According to Mum, dogs are like children. I don\u2019t mean that she gets us dressed in the morning and sends us off to school, well, not exactly anyway. We are often asked about training, and Mum likens us to the bright child in the class. If we\u2019re in a mixed ability class and finish an exercise faster than the other dogs, we start talking in class and becoming disruptive. We\u2019re fine when we\u2019re really young as the difference is not so pronounced, it\u2019s when we hit teens that the big problems occur. At that age, we haven\u2019t learnt how to be calm and keep ourselves occupied. When we get bored we start wanting attention and something to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not just those times. We need consistency and ground rules so that we know where we stand. Without that we make our own rules and it goes a bit wrong. We want love and reassurance, but we also want some freedom to think for ourselves. More than that if you leave us to our own devices, we will make our own entertainment and it will rarely be what you had in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We go through the \u2018terrible twos\u2019 when we first realise we can do some things for ourselves and test the boundaries. In our case it\u2019s at around 6 months old, but like toddlers we get through it. We go through a teenage phase when we think we know everything. With our breed that usually starts around fifteen months and can last around six months. After that we begin to understand we might not know absolutely everything. It take a bit longer before we begin to realise you might know a thing or two after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like children we\u2019ll be miserable when we\u2019re teething. If we stay up too late and don\u2019t get enough sleep we\u2019ll be grouchy. When we\u2019re young we have days we\u2019re growing when we just need a little extra rest. We want your attention and your love, just like any child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The best bit is we can see the wonder in the most amazing little things and can get excited by the same thing over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re worried you don\u2019t understand enough about dog psychology, start with child psychology and then you\u2019ll have just a few gaps to fill in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilma<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wilma wants to explain to you how it is that dogs are like children – she’s not talking about humans using dogs as child substitutes, but their behaviour.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-21937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wisdom-and-experience","tag-entlebucher","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alfiesdiary.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}