Everyone’s friend ?
People often assume that, through years of domestication, dogs are naturally predisposed to be friendly towards all humans. They assume that the exceptions to this rule have been abused or badly bred. This is not the case. Dogs are instinctively friendly towards their family members, but extending that friendliness towards the whole of society is more complicated.
If someone stops to pat your puppy in the street, you will want him to respond in a warm and friendly way – not just while he is small, but even more importantly as he grows up. He needs your help to make this happen, because he is genetically programmed to become wary of strangers at quite an early age. And not without good reason.
For a wild dog living in a dangerous world, friendliness is likely to result in an early demise. Nature’s assumption is that something you have never come across before is likely to be dangerous, so you had better regard it with great suspicion. Many wild animals share this natural instinct for self-protection. As a result, indiscriminate friendliness is not a characteristic that your dog’s ancestors have passed on to him.
So, if indiscriminate friendliness is not a trait passed down from your dog’s wolf relatives, where does it come from? Why are most adult dogs friendly?
If someone stops to pat your puppy in the street, you will want him to respond in a warm and friendly way – not just while he is small, but even more importantly as he grows up. He needs your help to make this happen, because he is genetically programmed to become wary of strangers at quite an early age. And not without good reason.
For a wild dog living in a dangerous world, friendliness is likely to result in an early demise. Nature’s assumption is that something you have never come across before is likely to be dangerous, so you had better regard it with great suspicion. Many wild animals share this natural instinct for self-protection. As a result, indiscriminate friendliness is not a characteristic that your dog’s ancestors have passed on to him.
So, if indiscriminate friendliness is not a trait passed down from your dog’s wolf relatives, where does it come from? Why are most adult dogs friendly?
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