Cultural Differences

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

[color=#000000]This is what makes Americans want to close the borders....

[/color]

 
Okay, now things are getting a little (?!) []...
 
 
 

nevermind

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs  [color=#000000]Your statement is as much a bigoted slur as any more obvious hateful remark that you could have uttered.  This is what makes Americans want to close the borders....[/color]

Well said, and maybe the reason for his anti-American bias?  Maybe that is why he had to leave this country, he got kicked out?  Plenty of American tourist dollars down there in Cancun to keep them afloat though.

Regardless of where he is from, the argument is flawed and his premise is wrong.  We have been accused of humanizing our dogs to such a degree it reflects in poor training of our dogs.  Other countries he asserts can do it better because they treat dogs like dogs and more willing to discipline their pets.  I detect a great irony here.  CM, who I suppose is his hero has created what is known as a dog psychology center.  Is that not humanization to the extreme?  Is there a couch involved these sessions?  There lies the irony in his argument.  And even if there is a cultural difference of more humanization, does it make a difference?  I think not.  People are  more guilty of cruelty, harsh treatment, fighting, etc. toward each other, as opposed to treatment toward animals.  If one wanted, a person is more likely to strike another human who can fight back as opposed to striking a defenseless animal.  Therefore, the humanization theory leading to breakdowns in training is also a flawed argument.

He is all wrong...the best trainers, the best equipment, and the very best of breeds are found here in America.

This thread is getting uglier and more personal by the minute...ugh. [:'(]

In the United States, some people do cross the line into spoiling versus meeting

 
The word that makes this a fine beginning to the end of this  thread is, SOME!
 
 

First warning - keep it civil and impersonal or the thread will be closed, which would be a shame, because it is an interesting topic.
 
Discuss without personal barbs, jabs and insults and we can all continue to learn.

ORIGINAL: dlg81

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

[color=#000000]  This is what makes Americans want to close the borders....

[/color]

Was that really necessary?  It's pretty insulting to those of us who live in the United States who are from other countries originally.  Responding to bigotry with bigotry doesn't really help.

I'm from another country as well, and far be it for me to agree 100% with any one person. While I do think it was harsh and strictly speaking unecessary, I do understand where it came from. If I had to guess, it was written out of the poster's frustration caused by blanket statements made towards and entire country. While I agree that bigotry is the worst way of fighting bigotry, I have a hard time understanding how else to respond in cases where reason and logic have proven to be useless, aside from not responding at all of course.

One thing is true though, statements like that do nothing but alianate and escalate a discussion, making the original topic irrelevant.

I don't think that simply stating the opinion that American's treat their dogs differently than people in other countries warrants the ugly responses posted on this thread recently. 
 
Ok I edited too....

ORIGINAL: eley

ORIGINAL: dlg81

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

[color=#000000]  This is what makes Americans want to close the borders....

[/color]

Was that really necessary?  It's pretty insulting to those of us who live in the United States who are from other countries originally.  Responding to bigotry with bigotry doesn't really help.

I'm from another country as well, and far be it for me to agree 100% with any one person. While I do think it was harsh and strictly speaking unecessary, I do understand where it came from. If I had to guess, it was written out of the poster's frustration caused by blanket statements made towards and entire country. While I agree that bigotry is the worst way of fighting bigotry, I have a hard time understanding how else to respond in cases where reason and logic have proven to be useless, aside from not responding at all of course.

One thing is true though, statements like that do nothing but alianate and escalate a discussion, making the original topic irrelevant.

 
I erased my original response because I realized I was probably responding to an emotional post and not really adding anything to the discussion of the original topic.  I'm not a moderator, so I really didn't need to question if a post is necessary or not. 
 
Back to the original topic.  In my experience here and abroad I have noticed people treat their dogs differently, but I have no evidence that the dogs I have seen abroad are more or less "balanced" than the dogs I have seen in the U.S..  I do know that some of the behavior I have seen here wouldn't be tolerated in the other countries I have been to (and vice versa), but I try not to lace a value judgment on that. 
 
 

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

You are wrong because you are generalizing

From original post:

ORIGINAL: espencer

Of course not every dog is balanced outside USA and not every dog is spoiled inside USA,

= not generalizing.

Ok now, everybody together take a big breath..................... close your eyes.......................calm down................................. and click and treat []

Believe it or not i was thinking about this thread last night while taking a shower (dont picture that in your mind please),  i knew right there that maybe some people would feel attacked, i put myself in your place and yes, i feel a little bit "uneasy"

I'm sorry if any of you felt attacked, that was not my intention at all, even less was a "my country is better than yours on dog's behavior" intention, absolutely not, i was talking by personal experience, of course according to you that experience was not the most positive one, point taken, therefore:

Now, more open mided..........................maybe we can re direct a little bit this topic, so far i'm comparing 3 cities in 2 countries, now you can help me to "expand" that point of view with what you see in your own town

Dont focuse on yourself and your obvious fairly well behaved dogs, lets focuse on general people, people that you see on the streets, do you have a lot of "oh that person does not know what she/he is doing with his/her dog" feelings? do you see a lot of "lets go pee only and come right back inside for the rest of the day" people?

Do you see more "dog cultured" people on the streets with their dogs? or more "well i just walk my dog because i've seen other people doing it" kind of people?

Here in St Louis i have only one neighbor that walks his dog with a gentle leader and seen only one person walking her dog on a loose leash, the rest are pullers, non-stop barkers, 2 minutes outside dogs, etc.

Let me hear what do you see out there []

ORIGINAL: espencer

I'm sorry if any of you felt attacked, that was not my intention at all, even less was a "my country is better than yours on dog's behavior" intention, absolutely not, i was talking by personal experience of course according to you that experience was not the most positive one, point taken, therefore:

Now that you've apologized you can stay in America where we have free speech.

I think there are huge differences in America between poor, rural areas and urban areas. Even between the suburbs and city. I grew up in a very rural area and it was considered that we were spoiling our dogs because we housetrained them and let them inside for a couple of hours each evening. They got puppy shots and rabies shots too. Comparitively speaking, my current dogs live in the utter lap of luxury and are the spoiled American dogs referred to in the original post. But, by far the largest amount of money spent on them is for their health, not for behavioral indulgence.

I'm sure there are differences between and within countries but Americans as a whole have improved in the healthcare and speutering departments although they are far behind some European countries. However, in Bulgaria is is considered an insult to call someone a dog lover.

It may be that in order to spend the kind of money required for premium health and to stop random breeding, you have to personalize dogs. If I didn't care personally about each of my dogs, it would be a whole lot easier just to shoot Wolfgang when his dysplasia gets bad than to spend a fortune on supplements and holistic treatments. Perhaps when you care in that manner, it does become a little more likely that you are going to say, "Poor Baby, I'm going to spoil you", and that's when some people cross the line. Education along the lines of suggesting that a good swim may be both what he really wants and needs can go a long way.

Keeping a balance is important. I prefer to substitute the word structure for discipline. But, I'd rather see people err on the side of caring too much about their pets than some of what I saw recently in rural Arizona. They have $25.00 speuter and vaccination clinics and boy are there a lot of excuses why some people can't take their pets. It is common for pets to become lost and die of thirst out in the desert. It is a far, far different attitude toward the pets than the lady who harms her dog by feeding it too many cookies. Neither are balanced. The dog in rural Arizona generally won't present a behavioral problem, because if they do, they are shot.
 
ETA: I also saw many people in the same area of AZ who took excellent care of their dogs.

Believe it or not i was thinking about this thread last night while taking a shower (

Dude....just say you were thinking about it last night, no need for the extra info really.


ok, so, in Houston: some annoying "purse dogs", I've seen a lot of people driving around with medium sized dogs (goldens, labs, border collies) in their cars and for the most part they seem well adjusted to city life, of course, I see these dogs in stoplights looking at other cars, or in parking lots and sitting outside starbucks. In the area where I used to live there is a pretty nice jogging trail, so jogging with dogs was also pretty popular. Aside from the ocassional puller and annoying non-stop-barking little dog, I haven't seen anything terribly drastic. Then again, I'm guessing that those with "problem dogs" don't take them out in the public.

Where I live right now, is more of a small college town, there's a LOT of hunting dogs. Far fewer Paris Hilton wannabes, but we still have a couple. If you go to petco you'll se all sorts of dogs, big ones, small ones, nice ones, annoying ones. But there is one thing here that gets my attention, being a small town in the heart of Texas, well, a man ain't a man if he doesn't have the biggest baddest truck he could find (I drive a VW), so you see a lot of these HUGE pickup trucks driving around, and some have dogs in the bed, now, normally I wouldn't make too much out of this, but I've seen more than a couple that while driving down the freeway at 80mph, the dog has it's rear paws in the tool box of the truck and the front paws in the roof, and they look HAPPY AS THEY CAN BE.

So, all in all, with no formal method of accounting or recording my observations. I still can't say that big city dogs are happier or unhappier than small town dogs. It all boils down to the particular owners, and even there exists such a huge variety that I'd be hard pressed to find a key factor.

ORIGINAL: Stacita

I think there are huge differences in America between poor, rural areas and urban areas. Even between the suburbs and city. I grew up in a very rural area and it was considered that we were spoiling our dogs because we housetrained them and let them inside for a couple of hours each evening. They got puppy shots and rabies shots too. Comparitively speaking, my current dogs live in the utter lap of luxury and are the spoiled American dogs referred to in the original post. But, by far the largest amount of money spent on them is for their health, not for behavioral indulgence.

 
Among other things, I think this might be what the thread has revealed.  The real differences may not be cultural but rather socio-economic. 

Okay, I will tell you what I see on my side of town.  I see people with too many dogs and not enough time and resources for those dogs.  They take in strays and abused animals and then have too many and the quality of life for all animals go down.

 Most won't  send them (the strays) to our shelter because they are killed in 3 days.  Most won't/can't give them away because they know when the new wears off in a month, the poor dog will be chained in the backyard as far from the house as possible.  People  have to work, take care of kids, errands and such and just don't have time/energy to walk 4 dogs afterward. Most have barely time to sleep.

My whole street is like this.   Only 2 dog owners on our street that I know of only have one.   Four is pretty much the norm...and the max that people can handle.  At this point, they have to turn their hearts and heads away.

I know that Zeus' quality of life has went down since I took in the pom and the iguana. Both were neglected.  I have a small house, small fenced in yard.  As do the neighbors.  No McMansions on our side of town.

ORIGINAL: espencer



Let me hear what do you see out there []