Prepared to be amazed by some of the following statements you always took for granted were true but, in reality, are completely false. Number three really amazed us!
• Dogs and Cats Just Can’t Get Along
“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria!” That's according to one of New York City's leading parapsychologists, and who are we to argue? Actually, we will argue this time, because dogs and cats can live together without launching the world into the end times.Any multi-pet household can have its challenges, and just like human families have their fights, our animal companions will have their angry outbursts, too. But some dogs just outright love their kitty companions, and researchers from Tel Aviv University hacked the canine-feline relationship to figure out just how the two species related to each other. They looked at 200 households that had both dogs and cats, and then looked at how the pets in question related to each other. It was only in about 10 percent of those homes that there was the least bit of conflict between the two. Observing body language and social cues between the two revealed that they had adapted to read each other's signals and essentially speak the same language. The younger the kittens and puppies were when they were introduced, the more adept they became at reading each other and, ultimately, the more likely they were to form a bond that was more “best buds” than “mortal enemies.”
The make-or-break of these relationships is, of course, humans. At the most basic level, dogs speak a language that's different from cat-speak, and introducing them the right way makes a world of difference. Exchange bedding, introduce them to each other's scent, and make sure everyone feels safe. Cats watch while a dog gets excited, and forcing them to get up-close-and-personal too fast is a mistake that leads to this entire misconception. The moral of the story? Humans can even ruin relationships between entirely different species from our own. Way to go, humans.
• Dogs Will Only Respect Their Alpha
While we're on the topic of training (and that's calling what happens to fighting dogs “training” in only the loosest, most horrible sense of the word), we're going to debunk this one, too. For years, dog owners have been taught that the only way to get their dog to listen to them is to establish dominance over them. Setting humans up as the alphas will ensure an obedient and submissive pup, but seriously? No one works that way, and no dog is happy with this setup.The whole thing started because we assumed that dogs work in the same way that the wolves we've observed function. Trouble is, those observations came from watching wolf packs forced together in the small spaces of captivity, who developed incredibly artificial ways to coexist. In the wild? There's no alpha wolf, and there's usually no aggressive behavior between adult pack members. These are the same pack members that work together to hunt and survive, after all, and that's partnership, not dominance.
The idea of treating our pets as though we're the alpha was popularized in the 1940s by an Austrian animal behaviorist named Konrad Lorenz. Lorenz's techniques were based in the training methods used on German military dogs and again, we're using “training” in the most horrible sense of the word. His way of exerting dominance included a hard-handled leash that could also be used for beating a dog into submission. (If you think that's training, you shouldn't have a pet of any kind.) More recent observations of wild dog packs found that their social structure was more akin to human families, with parents (and other adults) mingling at the top, and the pups sent to the kiddie table for holiday dinners. And it's now suggested that we should think of our domestic dogs more in terms of building a parent-child partnership, where we get our dogs to listen to us because they respect us and want to work with us, rather than being afraid of what's going to happen to them if we catch them coloring on the walls again.
• One Human Year Equals Seven Dog Years
This one sort of makes sense at a glance. Dogs sadly don't live as long as we do, but they still clearly go through different life stages. One to seven, right? It's always wrong, and it's ridiculously more complicated than that.
Let's look at that first year. One comparison to a pup's first year is that they do the same amount of living as a 13-year-old human. But that's a tough call to make, as most dogs reach their adult size in that first year, while 13-year-old humans typically don't. Different stages are packed into those first months, like the “scary” stage, which happens between 4-8 months when they're learning that things can be potentially terrifying. From 6-10 months? Most lose their capacity to govern their impulses. (Remember this when you're deciding between a puppy and an adult dog.)That's just the first year, and beyond that it gets more complicated. Relative age has a lot to do with the size of the dog, and some giant breeds age so fast that they're considered seniors by the time they're only 5 years old. It might take a lap dog 9 or 10 years to get to that same state, and things like diet and exercise impact that, too. At the end of the day, there's no tried-and-true method for figuring out just how old your dog is in human years, so watch out for breed-specific issues and then measure in … regular years. It'll be easier to put the candles on the birthday cake.
• Dogs Eat Grass Because They Have an Upset Stomach
This one's all over the place, and if a stranger has ever seen your dog eating grass, that stranger probably told you that your dog has an upset stomach. (Because people are 100 percent incapable of minding their own business.) Next time, don't get annoyed. Just explain how wrong that is.One 2008 study looked at 1,571 different dogs, and found that about 68 percent of them liked to eat grass. They also found that if a dog acted like she wasn't feeling good before she ate the grass, she was more likely to be sick after. But that only applied to about 8 percent of the dogs. There's no nutritional value to grass — and dogs can't digest it — so what gives?
This is another behavior that seems to be hard-wired into our canine companions from their wild wolf days. In the wild, grass acts as a sort of natural wormer. Fibers that pass through the intestines and keep going out the other end snag worms along the way, helping to flush out their systems. There are a few other theories going around as to what it really means, and since we can't actually ask them what they heck they're doing, it's the best we've got. (Well, we can and we have. It's just that responses have been lacking.) Some vets suggest that the behavior might be a part of a dog's ability to act incessantly hungry, while another answer might be as simple as, “They just like it.”
• Neutering/Spaying Changes a Dog's Personality for the Worse
There are a lot of good reasons to get your dog spayed or neutered. Those reasons are sitting in shelters waiting for their homes right now. To those who say that the operation will change their dog's personality for the worse? Absolutely not, and it might even solve some problems and save a life or two.Neutering a male dog can reduce some major behavioral problems, like aggression. One study that looked at 382 females and 209 males found that the only behaviors that changed were problem behaviors. Males and females became less aggressive, while playfulness, perseverance, determination, and watchfulness were unchanged. Also reduced? Roaming tendencies. The scent of a female dog in heat can travel over a long distance, and boys can turn into a regular, single-minded Houdini when it comes to escaping in search of their lady-love.
What doesn't change is a pet's basic personality; that's like suggesting that a human man who gets the same operation will suddenly start rooting for the Dolphins when he's always been a Dallas man. And you know that isn't happening. There are, of course, other untruths out there and you can find some of them on Grunge.
In the end, over the years, you know your dog. You understand when he’s happy, healthy and hilarious! It just takes some observing, watching them walk and whine, maybe a fun or strange change of character that has nothing to do with spay or neutering. Then you can confirm your own set of truths!
