How to become a cynologist and how to pick the right dog and the right breed for ourselves.

The word cynology means working with dogs and showing interest in dogs in every way.

It can mean training, breeding, exhibiting and treating dogs medically. 

Simply, it is a science about dogs.

There are a few reasons for the existence of cynology:

1. having a dog for fun and enjoying in having them
2. having a dog as a service/assistance dog for using it for some specific purpose (helping people with disabilities, protection of a property or personal protection, dog shows, breeding
3. having a dog as a part of a business (usually it involves breeding and selling puppies or training them for money).

After we decide to have a dog, we need to decide which breed we want. 

Now, I need to say something about the FCI (International Canine Federation). This is the biggest worldwide organization which presents all dog breeds and where we can find a list of the breeds standards and which  FCI group they belong to according to their characteristics and physical aspect. 

We should, but I am not saying we must, take into consideration whether a certain breed is adaptable to where we live in terms of weather conditions if we want to achieve the full capacity of one specific breed regarding its hair, color, size and temperament. We can’t expect to have some winter breed, a huge dog, with very rich and heavy hair (needed to protect the animal on very low temperatures) if our location is a hot country or to have short-hair dogs without under hair at some location with low temperatures. 

Actually, what people do is that they keep dogs this way but keep them in an air-conditioned room. This is also not a good thing but still, it is better than keeping a dog without under hair outside at below 0 degrees Celsius.   

Here, in this situation a dog such as a Newfoundlander should live in cold places because otherwise he would not achieve the full capacity of its breed (the size, color and very good and heavy under hair and hair).

The next thing you should consider is the actual place/home where the dog would live, the amount of time the dog would be alone at home and your lifestyle.

The size of a dog is not always the crucial thing when deciding if the dog would live inside or outside of a home. Of course, smaller dogs need less space but their “drive” is something what we must consider in the first place. Their “drive” is their wish for chasing something or having something. This means that a very active dog will destroy our house in only one day if it doesn’t have enough activities and if it is not trained and socialized. 

We can’t have a lazy dog and have an active lifestyle. On the other hand, we can’t have an active dog who needs activities constantly while we are not at home half of a day and then to think that when we come home it would be enough to offer the dog a 20-minute walk. Extremely active dogs need a few hours of activities daily, so if you like running or driving a bicycle, you would be the right owner for an active dog.   

Each breed has already established one unique temperament (“by the book”), or at least it should be like that but actually it is not.

Every single dog, even those belonging to the same breed, can have totally different temperament. 

On top of this, our dog needs to be socialized and trained for basic things and commands such as “no”, “sit”, “wait”, “come” and “place”.