Extract From 'The Culture Clash', Love This Article...

[midori1999]

I thought I'd post this as I am always suggesting the book. I love it, but it makes me cry almost everytime when I think of what some dogs have to go through.

www.africantails.co.za/care-a-training-tips/extract-from-the-culture-clash-by-jean-donaldson

heartbreaking

It's a great book, I love it. I've read it several times but I always miss out that bit because it's too hard to read.

The worst bit is "you have not seen another human since you were a small child" - that just finishes me off.

Just about to take Phoebe to the woods with her doggy buddy. I will think of that extract as we tramp across the sodden heath land (has poured down all day).

I love my dog. Wish every dog was as lucky

I know, I know. And it's all true. And even very many well meaning owners, completely besotted with their dogs, have never stopped to consider what a completely alien culture we expect our dogs to adapt to. Yet they do - and they do it so well that we make the mistake of thinking they understand what is expected of them. Well, they do undetand us an awful lot better than we understand them, that's for sure.

Thanks for link, Midori. That book is a gem - I only wish more people would read it. Every time I see Cesar Millan in a bookshop I want to tear it up and replace it with copies of Culture Clash.

It's so bloody obvious when you look at it like that isn't it? And then you have Nat Geo promoting that cruel ignorant man, back-kicking and choking dogs and it makes me SO angry.

Jean Donaldson is ace.

Another great article well worth reading is Suzanne Clothier's "He Just Wants to Say Hi"

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nesr.info%2Fimages-english-shepherd%2FHe-just-wants-to-say-hi.pdf&rct=j&q=he%20just%20wants%20to%20say%20hi&ei=g3uGTKXgCoKO4AbSq43SBA&usg=AFQjCNH-hf9Jsc4df0VzgCmXUviJXeushg&sig2=KJ5xEIh0R6mtyGbvhNGRcw&cad=rja

Her book 'Bones would Rain from the Sky' is worth reading.

Laska, I LOVE that piece - have read it several times and would cheerfully like it to be stapled to the forehead of the muppets who say "Oh, he/she is only trying to be friendly...."

I am always amazed and very humbled how well greyhounds adapt to their second life as pets when many of them will only as an adult come across other dog breeds, houses, stairs, hoovers, etc.

Greys truly are amazing - I collected an ex racer from a trainer who was going to PTS (because the dog couldn't race any more ) to transport him into rescue. This dog was amazing -having only ever known concrete kennels and vans to go to and from the track, he calmly climbed onto the back seat of my car and lay down, and was just the gentlest soul i'd ever met. He was my first experience with a grey and I was smitten.

Brilliant Laska. I laughed at the part that said "This is a silly scenario, isn't it? First, anyone who knows me knows that I would never be
in a mall except under considerable duress" as I felt strangely akin to her at that moment.

Ha ha. There's only one mall I've ever visited - the one near Buckingham Palace

p.s. the book is actually much more of a training manual than that link might suggest

Ooops - wrong thread