Orbs 'r' Us

WHY DOGS MAKE BETTER PETS????

I read a recent report on the web about "Mounting and Humping Behavior in Dogs" [11/07/2007] by Pets.ca. Here are some excerpts from that report...

Today, our world is quickly changing into one which views domestic animals as individual members or our human family. It is no wonder that we often relate to our domestic animals in human psychology or behavioral terms. Yet, can we really draw parallels between their behavior and ours?

In nature when different species cohabite together, each animal species continues to retain their instinctive and species-specific behavior. Our domestic animals are clever enough to learn communicating with them [sit, stay, come, hand signals, etc] yet they will continue to retain their canine or feline behavior.

In some wolf packs, the only members of the pack that are allowed to mate are the alpha female and alpha male and mating between subordinates is discouraged. The goal is to have enough resources and care for the pups and ultimately, the entire pack. "Humping behavior in dogs serves two purposes. The first is the obvious need to reproduce. The second purpose behind such behaviour is to exert dominance over another dog. A dog will only tolerate this mounting behavior is he/she views that the dog doing the mounting is above him/her in rank. This subordinate dog can be of either sex, which it is why it is not uncommon to see a male dog humping another male dog.

Like us, domestic dogs relate to us members of their family. In other words, they think of us as members of their dog pack. If and when a dog humps you or another human being, they are essentially communicating the fact that they think the are dominant to you. In the event that you allow such humping behavior. you are agreeing that you are subordinate. Therefore, humping is most definitely not a behaviour that you should encourage your dogs to do to humans. You as a human should have a higher rank than your dog and because of that, you are also in the position to discourage and prevent him from humping other dogs and humans. By doing so, as his leader, are not allowing him to be dominate over them. When you practice leadership with your dog, it definitely makes for a better time if your friends come over to your house to visit.

All I can say about this is....have you seen cats displaying this trait?

When cats jump up on you all they want is to be accepted by you and give FREELY to having you rub YOUR smell all over them...that's them accepting your dominance over them!

This report is in reply to Blue's blog about "Cats are smarter than Dogs" and Jeff Valdez's comment on the quote...

"I beg to differ re-intelligence.

Dogs just want to please humans.

Cats just want to please them-selves!

My answer...

"Some dogs are just trying to fool humans and establishing their dominance over them, whereas cats let humans know just where you stand in their relationship to them!"