This is my dog. She’s 5, very silly, and a very good girl. My wife and I adopted her when she was just 8 months old, so she’s been a part of the family for a while, and as I was walking her a few days ago, I realised that she’s made me a better prepper in quite a few ways over the years.
Some of them are obvious, some less so, but they’re all useful and they’ve all made me more prepared – so here they are.
How Getting A Dog Made Me A Better UK Prepper
Learning Dog Behaviour, Body Language And Handling Is Extremely Useful All On Its Own
Dogs can be quite intimidating or frightening animals, especially to people who don’t know them. Having one has meant that I’ve learned their body language, behaviour and quirks without really meaning to – not just from my dog, but from the hundreds of others that she’s played with, run from, fought with and gotten into cahoots with over the years.
When you’ve got a dog, you learn not just how to care for them, but what they’re communicating, how to handle different situations with them, how to interact with one that you don’t know, how to tell when they’re scared, or stressed, or becoming aggressive, or preparing to defend themselves… and what that will look like.
It’s a soft skill set, and one that you don’t see much on survivalist skills lists, but I’m listing it here: being confident around dogs, knowing them and being able to connect with and predict them (as much as you can predict an animal, anyway) – these are all really valuable life skills in normal life and in disaster.
Your Situational Awareness Naturally Improves
My dog is not the friendliest to other dogs. She likes them just fine, but that’s as far as it goes: she’s much more of a people person. What she does not like is a dog who will try to be dominant, or one who will steal a tennis ball, and so my ability to scan the treeline for potential troublemakers has shot up since we started walking together.
I do it now even when I’m out on my own – constantly flicking my eyes through the trees, into the mid-distance, across grass and into any possible cover, just idly checking for dogs, people, or chaseable hazards like cats and squirrels, or people out with a small child who I’ll want to avoid bothering – no-one walking with their two-year-old wants to see a dog barrelling at them, even if she is extremely friendly.
It’s something I don’t even really think about any more, and from a survival point of view, it’s hard to see it as a bad thing. That sort of constant checking for possible threats or disruptions could one day be vital, and I’m glad I’m making it a habit now.
You Learn A Lot About Your Neighbourhood
Walking a dog every day gives you plenty of opportunities to learn the areas around your house (particularly the ones that lead to parks) and comes with an unusual extra edge – the dog themselves. There are houses near me with large, territorial dogs and pretty unreliable-looking fences, and I might never have known that if I hadn’t walked past with my own dog.
There’s a guy a street away who doesn’t make any effort to control his aggressive dog while they’re out, and who is perfectly happy to square up to a stranger if that stranger doesn’t like it. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been that stranger, and this volatile neighbour would have continued to fly under the radar.
You spot good things, too – not just bad ones. I didn’t realise there were so many patches of publically-accessible green space within a 5-minute walk of my house, and now I don’t just know where they are, but I’ve had years of regular visits to each of them to get to know the plant life there, the wildlife, whether it gets waterlogged, whether it’s sheltered from the wind… daily habits can make for amazing opportunities to get to know a place, and that’s a useful knowledge to have.
Finally, it even allows you to experiment with your own everyday-carry stuff: my coat and its contents look quite different now to when I first got my dog all those years ago. It’s a better, hardier, more resilient coat, with better storage possibilities, and a good wool hat and a pair of gloves hidden away in pockets that allow me to adapt better to changeable weather. Would I have gotten around to doing that otherwise? Maybe, but I’m not so sure.
You Walk A Lot
Wow Dan, I hear you say, what incredible insight. There are real advantages to having an animal around that needs to be walked every day, though. For one, your cardio and joint health get a little boost, you are forced to get out into nature at least once a day, and you get some time away from a screen where you can get your head together, and those are all worth it all on their own.
Even when work or family life completely overwhelms me and I’m not able to run, or shoot, or get to the gym – the dog still needs to be walked. It’s my time out in the elements, making sure that at least some baseline of fitness and outdoors activity is kept up.
Plus, because both I and my dog tend to get bored quickly, we also seek out a change of scene every now and again, learning the footpaths, roads and green spaces in all directions from our home base as we do so.
I Can Throw Now, And I Was Rubbish Before
Really, really rubbish. It might shock you to discover this, but I was a very nerdy, pale child.
Most of us won’t wind up in disaster situations where we’ll be throwing tennis-ball-sized “objects” at groups of marauders, but we might wind up needing to throw someone a rope or a life-ring, and if that happens, I’ll be glad of a little practice.
All I know is that I couldn’t throw to save my life before, and now, 5 years down the line, I’ve got a much better arm. It’s hard not to improve when you’re throwing a ball 50 or 100 times, every single day, for five years.
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They also make a very good deterrent for naughty burglars, as very few will carry on a burglary if a dog starts barking.
A good tip for non owners is to leave a dogs bowl and a few toys outside the house :-)