I have a Norwegian elkhound and a) never considered crating him, or b) thought about having him neutered. Ultimately a dog's behaviour is down to how their human trained them. Initially people were surprised that we would have a proper hunting dog in London but it is one of the dog-friendlist cities I know, full of parks where dogs an run off lead and public transport where every so often a kind animal lover gives up their seat for your pet!
Your Norwegian elkhound is very lucky to have you. Never been to London, but this is the impression I got from continental Europe too - that it is just easier and more relaxed to have a dog, and have him fully participate in the family’s life and be out and about with you.
I'm lucky to have him! Didn't know that dog neutering was illegal in Norway so that is interesting. Surprisingly Scandinavians are a little less dog friendly about sharing their space with canines - dogs have to travel in a separate carriage on trains and the underground, makes for quite the train journey when they are all sat together 😄
The dog carriages are exotic and odd given that they protect animal’s rights more than others (the neutering). For some reason the first picture that popped into my mind is all the dogs sitting there quietly without their owners,
like they were about to see a play.
Mine used to love riding the tram in Moscow - they have full length glass doors, so she could watch as she rode.
Just working on another story of Mr. Watson’s Sidewalk Diaries.
He travels with us around the world. Sometimes I write about the world from his perspective down below. It’s fun.
And yes, the veterinary business in the US is nuts. I had to pay $380 in NY last year for a deworming treatment and certification that was required to fly back home to Belgium via Oslo. The vet didn’t even want to put the pill in his mouth because he didn’t know the dog…
Mr. Watson is a very chic gentleman, I will follow his adventures. Can he travel in the cabin? Mine can’t because of size/weight, unfortunately. But we do take her everywhere on our local adventures in nature here, travelling by car.
The veterinary side of things here doesn’t seize to amaze me – for instance typical dewormers/preventives like NexGard Spectra by Boehringer Ingelheim, one if not the best on market (with milbemycin oxime, against heartworm and other things), that is available everywhere, including Moscow, isn’t allowed here! I order mine from Canada or Australia. The prices for any services are absolutely insane. I know that France for instance, or Germany have affordable vet prices. My experience in Belgium was decades ago, many things must have changed, but it was great quality and very reasonable then, no issues.
Mr Watson is a small but very muscular Jack Russell. He fits in the cabin, but we put him on a diet to keep him at 7,2 KG maximum. His carrier weighs 0,7 KG, so we got about 100 grams margin + his charm and seduction nous at the check in 🤣
He travels very well. His record is 20 hours between Brussels and Montevideo in Uruguay without a single drop. We had planned to take him out during the connection in Madrid, but the plane was delayed and we had to rush to make our connection.
He was on 3 legs for about 2 minutes outside the Montevideo airport...
Vets are not cheap in Brussels, but still doable. We generally pay about 80€ for his yearly check and vaccines. I prepare the Health Certificate for the vet when we travel, so he has just to do a check and put his name, stamp and signature on it.
Impressed by the surgical precision of the calculations and Mr. Watson’s consistent fitness! Also very touching about his manners and the flight.
Mine is on the thin end for her breed, but even as a teenager of 9 kg unfortunately couldn’t make the cabin standards (also height). Now she’s 11 kg of muscular meteor.
80 EUR sounds great. My last checkup and vaccines came up to over $400.
Great read! I also got my first puppy as an adult mid 2020 and found this very insightful and very relatable. Except I've brought home two more dogs since then, lol, and am now deep in the sport dog training game. The bills are insane but they're my world :)
Also - as someone who has seen and trained a lot of dogs at this point I wanted to provide a perhaps new perspective for you to consider re: crate training, though I appreciate the good intentions behind your aversion to it and I 100% agree with your point that crate training does not have anything to do with potty training. I always recommend crate training for the dog's safety and benefit. Even if you don't crate your dogs at home - I rarely do - they will almost certainly encounter a crate at some point in their life, either at the vet or, in your case, in the cargo hold of a plane. In my opinion it's unfair to the dog to suddenly stick them in a cage when these situations arise and expect them to be okay with it, so I make sure to build a positive association with the crate with my puppies. Some dogs are totally fine with being crated without any training, but for many dogs (typically more neurotic, high-energy types) crating results in panic and confusion if you didn't take the time to properly acquaint them with the thing. I've also seen more than enough videos of dogs settling down to chew a cable or laptop charger or the like while their owners aren't home. Unfortunately these dogs are living in our world, not the other way around, so it's the owner's responsibility to set their dog/puppy up somewhere they can't potentially get hurt. For some households the best option here is a crate until the dog/puppy learns what is ok/not ok to do in the house (I've seen dogs climb over the walls of pens; some houses don't have the space to create a puppy-proofed room; etc.). And I personally crate my dogs when they travel in the car. They settle right to sleep and it gives me peace of mind knowing they're safe in these crash-tested crates in the event of an accident.
No one should be locking their dogs in their crates for more than 3 hours a day (the EFSA article you linked recommends against permanent crating of animals, which I wish was so obvious as to not need to be said). Crating is definitely abused for owner convenience in America. Once the dog understands the concept owners should be doing their most to crate their dogs as little as possible - this thinking is more in line with the European regulations you linked. I just wish people on both sides of the pro- and anti-crate line understood the nuance of it a little more.
Anyway, your girl seems very happy, healthy, and well-traveled, and you sound like a great owner. Thanks for sharing. xx
Michelle, thank you for your nuanced perspective! I completely agree that it is cruel to the dog to suddenly stick them in a cage, and they should be introduced beforehand. In my case, I took a couple of weeks to have it standing around in the house, have her go in there to fetch her toys or treats, so it wouldn’t be new, would smell of her and not be as terrifying when she needs to fly in it. For show or sport dogs, agree and respect that this is a part of travel and participating in the activities. I don’t mean to say that I want to impose my way on everyone, just that I was shocked at how aggressively it was preached by the adoption people as the only way - that regular pet dogs absolutely must be crated. I’ve heard people say their dogs are crated when they are at work, and only let out by a dogwalker and then put back in. This is heartbreaking and no way for an animal to live, I think.
In regard to destruction in the house, I think locking them away doesn’t teach anything but rather denies contact, and the same problem will arise once they are in contact with the environment that is problematic. Mine had significant separation anxiety, I worked on this by having her adequately exercised/walked before I leave, having enough stimulants such as chewy toys around for her, and locking away anything that could be tempting such as leather sandals invitingly lying around in the open. The special toys helped like those shaggy mats you can hide treats in, or kongs with frozen farmers cheese and so on, so she's mentally stimulated and can switch her attentions elsewhere to take the initial surge of stress off. I understand that not everyone has the luxury to work from home and be present for active training in the beginning, but I think this needs to be considered as an important part of getting the dog.
In the car I restrain mine with a short belt that connects from her harness to the seatbelt latch, so she’s secured enough as not to fly around the car in case of any turbulence, but perhaps this isn’t as comprehensive in terms of protection as a crate.
Although I do disagree about the off-leashing of dogs in urban public areas. If you're in the woods, or a large mostly empty park (with fences or slow adjacent roads), sure, but the risk of off-leashing a dog in one of these tiny parks that are like 10 x 10 meter patches of grass in NYC and them carelessly running into traffic and becoming a taxi pancake are too high.
Not to mention all of the dangerous dog breeds in the US, we absolutely can't be letting people with Staffordshire terriers free range their dogs in the streets if they could harm children or other animals for example.
Thank you! Agree with your point about tiny city “parks” and dangerous breeds 100% I did notice a lot of extreme dogs like the Staffordshire terriers, I wonder why. I wouldn’t have one in the house even if I had no kids, let alone with children, too unpredictable. In Moscow in the 1990s there was a period when there were a lot of these, Rotweillers too, but not for a long time now. I don’t think I’ve seen one there for decades (Staffordshires, bull terriers etc)
I don’t believe in routine crate usage. I had no issue adopting dogs from a shelter. Intrigued by the notion of not fixing. But I absolutely want all dogs leashed for safety. I have had enough of my dogs being attacked.
Maybe the adoption issue was specific to the NYC area at the time.
I’m sorry your dogs were attacked. Absolutely agree that unsocialized, untrained dogs shouldn’t ever be off leash. In the post I meant breeds and dogs that are not aggressive, and under proper recall.
We recently got a puppy in Germany, and I have to say that was not less of a hustle than what you describe. We had to get her from Poland in the end, and even that resulted in unwanted bureaucracy.
Congrats!! What kind? Please enlighten re: hassle. We have friends who moved to Berlin with a dog several years ago and they've had the most positive experience, the dog prances around everywhere (and still has his balls).
We also brought ours from Israel, and that was surprisingly easy and fast. Unfortunately, he died last March. In the summer we started looking for a new one; we started just as you describe, with a shelter, but very similarly didn't pass the interviews. Then we decided to buy one, and the breed we picked turned out pretty rare. We found some breeders near us, but they also gave us the third degree (and also nobody speaks English, but that's expected) and in the end, after endless questions, declined.
In the end, we found a breeder in Poland, and after the first email, we were on the list. The puppy was born in September, and we got her in early January. We recently got a very scary-sounding mail from the local authorities about the origin of the dog (she is already registered and insured, of course). This situation is still unfolding :)
She's a eurasier, it's a mix between a samoyed, a wolfspitz and a chow-chow.
The breed looks beautiful and what a serious mix! Pics online look like it’s a боевая лисица, love it. I like how they give the puppies out at four months old (more time with mom), I was really surprised how here it’s at only 2 months. She is probably very smart and will love snow.
“Origin of the dog” sounds menacing for sure, good luck with the bureaucracy!
Yeah, it sucks. It was pancreatic cancer, and he was gone within a week.
She's great. We chose this breed because we wanted someone large and fluffy, but not too energetic, so she would feel ok in a small-ish apartment, basically a couch potato. So, it was between an eurasier and a bernese sennenhund, but the latter has an unfortunate life expectancy of only 8 years...
She is crazy about snow. We had a snowstorm in the beginning of last week, and for the last ten days she ate a year's worth, i think :)
Thanks, we'll see how it goes. We have a lawyer friend, she helped us a lot.
I know it’s no consolation, but at least he didn’t suffer long. With my first dog, it was her liver and it took a while, by the end she couldn’t stand, it felt sadistic to prolong the suffering.
I read about how the bigger, the less they live, that sucks. I’ve had a low-grade fascination with borzois my entire life and still think I’ll own one one day, but it bothers me that they don’t get too many years.
Mine is snow-obsessed too. She burrows through it even if it’s taller than her.
It’s crazy that you need a lawyer even for dog stuff. “Show me your papers!” era for all
I have a Norwegian elkhound and a) never considered crating him, or b) thought about having him neutered. Ultimately a dog's behaviour is down to how their human trained them. Initially people were surprised that we would have a proper hunting dog in London but it is one of the dog-friendlist cities I know, full of parks where dogs an run off lead and public transport where every so often a kind animal lover gives up their seat for your pet!
Your Norwegian elkhound is very lucky to have you. Never been to London, but this is the impression I got from continental Europe too - that it is just easier and more relaxed to have a dog, and have him fully participate in the family’s life and be out and about with you.
I'm lucky to have him! Didn't know that dog neutering was illegal in Norway so that is interesting. Surprisingly Scandinavians are a little less dog friendly about sharing their space with canines - dogs have to travel in a separate carriage on trains and the underground, makes for quite the train journey when they are all sat together 😄
The dog carriages are exotic and odd given that they protect animal’s rights more than others (the neutering). For some reason the first picture that popped into my mind is all the dogs sitting there quietly without their owners,
like they were about to see a play.
Mine used to love riding the tram in Moscow - they have full length glass doors, so she could watch as she rode.
Great read and great dog!
Just working on another story of Mr. Watson’s Sidewalk Diaries.
He travels with us around the world. Sometimes I write about the world from his perspective down below. It’s fun.
And yes, the veterinary business in the US is nuts. I had to pay $380 in NY last year for a deworming treatment and certification that was required to fly back home to Belgium via Oslo. The vet didn’t even want to put the pill in his mouth because he didn’t know the dog…
Mr Watson at the pool in Lakeland, FL last year.
Thank you!
Mr. Watson is a very chic gentleman, I will follow his adventures. Can he travel in the cabin? Mine can’t because of size/weight, unfortunately. But we do take her everywhere on our local adventures in nature here, travelling by car.
The veterinary side of things here doesn’t seize to amaze me – for instance typical dewormers/preventives like NexGard Spectra by Boehringer Ingelheim, one if not the best on market (with milbemycin oxime, against heartworm and other things), that is available everywhere, including Moscow, isn’t allowed here! I order mine from Canada or Australia. The prices for any services are absolutely insane. I know that France for instance, or Germany have affordable vet prices. My experience in Belgium was decades ago, many things must have changed, but it was great quality and very reasonable then, no issues.
Mr Watson is a small but very muscular Jack Russell. He fits in the cabin, but we put him on a diet to keep him at 7,2 KG maximum. His carrier weighs 0,7 KG, so we got about 100 grams margin + his charm and seduction nous at the check in 🤣
He travels very well. His record is 20 hours between Brussels and Montevideo in Uruguay without a single drop. We had planned to take him out during the connection in Madrid, but the plane was delayed and we had to rush to make our connection.
He was on 3 legs for about 2 minutes outside the Montevideo airport...
Vets are not cheap in Brussels, but still doable. We generally pay about 80€ for his yearly check and vaccines. I prepare the Health Certificate for the vet when we travel, so he has just to do a check and put his name, stamp and signature on it.
Impressed by the surgical precision of the calculations and Mr. Watson’s consistent fitness! Also very touching about his manners and the flight.
Mine is on the thin end for her breed, but even as a teenager of 9 kg unfortunately couldn’t make the cabin standards (also height). Now she’s 11 kg of muscular meteor.
80 EUR sounds great. My last checkup and vaccines came up to over $400.
Great read! I also got my first puppy as an adult mid 2020 and found this very insightful and very relatable. Except I've brought home two more dogs since then, lol, and am now deep in the sport dog training game. The bills are insane but they're my world :)
Also - as someone who has seen and trained a lot of dogs at this point I wanted to provide a perhaps new perspective for you to consider re: crate training, though I appreciate the good intentions behind your aversion to it and I 100% agree with your point that crate training does not have anything to do with potty training. I always recommend crate training for the dog's safety and benefit. Even if you don't crate your dogs at home - I rarely do - they will almost certainly encounter a crate at some point in their life, either at the vet or, in your case, in the cargo hold of a plane. In my opinion it's unfair to the dog to suddenly stick them in a cage when these situations arise and expect them to be okay with it, so I make sure to build a positive association with the crate with my puppies. Some dogs are totally fine with being crated without any training, but for many dogs (typically more neurotic, high-energy types) crating results in panic and confusion if you didn't take the time to properly acquaint them with the thing. I've also seen more than enough videos of dogs settling down to chew a cable or laptop charger or the like while their owners aren't home. Unfortunately these dogs are living in our world, not the other way around, so it's the owner's responsibility to set their dog/puppy up somewhere they can't potentially get hurt. For some households the best option here is a crate until the dog/puppy learns what is ok/not ok to do in the house (I've seen dogs climb over the walls of pens; some houses don't have the space to create a puppy-proofed room; etc.). And I personally crate my dogs when they travel in the car. They settle right to sleep and it gives me peace of mind knowing they're safe in these crash-tested crates in the event of an accident.
No one should be locking their dogs in their crates for more than 3 hours a day (the EFSA article you linked recommends against permanent crating of animals, which I wish was so obvious as to not need to be said). Crating is definitely abused for owner convenience in America. Once the dog understands the concept owners should be doing their most to crate their dogs as little as possible - this thinking is more in line with the European regulations you linked. I just wish people on both sides of the pro- and anti-crate line understood the nuance of it a little more.
Anyway, your girl seems very happy, healthy, and well-traveled, and you sound like a great owner. Thanks for sharing. xx
Michelle, thank you for your nuanced perspective! I completely agree that it is cruel to the dog to suddenly stick them in a cage, and they should be introduced beforehand. In my case, I took a couple of weeks to have it standing around in the house, have her go in there to fetch her toys or treats, so it wouldn’t be new, would smell of her and not be as terrifying when she needs to fly in it. For show or sport dogs, agree and respect that this is a part of travel and participating in the activities. I don’t mean to say that I want to impose my way on everyone, just that I was shocked at how aggressively it was preached by the adoption people as the only way - that regular pet dogs absolutely must be crated. I’ve heard people say their dogs are crated when they are at work, and only let out by a dogwalker and then put back in. This is heartbreaking and no way for an animal to live, I think.
In regard to destruction in the house, I think locking them away doesn’t teach anything but rather denies contact, and the same problem will arise once they are in contact with the environment that is problematic. Mine had significant separation anxiety, I worked on this by having her adequately exercised/walked before I leave, having enough stimulants such as chewy toys around for her, and locking away anything that could be tempting such as leather sandals invitingly lying around in the open. The special toys helped like those shaggy mats you can hide treats in, or kongs with frozen farmers cheese and so on, so she's mentally stimulated and can switch her attentions elsewhere to take the initial surge of stress off. I understand that not everyone has the luxury to work from home and be present for active training in the beginning, but I think this needs to be considered as an important part of getting the dog.
In the car I restrain mine with a short belt that connects from her harness to the seatbelt latch, so she’s secured enough as not to fly around the car in case of any turbulence, but perhaps this isn’t as comprehensive in terms of protection as a crate.
All great points and sounds like good training on your end!
Lovely article.
Although I do disagree about the off-leashing of dogs in urban public areas. If you're in the woods, or a large mostly empty park (with fences or slow adjacent roads), sure, but the risk of off-leashing a dog in one of these tiny parks that are like 10 x 10 meter patches of grass in NYC and them carelessly running into traffic and becoming a taxi pancake are too high.
Not to mention all of the dangerous dog breeds in the US, we absolutely can't be letting people with Staffordshire terriers free range their dogs in the streets if they could harm children or other animals for example.
Thank you! Agree with your point about tiny city “parks” and dangerous breeds 100% I did notice a lot of extreme dogs like the Staffordshire terriers, I wonder why. I wouldn’t have one in the house even if I had no kids, let alone with children, too unpredictable. In Moscow in the 1990s there was a period when there were a lot of these, Rotweillers too, but not for a long time now. I don’t think I’ve seen one there for decades (Staffordshires, bull terriers etc)
I don’t believe in routine crate usage. I had no issue adopting dogs from a shelter. Intrigued by the notion of not fixing. But I absolutely want all dogs leashed for safety. I have had enough of my dogs being attacked.
Maybe the adoption issue was specific to the NYC area at the time.
I’m sorry your dogs were attacked. Absolutely agree that unsocialized, untrained dogs shouldn’t ever be off leash. In the post I meant breeds and dogs that are not aggressive, and under proper recall.
We recently got a puppy in Germany, and I have to say that was not less of a hustle than what you describe. We had to get her from Poland in the end, and even that resulted in unwanted bureaucracy.
Congrats!! What kind? Please enlighten re: hassle. We have friends who moved to Berlin with a dog several years ago and they've had the most positive experience, the dog prances around everywhere (and still has his balls).
We also brought ours from Israel, and that was surprisingly easy and fast. Unfortunately, he died last March. In the summer we started looking for a new one; we started just as you describe, with a shelter, but very similarly didn't pass the interviews. Then we decided to buy one, and the breed we picked turned out pretty rare. We found some breeders near us, but they also gave us the third degree (and also nobody speaks English, but that's expected) and in the end, after endless questions, declined.
In the end, we found a breeder in Poland, and after the first email, we were on the list. The puppy was born in September, and we got her in early January. We recently got a very scary-sounding mail from the local authorities about the origin of the dog (she is already registered and insured, of course). This situation is still unfolding :)
She's a eurasier, it's a mix between a samoyed, a wolfspitz and a chow-chow.
Deepest, deepest condolences! It hurts like hell.
The breed looks beautiful and what a serious mix! Pics online look like it’s a боевая лисица, love it. I like how they give the puppies out at four months old (more time with mom), I was really surprised how here it’s at only 2 months. She is probably very smart and will love snow.
“Origin of the dog” sounds menacing for sure, good luck with the bureaucracy!
Yeah, it sucks. It was pancreatic cancer, and he was gone within a week.
She's great. We chose this breed because we wanted someone large and fluffy, but not too energetic, so she would feel ok in a small-ish apartment, basically a couch potato. So, it was between an eurasier and a bernese sennenhund, but the latter has an unfortunate life expectancy of only 8 years...
She is crazy about snow. We had a snowstorm in the beginning of last week, and for the last ten days she ate a year's worth, i think :)
Thanks, we'll see how it goes. We have a lawyer friend, she helped us a lot.
I know it’s no consolation, but at least he didn’t suffer long. With my first dog, it was her liver and it took a while, by the end she couldn’t stand, it felt sadistic to prolong the suffering.
I read about how the bigger, the less they live, that sucks. I’ve had a low-grade fascination with borzois my entire life and still think I’ll own one one day, but it bothers me that they don’t get too many years.
Mine is snow-obsessed too. She burrows through it even if it’s taller than her.
It’s crazy that you need a lawyer even for dog stuff. “Show me your papers!” era for all
I guess so. We tried to make it easier for him.
In Germany, it's recommended to have a lawyer for everything. It's a very litigious country.