skip to main |
skip to sidebar
By now I'm hoping readers will have visited the INDog website and in particular seen the map "Aboriginal and Primitive Breeds Around the World." In southern Africa you'll find the handsome AfriCanis, native dog of the same aboriginal type that once existed around the world and still exists in many countries including of course India.That image and these were kindly contributed for the INDog site by Johan and Edith Gallant, who have worked tirelessly for years to win for these indigenous dogs the respect they deserve. Johan Gallant is an inspired photographer and I want to thank the Gallants again for allowing me to use these beautiful pictures. Read all about this remarkable dog in the AfriCanis website.There are also two books by Johan Gallant that I am eager to read: "The Story of the African Dog" and "SOS Dog: The Purebred Dog Hobby Re-examined," which is co-authored by Edith. An incident I want to share: last week at a safari camp in Botswana my husband brought up the topic of native dogs while we were having dinner. Two of the camp managers were South Africans, and I was really pleased when they started telling me about the AfriCanis, how they'd heard it had the best temperament of all breeds, and how dogs with the same appearance could be found in different parts of the world. A clear sign that the hard work of the Gallants and other AfriCanis supporters has paid off! It made me hope that one day knowledge about the INDog will also be widespread among Indians, instead of being restricted to a few enthusiasts. Some earlier posts from this blog about African native dogs: Isipho, Africanis pup, Avuvi of Ghana, Avuvi, Africa Snapshots (the last has pictures taken by me in Tanzania last year). Photos: Johan Gallant
The AfriCanis Society of Southern Africa
It's easy to appreciate the beauty of our Pariah dogs when they are spruced up and wearing nice collars and sitting on our sofas - that's easy enough. But when they are scrounging through a dump or lying in a gutter, it takes that extra vision to look past the squalid surroundings and realize just how extraordinary these creatures are. This may seem extreme but to me dogs are the only real signs of life and love and innocence on our mean streets. Amid hordes of robotic humans, they are our only remaining link to the natural world...Photographer Eloise Leyden travelled around India for a year shooting pictures for her book Slum Dogs of India. Click here and look at our dogs through her magic lens. Astonishingly and heartbreakingly beautiful. Perhaps she sees them more clearly than most Indians do. Thanks, Eloise, for this treat! I'm finding it hard to drag myself away.Eloise is a trustee of the NGO TOLFA (Tree Of Life For Animals), that works for street dog welfare near Ajmer, Rajasthan. A portion of the sales of this book will go towards their programmes.
I'm back again with a pathbreaking book to recommend. Dogs: A Startling New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior & Evolution, authored by biologists Raymond and Lorna Coppinger. This is not just a book, it's a voyage of discovery. The Coppingers look at dogs from the point of view of biologists, but don't let that scare you. The science is presented so clearly and beautifully, even I understood everything. Important gaps in our knowledge - how did dogs evolve from their wild ancestors, how did breeds develop, the link between nature and nurture, and much more - are all filled with very credible explanations. The authors infect us with their curiosity, and just in case you are one of those thousands who love dogs but aren't really interested in them, this could be a turning point for you. "Love dogs but aren't really interested in them" may sound like a paradox, but it isn't. Thousands and millions of people love dogs, but not many (at least in India) will take the trouble to invest in even a basic dog care or training book let alone anything more detailed. Many will do a net search when some specific problem arises (e.g. My dog has started snapping, what could be the reason?) But a few good books could prevent so many canine health and behaviour problems. The general belief seems to be that we can find out all there is to know simply by living with dogs or working with them. NOT true. It's a terrible mistake to not do one's homework before bringing a dog home. This was the first species to become domesticated, perhaps way back in the "middle" stone age. And yet there are so many unsolved mysteries about dogs, and so many astonishing errors in our assumptions about them. Sometimes I feel more is known about the rarest species than about Canis familiaris. Familiarity breeds contempt? Anyway, if there is one book every dog lover should read, it's this one. The Coppingers shatter all illusions about dogs being "like humans," something most humans (strangely) seem to think an enormous compliment. They show how canine behaviour is shaped, and what leads dogs to behave the way they do. If we can respect and love dogs for what they are, without illusions about their intellectual and emotional capacity, that, to me, is true love. The book also explains, in hard-hitting terms, the appalling wrongs we do to dogs through modern breeding practices and also through warped, exploitative human-dog relationships. So please, if you want to appreciate what a dog really is, don't miss this one. Order it through any good bookstore, or through Amazon.
I just wrote about the book on "calming signals" by Turid Rugaas. Here's another brilliant book on canine training and behaviour: The Other End of the Leash, by Dr Patricia B McConnell. What makes it really unique is that it deals with HUMAN behaviour as much as canine. The author is a well-known Applied Animal Behaviourist and dog trainer who has studied the behaviour not only of canids but also of primates - and that includes us. It's fascinating to learn just how similar our body language is to that of chimpanzees and bonobos (after all, we share 98% of our DNA with these species). It's also humbling to realize how little control we have over our essentially primate gestures and how difficult it is to change the ape-like communication techniques that come so naturally to us. For instance, hugging is entirely a primate expression of affection. (We never see dogs hugging each other, do we?)Dr McConnell explains how problems so easily crop up because of the completely different communication styles of our two species. We can bridge this gap to a large extent by learning to behave more like dogs than like primates, when around our pets. She also explains the pitfalls of the conventional "dominance" kind of dog training, and how it can often worsen your pet's behaviour. I think one of the most important points she makes is that communication with dogs is NOT intuitive in humans, whatever we may think. But it's something we can and should learn. Her acute observation and insights make this book a delight to read, specially as it's also written beautifully and with a lot of humour. Much of it had me clapping my hand to my forehead and wondering how I could have been such an idiot all these years. Though my mistakes have not arisen from stupidity (not all of them, anyway), but simply from being human. I think some of us are secretly a bit scared of anything to do with training. Possibly we fear that we will ourselves have to undergo a personality change - from baby-talking softie into military-type disciplinarian - and we don't quite feel up to the task! Trust me, read this book. The suggestions are based on common sense and can be practised by anybody. Even if you don't own a dog, you get the sheer thrill of understanding the mind of another species, of connecting with it. One of the greatest joys in the world.
Last month I wrote about the training book On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals, by Norwegian dog behaviourist Turid Rugaas. The book gives fascinating insights into dog communication and simple solutions for some common behaviour problems. Click here for the post.Turid Rugaas also has a website in which she explains her theory about the conflict-resolving signals used by dogs. Apart from articles and illustrations, there is a very useful question-and-answer section. I think most of us dog-owners will have experienced at least one of the problems covered. I want to thank Veera Antsalo for sending me the link. Click here for the site.
Recently I read about a Japanese-made gadget that claims to "translate" a dog's barks into English sentences. You attach it to your dog's collar and it tells you what your dog is trying to say. The gadget is being sold by a Mumbai pet store. A popular daily asked four dog owners to review it. From what I remember, two of the interviewees were quite scathing about it and didn't think it was of any use. They also felt (and I agree) that people who need something like this should not be keeping a dog at all!While the merits of such gadgets are dubious, the motivation for creating them is very real. There is an undeniable communication gap between dogs and humans, no matter how much we may love each other. The human filters we naturally apply would lead us to misinterpret or simply miss a lot of what our dogs are trying to express. For me, a new door just opened on the mysterious world of dog-human communication, thanks to Norwegian dog trainer and behaviourist Turid Rugaas. I recently read her wonderful little book On Talking Terms with Dogs: Calming Signals (Yvonne, thanks for gifting it to me!) It was a real eye-opener and I am so impressed with it I want to recommend it to all dog owners. Turid Rugaas has done pioneering work in this field, inspired by her "childhood dream about talking to animals." She believes that dogs are conflict-solving creatures, and they use many signals to prevent aggression, and also to calm fear and stress in themselves and those they interact with. By using the same signals, we can solve many common behaviour problems in our dogs and really understand what they are trying to say. I tried a couple of her suggestions on my sometimes boisterous Kimaya, and they worked beautifully. I'm looking at Lalee with new eyes too, wondering if I've misinterpreted some of her expressions and body language for so many years (of course, my husband believes I have!)The book is very easy to read and illustrated with many photographs. I think all children of dog-owning families should be made to read it. I am now going to order another book by Ms Rugaas, Barking: The Sound of a Language. The publisher for all her books is Dogwise Publishing, http://www.dogwise.com/Incidentally, there is a very interesting chapter on dog "language" in Stephen Budiansky's book The Truth about Dogs. Click here for an earlier post in this blog on useful books for dog lovers. And if there are any other books you have liked, please share the names with our readers - just post a comment below.
I don't know about you, but for me there is no bigger thrill than that of interacting with a different species (it's hard to remember this at times, but dogs are a different species)! Though we live in the same physical space as our pets, their world is in many ways a strange and unfamiliar one, and their perceptions and motives very different from what we imagine.
Dr Manik Godbole had this great idea of posting a list of books which would help us understand our dogs better. I added some of my favourites to the list. Topics covered include dog behaviour, health, and the dog-human bond. I hope you'll add your own favourites - either post your list as a comment or email me so I can put it as a separate post. Manik recommends:Games pets play by Bruce FogleI wish my dog would do that by David King (for training purposes)Pets and their people (Ins and outs of pet owning) Bruce FoglePet loss - a thoughtful guide for adults and children by Herbert A. NicbergIf you are interested in scientific research in the field of people-pet relations there are these text books: The pet connection - its influence on our health and quality of life - R. AndersonInterrelations between people and pets - Charles ThomasNew perspectives on our lives with companion animals - A. Katcher and A. BeckThe mind - R.H. SmytheAll creatures great and small, and all the other famous books by Dr James Herriot (If only they could talk, It shouldn't happen to a vet, Let sleeping vets lie, All things wise and wonderful, All things bright and beautiful)I'd like to add:The truth about dogs by Stephen Budiansky - a great introduction to recent research and discoveries about evolution, the dog genome, behaviour, and the dog-human relationship. I really like Budiansky's totally unsentimental, common-sense way of looking at dogs, but some people might find it unpalatable. The Indian Dog by Major W.V. Soman. This is actually a classic, published in 1963, and only two copies remained with the publisher (Popular Prakashan) of which I now own one. There is a chapter on "The pariah and the mongrel" from which I am quoting here: "there is evidence to show that the Pariah pups caught and reared up, have proved to be the best house dogs and have not only protected the owner and his property but have gone out to protect the other village dogs."
The nature of animal healing by Martin Goldstein (a graduate of Cornell University who became one of the world's best-known holistic veterinarians). The theory that disease is simply the body's attempt to heal itself somehow makes a lot of sense to me - it reduces one's fear of illness and helps one cure it better.Natural Health for Dogs & Cats by Richard H. Pitcairn and Susan Hubble Pitcairn - another must-read if you are interested in holistic healing.
Doglopaedia - A Complete Guide to Dog Care by J.M. Evans & Kay White. A mind-bogglingly useful introduction to this topic. I remember getting extra copies for WSD staff and volunteers. I don't know whether it is still available off-the-shelf. If interested, you can get it through Amazon.com. Check this link: http://www.amazon.com/Doglopaedia-Complete-Guide-Ringpress-Books/dp/1860540740In tune with your dog - An owner's guide to training and improving behaviour by John Rogerson (a world-renowned authority on canine behaviour)
The Hidden Life of Dogs by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. The anthropologist author tries to answer a very simple question few dog lovers ever ask - "What do dogs want?" Her conclusions are often surprising.
A word of caution - books on pet care, holistic or conventional, often express extreme views on topics such as vaccination and diet. Personally I find it best to read everything I can and then make my own - moderate - decisions.
Happy reading!
