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Slightly off topic, but does anyone else have the impression that there bas been a general increase in just bad, poorly socialized, aggressive, or anxious dogs? Probably over 75% of the dogs in my dog-sphere (friends' dogs and neighborhood dogs that we see often) have some sort behavioral issues that makes me not want to spend time around them (the dogs). I could count the number of "actually good dogs" amply on one hand.
I don't remember it being this way in my childhood. But obvious issues with trying to compare today to my childhood memories.
I read recently that cats have been evolving to be less friendly to humans, at least in the West, because friendly pet cats are spayed or neutered, as are strays that are caught by people. The cats that are reproducing are strays unfriendly enough to avoid animal control. Seems plausible the same effect is occurring for dogs.
Unlike cats, where large stray populations feed into the pet population in the west, most pet dogs in America were deliberately bred.
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It seems like there’s notably more poorly behaved dogs these days than there were, but some of that is just dogs being tolerated more; a bad dog back in the day would have been sent to the shelter and modern day pet ‘parents’ are less willing to do this.
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There is a generation of dogs that are poorly socialized on account of covid lockdowns, or at least that is the explanation their owners give when I have asked them about it.
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