Today for the first time
on this new page issued by this homepage, I would like to deal with
the topic "dog respectively Borzoi education".
So let's start with what
should be the basis of a good socialization among dogs as well as
between man and dog:
The puppy-"school"
respectively the puppy-playing group which has such a great
importance.
It is here that a young
dog, aged between 10 weeks and 6 months, can learn all the essential
words of the "dog language", while playing.
Especially greyhounds
often show a certain shyness when making first contact with other
breeds. This shyness might be due to the fact that for greyhounds
the game itself is based on the joy and freedom of running and as a
consequence they dislike the obtrusiveness of the romping of other
breeds games. One must never forget that while living at the
breeder's home, being together with their pack of greyhounds they
have only played the "greyhound style". To me it seems
very positive to help them overcome this shyness and to show them
how positive and not at all dangerous the contact and play with
other breeds could be. Furthermore it is essential to have a Borzoi
realize that other dogs might be smaller, but they are real dogs,
too.
Yes, you got it right:
to realize that they are dogs, too...accidents could happen when a
Borzoi or even a pack of them chases a fast moving "object"
under the full urge to hunt it down, realizing too late that it has
been no prey, but a small fellow dog (Malteser????)....a well
accomplished socialization could prevent most of such
missunderstandings.
As all the dogs at a
puppy-group, the greyhound has to learn to be sometimes the superior
dog and sometimes the inferior one. It is important for him to be
able to use bodylanguage immediately and correctly when being
confronted with another dog.This is of great importance, as a young
but tall dog is - at distance - often being seen by other dogs as a
threat to the pack or to the preserve and as a consequence being
attacked at once.
Life saving for a dog in this situation
could be the ability of showing his weekness and smallness at once
in a doglike way.
On the other hand he must learn use his
superiority towards weaker dogs in order to climb the social ladder
of the pack without injuring them. Nobody would like to have a
Borzoi that goes beserk when seeing another dog, just because he has
never learned his social skills.
Following I will show you some
impressions of our puppy course: