“My vet said that I should bop my dog on the nose to get him to stop jumping.”
“The vet I go to said that you have to put your dog in their place early, or they’ll think you’re the alpha.”
“A vet tech I’m friends with told me that I need to use an e-collar on my dog or they won’t be properly trained.”
These sayings are a small part of a long list of dog training and behavior advice that I’ve heard from people. What do they have in common? They all came from vets or their employees!
Now, don’t get me wrong; I have the utmost respect for veterinarians and their staff. These are incredibly intelligent and under-paid individuals who care about the health and welfare of animals. It takes a lot of time, money, and knowledge to become a veterinarian; instead of counting sheep, they’re counting how many different vertebrae a cow has (they have 24, by the way). Your vet can tell you how to apply a tourniquet on a cat’s leg or how to induce vomiting when your pet gets into something they shouldn’t have; they often can’t tell you the best way to train your dog.
Veterinary schools only get four years to drill all of the specifics of several different species into their student’s heads. Nutrition and common medicines are standard parts of the curriculum, while subjects such as animal behavior and psychology are pushed to the wayside. A majority of vets receive one class in animal behavior and some receive nothing at all.
I attended Kansas State University and majored in Animal Science. Whatever your opinions about the purple and white, there is not a sane person who could say that the Agricultural and Veterinary colleges there don’t know what they are talking about. The Animal Science degree there is so broad and has so many students that there are seven different pathways of emphasis in the degree field (since I’ve graduated, it has been changed to eight). With an interest in animal behavior, I remember spending a good portion of time scouring the available courses that the colleges of agriculture and veterinary medicine had to offer. Do you know how many animal behavior classes I found? One. Out of hundreds. And we were lucky to have the one.
My point boils down to this: most vets are woefully unprepared to be offering dog training advice to clients and the general public with the exception of specialized veterinary behaviorists, of which there are too few and too spread apart to be of good use to most of rural America. Unless your specific vet or vet staff has specific dog training credentials from a reliable institution, they should avoid giving too much professional advice.
You don’t go to your primary doctor for open heart surgery. You don’t call an electrician for a sewage blockage. And you shouldn’t ask your vet for advice on dog training.
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