Unleashing your Dog’s Inner Wild an Intuitive Take on Your Bond with Your Dog

By Shannon Cutts.

Tens of thousands of years ago, something happened that would change the world forever.

A truly wild creature made the decision to trust.

The wild creature was Canis lupus, the ancient ancestor of Canis lupus familiaris, the modern dog.

The partnership that was created in that moment has gone on to become the most enduringly powerful animal-human bond the world has ever seen.

Dogs serve us in ways that boggle the mind. In turn, we want to give them their best life. Where trouble can arise is when we mistake what we most value for what our dogs most value.

What do I mean by that?

In our human culture, our year is ruled by a series of so-called Hallmark holidays. And those holidays are ruled by spending. Does this affect our bond with our dog? Our own spending on pet products – to the tune of $150 billion per year – says yes.

But are the toys, treats, clothes, accessories, etc., really doing anything significant to enrich our dog’s life with us?

As an animal intuitive, the daily conversations I have with dogs around the world suggest otherwise.

This means if we are serious about giving our dogs their very best lives with us, we need to look elsewhere to discover what our canine companions truly want and crave.

Which brings up the next obvious question – where should we look?

Meet your dog’s inner WILD

To give our dog their actual best life with us (versus our human assumptions about the same), we need to take a look back – way back – to our dog’s wild roots.

Yes, underneath the skin of your adorable fluffy canine sidekick, there still lives a wild wolf.

How can I be so sure, when we humans have tinkered with wolf DNA to the point where many dogs look about as much like wolves as we do ourselves?

Evolutionary biology tells us that the long genetic march to today’s modern dogs began a jaw-dropping 50 million years ago. Biology also demonstrates that even our dog’s most recent ancestor, a now-extinct species of gray wolf, dates back to 30-40,000 years ago.

That is a lot of time for genes to set and instincts to form.

While we love our dogs to pieces and would do anything for them, the simple fact remains that we understand relatively little, genetically speaking, about why our dogs are the way they are, do what they do, want what they want and need what they need.

This is because the only way to discover this information is to do what I call “meeting your dog’s inner WILD.”

We have to look beyond what we think or assume will be fun or enriching or meaningful for our dogs to instead investigate what our dogs are genetically programmed to find fun or enriching or meaningful.

How to investigate your dog’s WILD needs

This is the point where your mind might naturally turn to Google or ChatGPT. This is a good start!

You can actually learn a lot about how what I call your WILD dog would live, if he or she was still living the life of a wild dog.

It can also be enlightening to explore areas of the world where actual wild dogs still exist (there are surprisingly many more species than you might expect!) and examine the flow of their daily lives.

Here, where I guide my pet parents and students is to take a look at a wild wolf (or true wild dog) in all their various phases of life and temperament traits that are most prominent during each, plus aspects such as seasonal life changes, gender roles, family life, pack roles.

Looking deeper into your WILD dog

Earlier I referenced how astoundingly much we humans have tinkered with the original prototype DNA of the wild wolf. Short legs, long coats, stub tails, snub noses – those are just the most obvious choices we’ve made through selective breeding.

But there are also deeper temperament changes we’ve sought to alter.

Consider this – from one ancient gray wolf ancestor, we have crafted literally hundreds of dog breeds of all shapes, sizes, temperaments and talents.

From dogs bred to fight badgers in their burrows (the dachshund) to dogs bred to parachute into active combat zones and fight alongside humans (the Belgian Malinois), these deliberate genetic alterations also absolutely play into the types of enrichment your particular dog will value most.

Here, where I guide my pet parents and students to start is to explore the history of their dog’s specific breed line(s). For mixed breed dogs, a genetic test can really help here by giving you a place to start.

Taking our dachshund example here earlier, we can also look at how, in many dog breeds today, there are two lines: a “show” and a “working” genetic lineage. Dogs bred to be shown tend to have a different conformation and temperament than dogs bred to do specific jobs.

So here again, we must look to the story and history of your dog’s specific genes to identify what is going to be most rewarding and enriching for them.

What to do with what you learn about your WILD dog

What your WILD dog most craves (aside from dedicated time with you!) are the activities and routines bred into their DNA – what I call their “wild hobbies.”

These activities and routines might seem mundane or even meaningless to our first world modern human eyes.

But to your dog’s inner WILD genes, the craving for certain types of food and feeding experiences, family and community life, activities and play (games), roles and jobs, even daily life schedules, runs so deep the two cannot be separated.

Even small tweaks in your dog’s daily routine, including meals, exercise, activities, friendships, responsibilities within the “pack” (you and any other family members), freedom to roam or explore, mean more than all the toys, treats and accessories money can buy.

But don’t take my word for it. Do some digging (metaphorically and maybe literally!), see what you learn and put it into action in your dog’s life and see the difference for yourself.

Shannon Cutts is a professional animal intuitive and animal communication teacher with Animal Love Languages. Teaching pet parents to use their intuition is one of the most rewarding parts of her work. Want to explore your dog’s inner WILD more deeply? Register for 28 Days of Intuitive Pet Parenting: https://www.animallovelanguages.com/28daysipp