11/23/2024
The perfect dog match
First time adopters, or tenth time adopters, these are my insights:
Tilly was my tenth dog.
When she arrived to Canada from Nepal to live with me, I thought I knew all that I needed for a smooth bonding and a good life together. My confidence was boosted for having owned Carmen, a Golden Retriever rescued from Turkey, whom I had recently lost to cancer.
Carmen was a breeze to bond with: full eye contact, beautiful leash manners, magical recall, highly motivated by food and willing to please. Training her having been so smooth and easy, I mistakenly attributed that ease to my embodied leadership mastery with dogs.
Tilly woke me up to a different reality.
Carmen descended from a long lineage of dogs bred for their calm, confident, docile, people-pleasing trainable dogs: the Golden Retrievers. Even though she had been abandoned in the forest after growing up in someone’s home, and lived as a stray for years, begging for food, her personality shone through.
When Tilly came to me, I knew nothing of self-evolved breeds. I had rescued dogs from the street before, Grizzly, who looked a bit like a Hungarian Shepherd, Puli, covered with grey curls; and Mocca, a miniature poodle. Dubi and Pupi were mixed breeds too, but carried some Golden Retriever and Spaniel genes in them.
Tilly’s breed is Pye or Pariah, the South East Asian village dog, a self evolved breed, which means a long lineage of street roamers who mated with whomever they pleased based on genetic health and not at all based on people-pleasing traits. I instinctively lean towards favouring dogs who look like their wild relatives, wolves, bears or foxes, and Tilly looked very much like a fox, but I was ignorant and unprepared to live with the wild side of this beautiful creature’s temperament. After training for hours and hours with a number of trainers, I had to accept that some behaviours can be modified, while other behaviours can be merely managed. While people friendly and affectionate, beautiful as an angel, and super smart, my Nepali companion had strong instincts, a high prey drive, highly cautious, just like a wild fox, mistrusting of technology, curious, an avid explorer and traveller, and an escape artist. Her natural pace was fast, she was an essentially joyful, playful, happy dog with a bright disposition and a keen sense of humour, vocal and expressive, submissive to those she sensed to be strong, and dominant to those she sensed to be weak.
Living with Tilly taught me a great deal about myself and dogs. I am a “softie”, very emotional, I navigate the world and process information, especially relationship information, through emotions. Tilly was naturally drawn to people whom she sensed to be strong, calm, gentle, kind and confident - mostly women - and would go and greet them with exuberance, be those women friends or strangers on the street. On the good days when I felt strong, calm, gentle, kind and confident she’d stick to me like glue and initiate play. On other days, when darker clouds of emotion would colour my mood, Tilly would keep to herself, away from me, and outside she would ignore my commands. As I learn more about wild wolves and pack behaviour, I understand that during the times when I felt emotionally less than strong, it was only natural for her to ignore my commands, including recall when off-leash, which only added to my already existing stress.
With lots of work I made significant progress in bonding with Tilly and getting an extent of livable cooperation. Our happiest times and places were either at the dog park, where she could be her wild dog self and travel fast and far and explore safely, while I walked in my natural pace, or in any fully fenced enclosure, or at home, playing or cuddling. Apart from that, leash walks were always demanding me to be fully alert, and never really relaxing: Tilly was easily distracted - a manageable but not changeable trait -, which led to leash reactivity and bolting after prey or other dogs, or her favourite people.
Living with Tilly raised a lot of questions and caused me to search and learn all I could about the nature of dogs and our relationship with them. I hereby share with you some of the insights I have gained during this time with her, which may or may not be news to you, but could be useful to first-time dog owners, or even to someone looking to adopt their next dog.
The Perfect Right Match dog adoption:
1 - Match your and your dog’s levels of energy. Where are you on the spectrum between Couch Potato and Speedy Gonzales? Pick a dog breed with matching levels of energy if you are both to be fulfilled. Dog breeds are classified as low, medium and high energy levels. Do your research before deciding which breed suits you, as well as which dog age (puppies are energetic up until about two years old, depending on the breed).
I am naturally moving slow and my exercise consists of dance, QiGong and leisurely walks. I can easily picture myself with a calm Golden Retriever, a Newfoundlander, or a Bernese Mountain dog.
2 - Match your purpose with your resources. What makes you want to get a dog? Is it companionship (play, affection, support)? Utility (sheep herding, sled pulling)? Economics (breeding and showing to generate an income)? Selfless desire to rescue and rehabilitate (give a good life to a broken dog)? What kind of resources, internal (emotional, energy levels) and external (money, living space and conditions, family support) are there to fulfill your purpose? Make sure that what you want to experience and what you are able to experience are matching.
My main purpose for living with a dog is companionship: shared affection, cuddles, playtime, social outings, and support of my lifestyle. My dog is my emotional support animal, and a good match is a cuddler and kisser who enjoys heart to heart hugs, and makes lots of eye contact.
3 - Match the dog’s purpose with yours. There are different categories of breeds:
a - Self-evolved breeds, like Tilly, the Pariah / Pye, or the Basenji, or the Potcake. The self evolved breeds often end up being rescued and tamed, and require a human with a great sense of humour, comfortable with their own wild side, and plenty of backyard space, or trails and beaches for these free-spirits to run and explore.
b - There are lone hunters, like the hounds - Beagle, Pointers, Greyhounds. These dogs follow their noses and tune out your recall, so if you get one to be your companion, be prepared to hook them up to a GPS if you want to find them. The lone hunters are comparable with the self-evolved breeds, and are paired best with strong human leaders who can offer large safe spaces to roam, like a farm property or huge backyard, or private island.
c - There are cooperating breeds, some of which are work breeds - various Shepherd including German, Belgian, Australian and English sheepdogs, Great Pyrenees, Huskies, etc, and some of which are team hunters like the Golden Retrievers and the Labrador Retrievers. These dogs are bred to perform specific tasks, and their behaviour will express that predisposition, so they need to have a job. My sweet Akita, Kinook, who lived with me for fifteen years, was such a work breed. She was at her happiest when assigned a task, so when I’d see a healing client in my treatment room I would ask her to guard the space, which she would do, right in front of the door, with utmost concentration and a cute little Akita-style frown. Some of these dogs do not do well as companion dogs - Great Pyrenees prefer the outdoors, and would not be happy in an apartment. If you adopt a working breed, you must offer your dog a job according to his or her breed, or an activity that mimics that job. If you have a Retriever, either take him hunting small game, like birds, or throw a ball or a stick for them to retrieve. You must channel the working dog’s traits into something productive or playful, otherwise it turns destructive and a pain for all.
I see first time owners getting a working breed because they’re cute (and God help me, they are!) not knowing what they’re getting themselves into. Cooperative breeds need you to cooperate with them too, it’s a two-way street.
Service dogs are always selected and bred from the cooperative breeds. The first choice are Labradors and Goldens, but also German Shepherds. They are bred specifically for service, trained to make sure they are focused and don’t react to distractions, and they are thoroughly matched with their owners, honouring the chemistry between dog and their person.
d - There are companion breeds like Shi-Tzu, Pekingese, Corgi, and Pugs, dogs bred to sit on your lap as their life purpose! These dogs are usually low energy, require minimal exercise, do well in apartments, are a preferred category for seniors, and make great and easy family dogs.
In conclusion, before you adopt a dog, it’s good to clarify the purpose of the adoption, to envision the lifestyle shared with the dog, and to choose according to personal preference as well as available resources and living conditions.
