Dogs are marvellous! Descended from wolves in East Asia they picked up more wolf genetics in the Middle East: some African breeds like the Basenji do not have this second influx of wolf genes.

Dogs are not as intelligent as wolves. You can imagine how domestication would have happened: The low wolf in a pack has a lousy life, teased/nipped by wolves a bit higher up in the hierarchy. Staying near fires used by early Home Sapiens and eating from our midden heaps might be better than life in the wild. In return these proto dogs might raise a howl when they detected another group of humans or large predators approaching the campsite/village. In this way the proto-wolves might earn not affection but maybe tolerance from the villagers.

However, sneaking up on a rotting broccoli stalk in a midden heap doesn’t need a lot of intelligence.

So we have dogs, their existence is focussed on humans, their hierarchical and territorial instincts centred on their owner aks pack leader.

Humans who don’t WANT to be pack leaders (softheads who think their dog is equal to them or some bullshit like that) have unhappy and unruly dogs. People that throw their dogs outside at night so that they bark all bloody night are antisocial arseholes!

Dogs are social beings to their core. Cats are not social at all tho if brought together etc they can look social. Only ONE type of cat is social—anyone guess which one?

Some dogs—chihuahuas especially are said to be yappy breeds. THAT is not their nature—they are made yappy by softheads ENCOURAGING them to be yappy. Even little chihuahuas are dogs and all dogs need to walk. 10Km is not too long to walk even a tiny chihuahua, admittedly a few rest breaks might need to be scheduled. It is part of their nature handed to them by their wolf ancestors. WALK your dog! That means YOU walk too, lots of health benefits.

The loyalty you get back makes it all worth it!

There is a thread here about a suitable diet for dogs.

Dogs have the teeth and digestion for raw meat. Kibble ia great when travelling but is too processed to be the main or only part of a dog’s diet. Pet mince, even the cooked “sausage” that looks like a stick {shudder} of {shudder} fritz, is OK as long as supplemented with bone—beef/marrow bones and chicken necks,n REALLY good to clean a dog’s teeth! Add some leafy greens—Socks dotes on coleslaw—for vitamins and fibre.

My Life As A Dog.

https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1726112492085027167

(Also, great movie)

Penny, our 2 year old mini sausage dog.  Wanting to be picked up when a larger dog came into the park

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Cute dog.

I tried Demi out on Earth dog—dogs moving through little tunnels. She was good at it but too smart—would end the session by trying to go directly to the handler holding a skinned rabbit as bait.

The instructor had a daschund and it did all the things needed, finding the rabbit through the tunnels and hanging on to it for a minute.

So I took Demi out of Earthdog, no point wasting money.

She was more successful at tracking. We passed one trial. Two other trials in a different part of the remote area (both along the Morgan–Adelaide water pipe) where there was a lot of horehound Demi would just plunge into the country side, moving fast and strong but what the hell she was tracking I have no idea  ;D

Each time I had to spend an hour combing horehound seeds out of her thick, curly fur. Eventually the arthritis in my right hip put an end to tracking—way too much walking over rough ground, in and out of creekbeds, over fallen tree trunks etc and I had to give it up. Next year I will try with Socks—I still have the ten metre tracking lead that clicks on to the harness, can’t click it onto the dogs collar, would choke it!