
Discerning Dog
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Gifts for Dog Lovers
A Life in Chains
...is really no kind of life at all.

There is not much worse torture you can inflict on a dog
than to leave it chained to a tree or post in your backyard for the length
of its sorry life. As pack animals dogs need interaction, as intelligent
animals they need metal stimulation and as active animals they need physical
excercise.
Perhaps the chained dog owner thinks that Sabre tied up
in the yard makes a stellar watch dog. Not so. Chained dogs become aggressive
not protective. With no socialisation to speak of and probably little
in the way of training a chained dog is as likely to see the neighbour's
kid or the postman as an intruder as he is any burglar. Besides all the
wary burglar has to do is stay outside the limits of the chain and all
the poor dog can do is bark.
The fact that a chained dog is 2.6 times more likely to
bite than an unchained dog does not mean that the dog is protective. A
chained dog will bite indiscriminately out of aggression and fear. Just
imagine the neighbourhood kids climbing over the fence to retrieve a
lost ball and straying too near. It's a tragedy that happens many times
every year.
hile there is little for any chained dog to be thankful
for those who have shelter from the sun, rain and snow and are fed and
watered daily are amongst the luckiest. At the very least they get a
few moments of interaction with their humans as fresh food is thrown
at them.
The thing is you see, a dog chained outside is pretty
easy to ignore. If someone cares little enough about their canine companion
to inflict the torture of lifetime imprisonment at the end of a ten
foot chain, chances are the dogs basic health requirements are not being
met. Fleas, worms, starvation, dehydration, even choking to death as
the chain gets tangled, none of these fates are uncommon for the poor
dog you may drive by on your way to work every day.
Two websites that offer support and advice on this issue
are unchainyourdog and dogsdeservebetter. Unchainyourdog lists reasons
why this common practise is so cruel and provides a helpful fact sheet
on talking to the
owners of chained dogs to help improve the situation.
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