Post #13823

Is your dog racist? 5 reasons why pets want to communicate only with representatives of their own breed Dog owners, roll call! Tell me, have you also noticed that your pets are much more willing to play with representatives of their own breed? And it seems like there are a lot of different dogs in the area, choose anyone... What does this mean, dog racism? In reality, everything is much more complicated. Dogs are not racist in the truest sense of the word - they do not hate other breeds. They just love “their own people” more. Scientists have not yet gotten around to conducting full-fledged research on the topic of dog racism, but there are quite a lot of them on related topics. Therefore, today, based on facts and animal psychology, we will dive deeper into understanding why corgis love corgis, but a spitz will be uncomfortable playing with a bulldog. 1. Imprinting, or imprinting At least until 1.5 months, puppies live in the mode of mother and littermates - my whole world. The little ones do everything together: they eat, sleep, play, fight and make peace, learning dog etiquette without a single word. It is during this tender period that they form a basic “matrix of the norm” - what the dog looks like, what its movements are, what the tail means, how facial expressions are read, where the game begins and how it ends. And since the main textbook is the mother and brothers and sisters, it is their type of appearance and style of behavior that is fixed in the minds of someone’s future favorites. 2. First successful experience, or associative learning This is formed on the basis of imprinting, when the watchdog moves to a new home and for the first time goes out into the big world all alone. On walks, the puppy’s brain will look for something understandable and safe - dogs that look like the images of its mother and littermates familiar from childhood. With a high degree of probability they will be the same breed as the puppy itself. And if you manage to get to know them, establish contact and play happily, then the baby will form an association: “when another dog looks like this, you can have a good time with him.” Further, this behavior will become consolidated on its own: the more fun games there are, the more often the woolly dog ​​will notice dogs of its own breed on walks. 3. Features of breed games None of the above would have happened if not for this nuance. The fact is that each dog plays in its own way, as the selection of its breed dictates to them. For example, the bull type loves to push, wrestle and bite. From the outside, their games look more like a fight, but for the participants themselves this is an absolutely normal and understandable format of communication. Greyhounds, on the contrary, prefer non-contact play, and especially catch-up games. Their element is speed, sharp starts, sharp turns and endless pursuit. Not every breed can withstand such a high-speed format of the game. Spitz dogs play noisi