Clicker SA

20/12/2023

04/08/2023

Why do dogs lick?

23/05/2023

23/05/2023

07/12/2022

THAT “GUILTY” LOOK
“My dog knows that he’s done something wrong, just look how guilty he looks!" This is something that we hear so often.
People are amused and entertained through social media and even dedicated websites where pictures of “guilty” dogs are uploaded. The “guiltier” the dog looks, the more popular these posts are and the funnier people find them. I find this really sad because it’s a complete misunderstanding of a dog’s body language.
Dogs may look guilty, but they are not feeling guilty. That “guilty” look is actually a dog showing the body language of fear, stress, anxiety or appeasement. The fear of being punished, the stress and anxiety of hearing the person’s tone of voice, demeanour and noticing the person’s body language, the appeasement behaviour in an attempt to calm the angry person down to avoid punishment.
As people, it’s natural for us to want to believe that our dogs feel guilt and remorse about whatever they’ve done wrong. Maybe thinking that they really do feel guilty somehow makes their behaviour more acceptable and is a form of an apology to us.
Dogs are capable of a wide range of emotions that are similar to that of a 2 to 2½ child, but it’s highly unlikely that they feel more complex emotions, like guilt, regret, remorse, shame or pride.
Guilt is a complex emotion and defined as an unhappy feeling that you have because you have done something wrong or think that you may have done something wrong. It’s a feeling of shame, regret or remorse. The feeling of guilt requires an understanding of cause and effect and is relative to time.
Do dogs spend the day feeling guilty, waiting for you to come home to find that chewed up couch or shoe, or are they waiting excitedly for you to come home because they really missed you and are looking forward to some attention?
For the emotional wellbeing of our dogs, let’s seek to understand them more and focus less on how we believe they should feel just because it makes us feel better.

24/06/2022

The critical socialisation period is not about playing with other puppies. It's the time when we mindfully inoculate puppies to possible stressors while the puppy is still fearless and curious. This part of their development, stops at around 16-weeks of age. As the dog gets older, it becomes more challenging to help them adjust to new people, animals and environments.

When a dog have reached adulthood, he can not be 'socialised' anymore. He can be taught to tolerate the stressors for a realistic time frame.

There is no age limit in which dogs can learn, or be taught. It's never to late to train with your dog.

24/04/2022

24/04/2022

Ever noticed those slits at the sides of a dog's nose? Why do dogs have them?

Once again, nature proves her elegance in the design of our dogs. When we humans inhale and exhale, air comes in the same way it goes out. Any smells that come in through our mouths are forced out as we exhale, if we exhale out our mouths.

When a dog exhales through his nose, however, the exhaled air is released through those slits and off to the side so that nice, smelly air going into the dog's nostrils doesn't get diluted with the outgoing air. Put another way, the slits allow the dog to avoid smelling what he just exhaled.

The slits help the dog hold scent particles in the nostrils even as exhaled air passing out the slits creates a swirling air turbulence allowing interesting odors to be inhaled directly into the centre of each nostril. Since dogs breathe faster when trying to sniff a certain smell, they widen their nostrils to pull in more air which makes it possible for a dog searching for smells to have a steady stream of air coming in for up to 40 seconds, maybe even longer.

The slits also allow dogs to wiggle each nostril independently which gives them the ability to know which nostril a smell entered. This is how a dog can pinpoint where a smell is coming from, and why a dog searching for smells on the ground will weave back and forth as he follows a trail.

We all know the superb smelling abilities of dogs, but let's use an analogy between scent and sight to really put it into perspective: If our eyes were our nose, what we as humans can see at a third of a mile, our dog can see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well.
Just wow.

Author - Susi Szeremy

23/04/2022