When it comes to being a dog parent, different ways of training your pup will always go in and out of fashion. Some practices that may have been trends in the past are now considered controversial, for example, while there are things that are popular at the moment that might not be in a few years.
Some things, like the best dog puzzle toys, will likely never go out of fashion, but there are others that might one day be looked back on as misguided.
Amelia Steele, a professional dog trainer and behavioral consultant known as Amelia the Dog Trainer, has shared her thoughts on three current trends, and why she considers them to be detrimental to the wellbeing of our pups. Let’s take a look – do you agree?
1. Pack walks: “I see this all over the place on social media where you see dozens of dogs all walking on really short leads with just one person,” Steele begins. “While this might look good on the face of it, this is actually really bad for dogs.”
She explains that it restricts their movement and forces them to be “super close” to other dogs – something that isn’t natural for them. And, she says that if dogs are walking like this, the methods used to get them to do so may be questionable.
2. Ball chuckers: While Steele says that you may be able to use them in a good way with your pup, she sees a lot of people using them repetitively. “This puts a lot of pressure on dogs’ joints, which is not good,” she says, while she also explains that it can cause hyperfixation on the ball if you use ball chuckers all the time. And even if you don’t use one, maybe you’re playing fetch with your dog all wrong nonetheless – it’s quite common for dog parents to slip up here!
She continues in the caption, “Any repetition high-impact exercise can be bad for your dog but I see it most often when ball throwers are used regularly.”
3. Slip leads: “I see it far too often where trainers just slap a slip lead on every single dog that they train and correct them until the dog just doesn’t do anything,” Steele says, “And that’s not training.”
To make real behavioral changes, she stresses the need to address the root cause of the problem. “Don’t be tempted to copy what you see on social media and just slap a slip lead on your dog and hope for the best.”
As Steele says, you might well be able to use ball chuckers and slip leads in a decent way. However, it’s often the case that people don’t – no matter how well-meaning they might be! Likewise, while pack walking might not be advisable, that doesn’t mean that, if you have multiple dogs at home, you can’t walk them together!
If you’re like us and are always looking for ways to be a responsible dog owner, you might like to know more about things dog parents sometimes get wrong, or aren’t aware of. With that in mind, here are six dog nutrition myths busted by a vet.
