Gunpowder and dogs

Some folks feed gunpowder to dogs intending to make them fierce. What a waste of gunpowder. Actually what they’re shooting for is a good guard dog, but guard dogs are born, then trained; good guard dogs never explode into the role from lunching on gunpowder.

To create good guard dogs, expose them to different people, of different ages, with different styles of dressing. This exposure allows dogs to give less regard to appearance than to energy. They learn to distinguish the benign from the dangerous. They become well socialized, neither fearful or aggressive. You’ll never have a dog that makes your neighbors march on city hall to have the breed banned.

Perhaps the idea of feeding gunpowder arose because someone wanted a weapon, a cannon with fangs to fire at threats. Dogs just don’t make good guns; they are more natural as missile defense shields—peaceful most of the time, reactive when necessary, but not aggressively reactive.

We’ll cover why gunpowder is toxic and what to do if your dog eats it in a future blog. You’d be surprised to learn that firecrackers are even worse for dogs than gunpowder. …