 Well Behaved BeaglesSadly, the majority of puppies fail to live long enough to enjoy their second birthday. They suffer from the terminal illness of being unwanted — failing to live up to the expectation of the Lassie–Benji–Eddie dream. Instead they develop a number of extremely common and utterly predictable behavior, training, and temperament problems and are surrendered to animal shelters to play lotto with their lives. Many people blame irresponsible ownership for this tragic situation. I would simply cite lack of know-how. Most prospective puppy owners are simply unaware of the problems that lie ahead and unfortunately, they have little idea how to prevent or resolve them.
K9 GAMES®
— The Ultimate Dog Show —
 The K9 GAMES™ is a team competition
designed for dogs and their human companions
to have fun together and to showcase user-friendly and
dog-friendly dog training techniques to the general public.
Over the past few years, television has gone to the dogs! Dogs have become more and more prominent in the media, movies and sitcoms. PuppyDogs have a proven “Ahhhhh!-factor” and are used to advertise numerous products from cars to beer. In England dogs even advertise toilet tissue! Dogs have everything. The time has come for dogs to advertise themselves!
 Even though few of us are fluent in the many dog languages, most of us can tell the difference between a friendly dog and an unfriendly one. The dog seems to get the message across with very little difficulty. It is as easy to sense the aura of a confident, relaxed and easygoing dog as it is to observe specific behaviors and body postures. Such dogs fairly exude warmth and friendliness — head held high with a big doggy laugh, gamboling gait and curved tail wagging the dog's rump. Similarly, one can literally feel the tension emanating from a dog that is not friendly — head lowered, ears flattened, piercing stare, teeth bared and growling, pilo-erection along the back, stiff-legged, and tail held high, straight, stiff and usually vibrating.
 Bubba & LilliDr. Dunbar was lucky to enjoy a few woofs with Amy Tan following a book-signing at Book Passage in Marin County. Extracts from this dialogue were previously published in The Bark magazine.
ID: Tell us what your Yorkies mean to you.
AT: How can I summarize this in a sound bite. Well, my Yorkies are… second to Lou. (Amy’s husband.) I am actually pretty dog obsessive, most people know that I travel with my dogs. They go everywhere with me. I’m involved with Yorkie rescue and I’ve done fund raising events for that. Also, I’m involved with the Canine Health Foundation.
ID: Do Bubba and Lilly ever give you any problems?
 Aside from the obvious answer — not before you are ready — the time to get a dog is when you have completed your doggy education. And when the pup is ready.
An important consideration is the age of the pup. Most puppies change homes at some time in their life, usually from the home where they were born to the homes of their new human companions. The optimal time for a puppy to change homes depends on many variables, including his emotional needs, his all-important socialization schedule, and the level of doggy expertise in each household.
 Natural selection is nature's fail-safe way of maintaining eugenics (good genes and fine offspring). All dogs are different, (individual variation being an inherent characteristic of sexual reproduction), and different dogs fair differently in different situations. Dogs best suited to the immediate environment (the genetically fittest) do well; the less fit do less well; and the unfit usually die. In the wild, the process of natural selection promotes the survival of the fittest and ensures the elimination of nature's mistakes. With domestic animals, however, continuing improvements in veterinary technology and the practice of artificial selection allow breeders to mess with Mother Nature — sometimes for the better, but sometimes for the worse.
 “In man, social intercourse has centered mainly on the process of absorbing fluid into the organism, but in the domestic dog and to a lesser extent among all wild canine species, the act charged with most social significance is the excretion of fluid. For man the pub, the estaminet, the Biergarten, but for the dog the tree trunk, the lintel of door or gate, and above all the lamppost, form the focal points of community life. For a man, the flavors of alcoholic drinks, but for a dog the infinitely variegated smells of urine are the most potent stimuli for the gregarious impulse.”
From The Lamppost, A Study of the Social Life of the Domestic Dog by Sirius (quoted in Sirius by Olaf Stapledon)
 Socialization is the process of becoming familiar with all kinds of animals, people, places, and things; as well as learning how to behave in society. All puppies need socialization regardless of breed, type, or temperament. Please do not take this for granted, regardless of your breed description. Even dogs from breeds that have a very good reputation for loving people will need to be thoroughly socialized as puppies, to make sure that they have lots of great experiences being around all kinds of different people. And more importantly, breeds that are known to be less social (often described as aloof) must be socialized to grow up to love to be around people in order to be good canine citizens (and not end up in news headlines).
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