to avoid shooting … they chew the table legs and brand new shoes .
We will see in the next issue canine care how our dog with these types of activities !
