A new idea about having a dog in SHTF, page 1

I cannot see this as a plausible scenario. Dogs are not tools that can be used. A devoted dog that knows you and is trained could be very helpful, may even save your life. The stray may get you killed, because he is not YOUR stray. The dog does have a mind of its own.

Anyone here that knows dogs well, knows that dogs are highly intelligent creatures, with personalities and emotions and attitudes. I can only imagine that a stray dog will take a long time to adjust to you, and until then they will be a great liability. The dog may be going thru their own grieving or shellshocked, or terrified, or angry. Depending on what exactly happens when SHTF, stray dogs may not be so easy to take in. For example, check out the stories on the dogs left behind by the Fukushima evacuation. They have packed together and will not respond to any humans. The dogs feel (and rightfully so) abandoned by humans after a terrible disaster and have banded together to fend for themselves.

Much like you will not be trusting anyone that is not part of your group, a dog will be as likely to share that same attitude and will be trying to escape, will have to be held captive, or may just cower and not respond to anything. Maybe you will luck up and find a stray that trusts you immediately, and has enough 'standard' training that he may ('may') respond to your commands. Not likely. Most dogs I have known are very attached to their human companions and no one else will substitute.

I once shared a dog with a girlfriend, but it was hers. When we broke up, she told me that the dog waited at the window every day at 5:00 for almost a month before figuring out I wasn't coming home from work. That dog knew I wasn't his master. I took it thru training, and it was perfect - except for the graduation practice, where he decided it was funny to re-interpret 'stay' as meaning 'jump on my leg and bark'. He did this for the full week, and at the graduation. Immediately after, I was so mad! I had to prove he did it for meanness. I told him to sit, stay, threw a piece of steak on the floor and walked out the door. The dam dog stayed the whole time! Girlfriend thought it was so funny. He would run off from me outside, one day I chased him for 45 minutes. Girlfriend steps out and calls his name once and he goes in the house. That dog really liked to screw with me.

Another dog I owned for 13 years - I had a nasty breakup and very bad times years ago. I came home every day to a very sad dog, and I was also very sad. I would sit down and cry every evening, and the dog would mope with me, even crying herself. Then I would take her for a ride in the car to get her mind off the troubles. After three days of this, the dog had enough. I came home and cried, the dog jumped in my lap, then immediately went to the front door (not her exit) and started demanding I get up and take her out for a ride. I got the point, she was telling me to get over it and move on with life. After that day, no more crying - it was like we were in it together and both of us could get thru it.

This same dog diagnosed a roommate's MS over 6 months before the doctors discovered it. The dog hated the roommate, but every time he had an episode, my dog would sit in his lap until it was over, then go back to hating him as always. Even I noticed this and thought it was strange, but I didn't know he was trying to hide his spells. When he told me about it, he also told me that my dog has been trying to get someone to notice his spells for 6 months while he kept it a secret.

This same dog would fetch toys by name, understood so much English we started spelling to talk around her...and she learned the words we were spelling (yes we could test this by spelling different words that we had repeated and see her react to the word, even fetching toys by the spelled name instead of the full name).

Having a well-trained dog when SHTF may be a great idea. But if you don't have that, forget the fantasy that someone else's dog will be ready, willing, and able to help you for months to come, and maybe never - depending on the dog. If you get lucky, you will find a dog that has the attitude to help you. Don't plan on it, it will be luck.

Once again, dogs are not a tool. They are sentient creatures, with speech (that is, language as spoken by humans) being the only thing I can see that makes dogs any lesser than us. They don't try to speak our language, even though many dogs understand it very well. but their emotions and thought processes are complicated.

FYI, if you don't konw dogs (I mean raise them, live with them, share with them) and just think a dog is something you feed and train, then forget learning all of this after SHTF. Unless you are set and will have time to work with the dog, and are not hiding in a bunker, then you will not have a dog that has any inclination to help you. It will be just a liability eating your food and looking for an escape to find their real companions (the former owners) - unless you get lucky and find the right personality with the right attitude to adjust to you. That is hard even when raising them from birth.

edit on 19-10-2011 by lakesidepark because: more FYI