By Penny & Ed Cherubino
There is a great difference in the lives of urban vs suburban or rural dogs. These differences could be considered positive or negative depending on your point of view. Each location requires a human companion to provide appropriate socialization, adaptation, and training for the particular dog.
Choosing a New City Dog
If you’re thinking about adding a canine companion to your city life, you should consider the dog’s size and temperament. We see all breeds, mixes, and sizes of dogs on our city walks. We see tiny dogs who are aggressive with both people and other dogs.
We’ve walked with Greyhounds who are couch potatoes at home. We had the pleasure of knowing a Mastiff who would lie down and let smaller dogs cuddle up after a play session. We see many medium-sized dogs in our area, so this might be the right answer for many adopters.
Many city homes are small, and we all know that city living is expensive. Think about the practical considerations of placing a large or small dog bed or crate. Recognize the cost of buying and the space needed to store food for a large dog vs. a small one. Once you know what type of dog that will fit your lifestyle, you can make that criterion part of your search.
Socialization and Adaptation
Urban environments are crowded, noisy places with distractions like construction, sirens, runners, other animals, broken glass, food on the ground, and other dangers along the way. In Boston, it is more a matter of whether a driver will run a red light than how many drivers will do so.
People and other dogs will approach you and your dog without permission, and you both have to be ready to deal with that, especially if your dog is reactive to any degree.
City dogs need alert and watchful guardians on walks. It’s up to you to spot the sidewalk dangers and lead your dog around them. It’s impossible to control a dog who is off-leash or on a long or retractable leash. We recommend a 6-foot training leash for any city walk. You can shorten it up when in a crowd, allow the dog some sniffing space in safe places, and walk with other dogs with fewer tangles.
Training is Key
Many aspects of city life require a bit of training for a dog to become comfortable with day-to-day activities. There is a specific Urban Canine Good Citizenship certificate you and your dog can earn that includes the particular skills required to be a well-behaved dog in a city.
Some of the requirements for passing this test include using and sharing stairs, elevators, common hallways, lobbies, and doors to the street with behavior and housetraining under control.
Your dog must also be able to walk on a busy sidewalk and cross streets politely without inappropriate response to distractions like sirens, horns, bikes, delivery trucks, etc. The test for using urban transportation, such as buses, subways, and cars, requires training for a dog. The most challenging test for our dog, Poppy, would be ignoring food on the sidewalk. She’s food-obsessed.
We‘ve shared our city life with three different dogs and can attest to the joy they have brought us. We have friends we’ve made through dogs, we can brighten the day of visitors and students who miss their dogs, and we get to share what we have learned over the years with you, our readers!