Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Before Common Sense Was Even Less Common



This is from a Dash's Dog Food brochure from the 1950s. Timing is still everything, and there is still a place for a mild swat on the rump or a loud sound as an aversive. With a puppy, it does not take much!

What was too often left out of dog advice tracts like this, however, was the need to give the puppy something it could chew on. And no, not a tennis ball (which is too often surgically removed later on). Instead, try a flat hide chew of appropriate thickness for your pup, or a Kong with a little frozen cheese whiz sprayed inside, or a rope chew toy.
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2 comments:

Viatecio said...

You mean they didn't advocate helicoptering or beating their dogs as puppies, just so they could learn who's the Big Bad Boss? That's no fun. Where's the yank-n-crank? I thought you said that this was from the '50s! Koehler would never have been so "nice" to his dogs as to only administer a loud noise as an aversive...no, by Gaw, he would've whaled on their collective arses to within an inch of their lives :P

Oh wait, you mean that's only what they want me to think?

PBurns said...

.

BINGO!

Every religion (and clicker training has become a religion) spends a lot of time on demonization before they tell you that their NEW WAY (which just happens to have the same holiday schedule as the pagans did) is Salvation and the Delivered Wisdom of the Lord.

And then they pass the collections basket, ask you to tithe, give you a catechism to repeat, and ask you to bring someone to next week's sermon in order to "spread the New Gospel" to the unwashed heathens who are NOT LIKE US and, in fact are beasts possesed by a desire to kill babies and rape donkeys.


P.