Know Your Breed

A large part of understanding your dog is knowing their breed characteristics. A very common mistake that dog owners make is not researching the breed traits before bringing a new furry friend home. Dog purchases are usually made on the cuteness factor, not for a love of the breed. The characteristics of a breed definitely play a large role in your dog’s behaviors. Understanding the breed can help you understand what is triggering the behavior your dog is exhibiting.

Here is an example:

It is very common for dog trainers to hear “I don’t understand why my Australian Cattle Dog is nipping at my kids as they run around the backyard.” A better understanding of the breed would help that dog owner understand that Australian Cattle Dogs get the cattle to move by nipping at their feet. Anything that is running tends to draw out the prey drive in a herding dog. Does that mean that their dog will always nip at their kids? Absolutely not! It just means that they are going to need to work with the dog to teach it that nipping at the kids is not acceptable. Innate traits can be a challenge to train against, but are not impossible.

I challenge each of you to research your dog’s breed and see what interesting facts you can find out about your dog’s breed characteristics. I have no doubt that it will give you some “ah ha” moments into why your dogs do the things they do. If you have a mixed breed, research as many of the breeds that you know your dog to be. It will go a long way to shedding some light on understanding your dog, and will help build a better bond between the two of you.