Nedim Suta (31) is senior assistant at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Department of Biology, where he was awarded as the golden student, and he is very versatile person as well.
He is also working as a specialist for dog behavior, breeder of Akita dogs, a pet trainer and organizer of dog shows.
Your doctoral dissertation explained the evolutionary world of dogs. Can you explain it briefly?
Except the fact that dog now looks quite different from its primitive ancestor wolf, and it is very hard to see the similarity between, let’s say, the wolf and Chihuahua, the greatest development happened in their behavior, or more precisely, in they of expressing emotions that they show towards people. Now, they are the most wanted pets because they represent channels towards positive vibrations that we are deprived of in this noisy world, and the era of rapid growth of industry, technology and social networks. Dogs fill that energy gap and a person feels safe in this relationship.
Why do dogs sometimes attack people?
We must not forget that the ancestor of a dog is wolf, and wolves have the role in the ecosystem to clean everything that is not good. Therefore, when a dog bites a man, it can mean that he sends a message that something is wrong, for example, maybe something with his health is not okay, or some physiological system that codes metabolic processes is not good. Of course, people can also trains dogs to be aggressive, which in that case becomes their basic pattern of behavior, but the main problem in all the bad behavior patterns is a man. Dogs are copying people in everything and every dog represents an empty box in which a man can put everything he wants. There is no aggressive dog. There is only an inadequately trained dog that serves as a reflection of its owner.
How does the proper training look like and which period is the best time to start training a dog?
Everything depends on the type of training. If the main aim of the training is to destroy the dog’s personality, I always stop there and ask the owner whether he would like that someone trains him in that way. Dogs trainings in BiH are usually based on the old methods, which I do not consider as good, because I believe that if you want respect, then you have to show it as well, even if that means to a dog or a cat. The beginning of the training largely depends on the race, but the average optimal age is somewhere between two and three months, because their social intelligence develops during that period. Repressive measures, punishments, hitting, are methods that only improve deviations in its behavior. A dog can be raised in the same way as a baby because they are at the level of a five-year-old child. However, no one can give you a better advice for dog training than the one you can find inside of yourself, because love is a key part of everything.
(Source: furaj.ba)