March 20, 2024 • 25 mins
This week’s question is about using temperament testing to help match puppies with owners: Temperament Testing: I have someone interested in our litter and training the pup for a potential therapy dog.
They want to train him to do deep pressure therapy for her anxiety.
She grew up helping train hunting dogs and they have trained rescues, so I know she can do this if we get her a good match.
So how do you find someone to do temperament testing?
In this episode I explore:
- The origins, benefits and limits of puppy assessment tests
- How to use the information gained through the tests
- How to find a good puppy tester
Visit our website, madcapradio.com for further reading.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
and this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
Well, today's topic is onethat comes up all the time.
(00:23):
Temperamenttesting for puppies to help breeders
make better placements for their puppies.
So here'sthe question: Temperament Testing.
I have someone interested in our litter
and training their pupfor a potential therapy dog.
They want to train him to do deep pressure
(00:45):
therapy for her anxiety.
She grew up helping training, hunting dogsand they've trained rescues.
So I know she can do thisif we get her a good match.
So how do you find someone to dotemperament testing?
I talked tosomeone who was recommended to me,
(01:06):
but when I asked to set an appointmentand for details,
she said she would, quote, teach me toevaluate my own puppies, unquote.
Which means we aren't talkingthe same language.
Based on what I know from Puppy Culture.
And she
said she would come outbetween five and six weeks,
which seems early.
(01:29):
Okay.
There's just so much in this.
But let me start breaking it down and
let's just start
with reviewing what we havein Puppy Culture on puppy
testing.
(01:50):
If you have not seen PuppyCulture already, we do cover it.
Go to puppyculture.com,check out the original Puppy Culture film.
We talk a lot about puppy testing.
But let me summarize.
Running puppies through paces
(02:10):
with a novel person in a novel environment
gives you some insight into where
those puppies are at that time.
Okay, so it's a snapshot in time.
It's not necessarily predictive
of adult temperament at all.
In fact, probably not.
(02:32):
Probably not going to be at all helpfulfor what this querent is asking for,
which is to predictwhich puppy will be best suited
to be a deep pressure therapy dog.
Now, the predictive
value of puppy testing has been studied
(02:53):
and has been uniformlyfound to have little
to no predictive value.
The one
personality dimension
that apparently does track
from puppy testing to adulthoodis exploratory behavior.
(03:14):
Now, I'm going to say right here,I've written an article on this.
It's in Madcap University.
If you go to the resources section,
I did do an article on puppy testing
and it's called Shifting Your Lensfor Better Results.
So you can get all the citationsto all the studies.
But trust me, this has been studied.
(03:36):
Puppy testingnot predictive of adult temperament
in any reliable fashion.
But what is very predictive of adulttemperament
is how the puppy is raisedin the first year of life.
And when you look at the most important
(03:58):
personality dimensionfor a pet owner or a therapy
dog, it's lack of aggression
and a puppy being frightened
by a person or a dog
in the first year of life
has been to have a high correlationwith later
(04:21):
human and dog aggression.
So what does that tell you?
That your focus
should be on empowering your puppy ownersto protect their puppies?
Keep your puppy ownersfrom making mistakes with their puppies.
Do not allow puppies to have a badexperience in the first year of life.
(04:43):
That ultimately is going to bea lot more predictive of adult temperament
in the most important sense,which is lack of aggression
than any puppy testing.
Okay,
now that I've laid that out,why do we even do puppy testing?
Well, it is helpful.
(05:04):
It's very helpful to know where thosepuppies are before they leave your house.
We do puppy testing at seven weeks old
and we're going to discuss that moreabout what age you should do it at.
We do puppy testing at seven weeks oldand that gives me
three more weeks because I normally placepuppies at ten weeks old.
(05:28):
That gives me three more weekswith those puppies
to work on whatever I feel needs work.
If the puppies are
a little funny about a novel environmentor a novel person,
I know, I have to double up on that.
If the puppies, let's say,have a little bit too much drive on the
on the toy drive.
(05:48):
I know I have to work ona little impulse control with that.
I can
get myself a game planfor those last three weeks
based on what I see in that puppy test.
Now, you also may be ableto identify outliers, but sometimes not.
(06:10):
I definitely have had puppies,entire litters, in fact,
that really couldn't even be tested,that they went for the puppy test
and they were terrified and wouldn't doanything and wouldn't do any of the tests.
And all of those puppiesturned out to be outstanding dogs.
(06:31):
Again,we're going to come back to the age thing.
I think some of thatmight have had to do with them
perhaps being in a little bitof an early fear period.
But sometimes you can identify
true outliers, puppies that are just likeso unbelievably pathologically sensitive.
But in my experience, it's very rarethat you're going
to identify them with the puppy test.
(06:55):
Another utility,
I would say, of puppy testing as a breeder
is to see overall trends.
I'll give you a for instance,
I would bring my puppies always atseven weeks old for puppy testing
and I had certain expectations thatthey would walk right in like they own
(07:18):
the place, nail everything, not be overlyaroused, be very friendly to strangers,
not be put off by any kind of sound,be curious by all the startling things.
And this was my expectation.
And then I used a dog from England,
and this was at a
time whenyou could do a true outcross still,
(07:41):
because the importation of semenwas not as ubiquitous as it is now.
Our world gene pool has become very
homogenousbecause of the ready availability
of semen from all over the world.
But at this time it was a true outcross.
So there was nothing relatedbetween the dam and the sire.
(08:03):
And my first litter out of
that was astounding.
They were terrified.
They were so sound sensitive.
It was a completely different worldthan I'd ever been in.
And ever since I have added
those genetics into my line,I have noticed that overall,
(08:26):
my puppies are softer and requiremore early socialization
because they are a little more fearfulthan my puppies previously were.
Okay, well,
not to sidebar too much,but let me just say you may be wondering,
well, whywhy didn't you just discard that line
(08:48):
like once you did that breedingand you had those puppies
that were so soft,why did you continue down that line?
And the reason is that the reasonI brought in those genetics was because
I had dogs that were extremely boldand very forward and friendly with people.
But, you know, I had some sharpness withother dogs and I really didn't want that.
(09:08):
I wanted something a little softer.
So breeding it's a bell curve, okay?
You can't just cherry pickthe one trait that you want,
which is maybe being a little softerand a little
more docileand not get a little bit more fearful.
It comes with the territory.
So moving on,because that's another podcast.
(09:29):
My point ultimately is that as a breeder,I've seen a trend,
a trend over many litters of softnessthat I've made adjustments
for in my socialization programthat has had a good outcome.
So puppy testing for meas a breeder is an invaluable resource,
(09:51):
but as a breeder, as a placement tool,
it is virtually useless in my experience.
So let me circleback to the original poster's questions.
And one of one of the things she saidwas that the puppy tester
was going to teach meto evaluate my own puppies,
(10:14):
and she felt that wasn'tthat wasn't what she was looking for.
That wasn'twhat we prescribe in Puppy Culture now.
I do think
there's room for both things.
I do think that taking
your puppies offpremises with a novel person
and putting them through their pacesis extremely helpful,
(10:36):
as I've mentioned, as a breeder,so I know what I need to work on
so there's that,which is not what this tester
apparently is is going to do.
However, I do think that this breeder
is in the best position of anyone
to choose this puppy,
(10:58):
and I don't know the details,but potentially,
if this were a personwho was very well versed
in service dog placements,
potentially this person
could help this breeder identifythe specific traits
that she should be looking forwhen making these placements.
(11:24):
So let's break this down.
What exactly
is going to be expected of this dog?
If I were you,
I would list out the exact behaviors.
So deep pressure therapy.
I'm not a service dog person.
I'm not familiar with it.
(11:44):
But I looked it up on the Internetand quick over quick,
this is what I came up with.
The dog has to lie on top of a person,
rest their head, either
on the person's chest or shoulders or arm.
So it's literallyputting pressure on the person.
(12:05):
They have to either do this on cue
and or do it in responseto changes in heartbeat
or respiration.
Putting aside
the fact that puppy temperament
does not necessarily trackwith adult temperament
(12:26):
as a breeder,
you already know which puppy is probably
going to be the best, at leastthe day that that puppy goes home.
You know which puppy is going to bethe best at doing those things?
You know which puppy is most likelyto crawl on top of you?
Which puppy is the most checked into you and your emotions?
(12:51):
That's not something that's going to change or be identifiable by a puppy tester.
I'll also say
you cannot discount the chemistrybetween the puppy owner and the puppy.
I have definitely had puppiesthat were super checked in to me
and other people and I made a plan
(13:12):
to place them with a particular family.
And when that family showed upto meet the puppy for the first time,
the puppy didn't really like themor connect with them.
I changed my placement plansfor those puppies because of that.
Certainly puppies can be
more attractedto their breeders than new people
(13:35):
because they have such a history
with their breeders,especially if you're doing Puppy Culture,
you're working with those puppies,you're training
those puppies,those puppies are checked in to you.
You're really connectedemotionally with those puppies.
But when you have a puppythat seems attracted to people in general,
but not the specific peoplewho you've intended
(13:56):
to place the puppy with,that's a different thing.
That's when youneed to change your course.
And the same is true in reverse.
If you observe the ownersand the puppies together,
you can get a really good readon which pairs are going to click.
(14:16):
Just an aside,
I do not let people pick their puppies.
Most of the times my puppy ownersshow up on the day of pickup
and that is the day they find outwhich puppy is theirs.
If you're going to be placing puppies
with a very specific purpose in mind,
(14:38):
like therapy or performance,
then you do need to hold them longerand make no promises to anyone
until they grow upenough to show some of their true colors.
And that's probably at least 16 weeks old.
Service dog organizations that do this
(15:00):
professionally grow up a lot of puppies
and only a percent of those puppiesmake it into the program.
Puppy testing originated
in service dog organizations.
They are the experts on this.
They have huge colonies of dogs.
(15:21):
They have millions and millions of dollarsin endowments.
They have a vast staff of experts
to raise these puppies, to workwith these puppies, to test these puppies.
And still 30% of the puppiesthat are chosen to go into the service dog
training programafter they puppy test them,
(15:43):
do not make it through the program.
They wash out of the program.
So with all of that immenseexpertise and resources
and a very narrow gene poolthat has been bred for hundreds,
if not thousands of generationsfor this specific purpose,
and they still can only get it rightseven out of ten
(16:05):
times.
It costs a small fortune to raise
a professional service dog to maturity.
The estimates out there
are anywhere from 40000 to 100000
to raise a professional service dog.
(16:26):
So if there were any way to know for sure
at seven weeks oldwhich puppies would be successful
before those organizations are dropping
a hundred grand on training them,
those organizationswould have a 100% pass rate.
They would have found the wayto predict it.
(16:48):
So what I'm saying is
that what you're asking for,
which is a reliable way to predictwhich of your six, seven,
eight or ten week old puppies will be goodas a service dog does not exist.
If it existed, the servicedog organizations
(17:08):
would be using itand have 100% success rate.
So now
my specific advice to you as a breeder
is this.
Do your
puppy testing and I'm going to talka little bit more about that.
Definitely do your puppy testingso you can know what you have to work on
(17:32):
in that end, part of the timethat you have the puppies.
As far as placement, I would havethe person that needs the service dog
over with the puppies and observe themand pick
the best fit.
My advice to you is also to counselthe person
that you're making the best choicepossible for them.
(17:56):
But there are many variables,and you can't guarantee or predict
that this puppy will eventually fill
its intended role.
For me.
I would not place a puppywith someone that specifically wanted
that puppyas a service dog and a service dog only.
(18:16):
I would make sure that they
would love and keep the dogno matter what.
You very well may have a different modelfor your breeding program
and you may have a line of peoplewaiting to take the washouts
from the puppies you place as service dogsif they don't work out.
And that's fantastic.
I don't have that.
(18:38):
And I just thinkit's something to keep in mind when you're
placing a puppy as a service dog,
that there's a real potentialthat it will not work out.
And you have to be proactiveabout what the game plan is going to be.
If and when that happens.
I think the overall message that I have is
(19:01):
if someone wants a service dog
and has to have a service dog,they need to purchase an adult
fully trained animal or at least an adult
where we know the temperamentand the dog's natural abilities.
I'm not saying that
(19:23):
you should never place a puppy with anyone
that wants a service dogor wants to train it as a service dog,
because we all know thatnot everyone has 100, 200,000 lying
around to purchasea fully trained service dog.
But all I'm saying is be aware
that there really is no way to predictif it's going to work out.
(19:45):
And if it doesn't work out,
what's the option?
Okay.
So back to the specific question,
which ishow do you find a good puppy tester?
Because we've established
that puppy testing does have utilityfor a breeder, maybe not the utility
(20:06):
that the querent was hoping it'sgoing to help you place that service dog
find that perfect service puppy,but it still has utility.
So how do you find a good puppy tester?
I would say your local kennel clubis going to be a great place
to start because you're going to havea lot of breeders there.
And they are the kinds of people
(20:28):
that would be doing thisor have someone do it for them.
Word of mouth is the absolute best
because anybody can frankly saythat they do it.
You just want somebodythat's going to not scare your puppies
because that is your number one
criterion for choosing a puppy testeris that they're gentle,
(20:52):
that they will not scare the puppies,and that if at any time
any part of that test is
the puppyseems scared, resistant, hesitant,
but that puppy testerwill will stop the test and just sit down
in the middle of the room and cuddlethe puppy.
I have definitely had this happenwhere the puppies just could not be tested
(21:14):
and the puppy tester
just had to sit in the middle of the roomand cuddle the puppies and that is the
right thing to do, particularlyif they're doing the volhard test.
You know, there'sa lot of sort of aversive things in there.
There's scaring them with the umbrella.
There is holding them on their back.
There's the sudden sound.
(21:36):
Again, most of my puppieslike you saw in Puppy Culture,
they take this with complete aplomb.
But I have had puppies that didn't.
And the tester stopped the test.
A bad experience with a puppy tester
is predictive of
(21:58):
potentially having
human and dog aggression as an adult.
It doesn't matterwhether they're in a fear period.
It's worse if they're in the fear period,but still they're super impressionable
at this young age.
And having a bad experience of thisat this age can really imprint on them.
So, number one, when you're asking aroundfor good puppy tester, don't ask like
(22:22):
who's going to be able to help me predictwhich puppy to place where?
Ask who is gentle and considerateand has good dog sense
and will not scare your puppies.
Finally, I want to come back to age
because the volhard test
(22:43):
was very specific about the exact age
at which you should do this test.
And I think
if it's one thingwe definitely have figured out
since then, it'sthat developmental periods
between breeds
(23:03):
on average candiffer as much as two weeks, if not more.
So, you know, for some puppiesat seven weeks old,
they're still firmly in their curiosity,period.
For some other puppies,they could already be in a fear period.
In my own litters, I have observed
the, the second fear period,the so-called eight week fear
(23:27):
period, happened anywhere from as earlyas just over
seven weeks,all the way up to nine and a half weeks.
So I think if I hadto give you some advice,
it would be to know what the trends arein your breed.
When the average time of onset of fear,
(23:48):
period, second fear period is
and scheduled the test
3 to 4 days before that.
However, be flexible.
Do not be afraid.
If you suddenly see one of the hallmarksof a fear period which is acute
onset of fear of the familiar.
(24:12):
Don't be afraid to pull chocksand say we're not doing the test.
It's not worth it.
So rolling back
to the original post where she said
the assessor was going to come outbetween five and six weeks.
Yeah, I mean, that does seem
early, especially in a breedlike golden Retrievers,
(24:33):
which I believe is fairly neotenous,but in some other breeds
that are very precocious,that might not be unreasonable.
I think the thingthat you have to watch out for
is somebody that's very dogmatic aboutthis is the age when we do it,
and this is the same for every litter,and this is how we're going to do it,
(24:56):
because that's just not true.
And if you have a forwardthinking puppy tester,
they should be more flexible than that.
If you liked this podcast,
you'll love our breedercourse at madcapuniversity.com.
Puppy Owners,we have a puppy course for you
(25:17):
too at madcapuniversity.com.
Well, that's all for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist,
and this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
Well, today's topic is onethat comes up all the time.
(00:23):
Temperamenttesting for puppies to help breeders
make better placements for their puppies.
So here'sthe question: Temperament Testing.
I have someone interested in our litter
and training their pupfor a potential therapy dog.
They want to train him to do deep pressure
(00:45):
therapy for her anxiety.
She grew up helping training, hunting dogsand they've trained rescues.
So I know she can do thisif we get her a good match.
So how do you find someone to dotemperament testing?
I talked tosomeone who was recommended to me,
(01:06):
but when I asked to set an appointmentand for details,
she said she would, quote, teach me toevaluate my own puppies, unquote.
Which means we aren't talkingthe same language.
Based on what I know from Puppy Culture.
And she
said she would come outbetween five and six weeks,
which seems early.
(01:29):
Okay.
There's just so much in this.
But let me start breaking it down and
let's just start
with reviewing what we havein Puppy Culture on puppy
testing.
(01:50):
If you have not seen PuppyCulture already, we do cover it.
Go to puppyculture.com,check out the original Puppy Culture film.
We talk a lot about puppy testing.
But let me summarize.
Running puppies through paces
(02:10):
with a novel person in a novel environment
gives you some insight into where
those puppies are at that time.
Okay, so it's a snapshot in time.
It's not necessarily predictive
of adult temperament at all.
In fact, probably not.
(02:32):
Probably not going to be at all helpfulfor what this querent is asking for,
which is to predictwhich puppy will be best suited
to be a deep pressure therapy dog.
Now, the predictive
value of puppy testing has been studied
(02:53):
and has been uniformlyfound to have little
to no predictive value.
The one
personality dimension
that apparently does track
from puppy testing to adulthoodis exploratory behavior.
(03:14):
Now, I'm going to say right here,I've written an article on this.
It's in Madcap University.
If you go to the resources section,
I did do an article on puppy testing
and it's called Shifting Your Lensfor Better Results.
So you can get all the citationsto all the studies.
But trust me, this has been studied.
(03:36):
Puppy testingnot predictive of adult temperament
in any reliable fashion.
But what is very predictive of adulttemperament
is how the puppy is raisedin the first year of life.
And when you look at the most important
(03:58):
personality dimensionfor a pet owner or a therapy
dog, it's lack of aggression
and a puppy being frightened
by a person or a dog
in the first year of life
has been to have a high correlationwith later
(04:21):
human and dog aggression.
So what does that tell you?
That your focus
should be on empowering your puppy ownersto protect their puppies?
Keep your puppy ownersfrom making mistakes with their puppies.
Do not allow puppies to have a badexperience in the first year of life.
(04:43):
That ultimately is going to bea lot more predictive of adult temperament
in the most important sense,which is lack of aggression
than any puppy testing.
Okay,
now that I've laid that out,why do we even do puppy testing?
Well, it is helpful.
(05:04):
It's very helpful to know where thosepuppies are before they leave your house.
We do puppy testing at seven weeks old
and we're going to discuss that moreabout what age you should do it at.
We do puppy testing at seven weeks oldand that gives me
three more weeks because I normally placepuppies at ten weeks old.
(05:28):
That gives me three more weekswith those puppies
to work on whatever I feel needs work.
If the puppies are
a little funny about a novel environmentor a novel person,
I know, I have to double up on that.
If the puppies, let's say,have a little bit too much drive on the
on the toy drive.
(05:48):
I know I have to work ona little impulse control with that.
I can
get myself a game planfor those last three weeks
based on what I see in that puppy test.
Now, you also may be ableto identify outliers, but sometimes not.
(06:10):
I definitely have had puppies,entire litters, in fact,
that really couldn't even be tested,that they went for the puppy test
and they were terrified and wouldn't doanything and wouldn't do any of the tests.
And all of those puppiesturned out to be outstanding dogs.
(06:31):
Again,we're going to come back to the age thing.
I think some of thatmight have had to do with them
perhaps being in a little bitof an early fear period.
But sometimes you can identify
true outliers, puppies that are just likeso unbelievably pathologically sensitive.
But in my experience, it's very rarethat you're going
to identify them with the puppy test.
(06:55):
Another utility,
I would say, of puppy testing as a breeder
is to see overall trends.
I'll give you a for instance,
I would bring my puppies always atseven weeks old for puppy testing
and I had certain expectations thatthey would walk right in like they own
(07:18):
the place, nail everything, not be overlyaroused, be very friendly to strangers,
not be put off by any kind of sound,be curious by all the startling things.
And this was my expectation.
And then I used a dog from England,
and this was at a
time whenyou could do a true outcross still,
(07:41):
because the importation of semenwas not as ubiquitous as it is now.
Our world gene pool has become very
homogenousbecause of the ready availability
of semen from all over the world.
But at this time it was a true outcross.
So there was nothing relatedbetween the dam and the sire.
(08:03):
And my first litter out of
that was astounding.
They were terrified.
They were so sound sensitive.
It was a completely different worldthan I'd ever been in.
And ever since I have added
those genetics into my line,I have noticed that overall,
(08:26):
my puppies are softer and requiremore early socialization
because they are a little more fearfulthan my puppies previously were.
Okay, well,
not to sidebar too much,but let me just say you may be wondering,
well, whywhy didn't you just discard that line
(08:48):
like once you did that breedingand you had those puppies
that were so soft,why did you continue down that line?
And the reason is that the reasonI brought in those genetics was because
I had dogs that were extremely boldand very forward and friendly with people.
But, you know, I had some sharpness withother dogs and I really didn't want that.
(09:08):
I wanted something a little softer.
So breeding it's a bell curve, okay?
You can't just cherry pickthe one trait that you want,
which is maybe being a little softerand a little
more docileand not get a little bit more fearful.
It comes with the territory.
So moving on,because that's another podcast.
(09:29):
My point ultimately is that as a breeder,I've seen a trend,
a trend over many litters of softnessthat I've made adjustments
for in my socialization programthat has had a good outcome.
So puppy testing for meas a breeder is an invaluable resource,
(09:51):
but as a breeder, as a placement tool,
it is virtually useless in my experience.
So let me circleback to the original poster's questions.
And one of one of the things she saidwas that the puppy tester
was going to teach meto evaluate my own puppies,
(10:14):
and she felt that wasn'tthat wasn't what she was looking for.
That wasn'twhat we prescribe in Puppy Culture now.
I do think
there's room for both things.
I do think that taking
your puppies offpremises with a novel person
and putting them through their pacesis extremely helpful,
(10:36):
as I've mentioned, as a breeder,so I know what I need to work on
so there's that,which is not what this tester
apparently is is going to do.
However, I do think that this breeder
is in the best position of anyone
to choose this puppy,
(10:58):
and I don't know the details,but potentially,
if this were a personwho was very well versed
in service dog placements,
potentially this person
could help this breeder identifythe specific traits
that she should be looking forwhen making these placements.
(11:24):
So let's break this down.
What exactly
is going to be expected of this dog?
If I were you,
I would list out the exact behaviors.
So deep pressure therapy.
I'm not a service dog person.
I'm not familiar with it.
(11:44):
But I looked it up on the Internetand quick over quick,
this is what I came up with.
The dog has to lie on top of a person,
rest their head, either
on the person's chest or shoulders or arm.
So it's literallyputting pressure on the person.
(12:05):
They have to either do this on cue
and or do it in responseto changes in heartbeat
or respiration.
Putting aside
the fact that puppy temperament
does not necessarily trackwith adult temperament
(12:26):
as a breeder,
you already know which puppy is probably
going to be the best, at leastthe day that that puppy goes home.
You know which puppy is going to bethe best at doing those things?
You know which puppy is most likelyto crawl on top of you?
Which puppy is the most checked into you and your emotions?
(12:51):
That's not something that's going to change or be identifiable by a puppy tester.
I'll also say
you cannot discount the chemistrybetween the puppy owner and the puppy.
I have definitely had puppiesthat were super checked in to me
and other people and I made a plan
(13:12):
to place them with a particular family.
And when that family showed upto meet the puppy for the first time,
the puppy didn't really like themor connect with them.
I changed my placement plansfor those puppies because of that.
Certainly puppies can be
more attractedto their breeders than new people
(13:35):
because they have such a history
with their breeders,especially if you're doing Puppy Culture,
you're working with those puppies,you're training
those puppies,those puppies are checked in to you.
You're really connectedemotionally with those puppies.
But when you have a puppythat seems attracted to people in general,
but not the specific peoplewho you've intended
(13:56):
to place the puppy with,that's a different thing.
That's when youneed to change your course.
And the same is true in reverse.
If you observe the ownersand the puppies together,
you can get a really good readon which pairs are going to click.
(14:16):
Just an aside,
I do not let people pick their puppies.
Most of the times my puppy ownersshow up on the day of pickup
and that is the day they find outwhich puppy is theirs.
If you're going to be placing puppies
with a very specific purpose in mind,
(14:38):
like therapy or performance,
then you do need to hold them longerand make no promises to anyone
until they grow upenough to show some of their true colors.
And that's probably at least 16 weeks old.
Service dog organizations that do this
(15:00):
professionally grow up a lot of puppies
and only a percent of those puppiesmake it into the program.
Puppy testing originated
in service dog organizations.
They are the experts on this.
They have huge colonies of dogs.
(15:21):
They have millions and millions of dollarsin endowments.
They have a vast staff of experts
to raise these puppies, to workwith these puppies, to test these puppies.
And still 30% of the puppiesthat are chosen to go into the service dog
training programafter they puppy test them,
(15:43):
do not make it through the program.
They wash out of the program.
So with all of that immenseexpertise and resources
and a very narrow gene poolthat has been bred for hundreds,
if not thousands of generationsfor this specific purpose,
and they still can only get it rightseven out of ten
(16:05):
times.
It costs a small fortune to raise
a professional service dog to maturity.
The estimates out there
are anywhere from 40000 to 100000
to raise a professional service dog.
(16:26):
So if there were any way to know for sure
at seven weeks oldwhich puppies would be successful
before those organizations are dropping
a hundred grand on training them,
those organizationswould have a 100% pass rate.
They would have found the wayto predict it.
(16:48):
So what I'm saying is
that what you're asking for,
which is a reliable way to predictwhich of your six, seven,
eight or ten week old puppies will be goodas a service dog does not exist.
If it existed, the servicedog organizations
(17:08):
would be using itand have 100% success rate.
So now
my specific advice to you as a breeder
is this.
Do your
puppy testing and I'm going to talka little bit more about that.
Definitely do your puppy testingso you can know what you have to work on
(17:32):
in that end, part of the timethat you have the puppies.
As far as placement, I would havethe person that needs the service dog
over with the puppies and observe themand pick
the best fit.
My advice to you is also to counselthe person
that you're making the best choicepossible for them.
(17:56):
But there are many variables,and you can't guarantee or predict
that this puppy will eventually fill
its intended role.
For me.
I would not place a puppywith someone that specifically wanted
that puppyas a service dog and a service dog only.
(18:16):
I would make sure that they
would love and keep the dogno matter what.
You very well may have a different modelfor your breeding program
and you may have a line of peoplewaiting to take the washouts
from the puppies you place as service dogsif they don't work out.
And that's fantastic.
I don't have that.
(18:38):
And I just thinkit's something to keep in mind when you're
placing a puppy as a service dog,
that there's a real potentialthat it will not work out.
And you have to be proactiveabout what the game plan is going to be.
If and when that happens.
I think the overall message that I have is
(19:01):
if someone wants a service dog
and has to have a service dog,they need to purchase an adult
fully trained animal or at least an adult
where we know the temperamentand the dog's natural abilities.
I'm not saying that
(19:23):
you should never place a puppy with anyone
that wants a service dogor wants to train it as a service dog,
because we all know thatnot everyone has 100, 200,000 lying
around to purchasea fully trained service dog.
But all I'm saying is be aware
that there really is no way to predictif it's going to work out.
(19:45):
And if it doesn't work out,
what's the option?
Okay.
So back to the specific question,
which ishow do you find a good puppy tester?
Because we've established
that puppy testing does have utilityfor a breeder, maybe not the utility
(20:06):
that the querent was hoping it'sgoing to help you place that service dog
find that perfect service puppy,but it still has utility.
So how do you find a good puppy tester?
I would say your local kennel clubis going to be a great place
to start because you're going to havea lot of breeders there.
And they are the kinds of people
(20:28):
that would be doing thisor have someone do it for them.
Word of mouth is the absolute best
because anybody can frankly saythat they do it.
You just want somebodythat's going to not scare your puppies
because that is your number one
criterion for choosing a puppy testeris that they're gentle,
(20:52):
that they will not scare the puppies,and that if at any time
any part of that test is
the puppyseems scared, resistant, hesitant,
but that puppy testerwill will stop the test and just sit down
in the middle of the room and cuddlethe puppy.
I have definitely had this happenwhere the puppies just could not be tested
(21:14):
and the puppy tester
just had to sit in the middle of the roomand cuddle the puppies and that is the
right thing to do, particularlyif they're doing the volhard test.
You know, there'sa lot of sort of aversive things in there.
There's scaring them with the umbrella.
There is holding them on their back.
There's the sudden sound.
(21:36):
Again, most of my puppieslike you saw in Puppy Culture,
they take this with complete aplomb.
But I have had puppies that didn't.
And the tester stopped the test.
A bad experience with a puppy tester
is predictive of
(21:58):
potentially having
human and dog aggression as an adult.
It doesn't matterwhether they're in a fear period.
It's worse if they're in the fear period,but still they're super impressionable
at this young age.
And having a bad experience of thisat this age can really imprint on them.
So, number one, when you're asking aroundfor good puppy tester, don't ask like
(22:22):
who's going to be able to help me predictwhich puppy to place where?
Ask who is gentle and considerateand has good dog sense
and will not scare your puppies.
Finally, I want to come back to age
because the volhard test
(22:43):
was very specific about the exact age
at which you should do this test.
And I think
if it's one thingwe definitely have figured out
since then, it'sthat developmental periods
between breeds
(23:03):
on average candiffer as much as two weeks, if not more.
So, you know, for some puppiesat seven weeks old,
they're still firmly in their curiosity,period.
For some other puppies,they could already be in a fear period.
In my own litters, I have observed
the, the second fear period,the so-called eight week fear
(23:27):
period, happened anywhere from as earlyas just over
seven weeks,all the way up to nine and a half weeks.
So I think if I hadto give you some advice,
it would be to know what the trends arein your breed.
When the average time of onset of fear,
(23:48):
period, second fear period is
and scheduled the test
3 to 4 days before that.
However, be flexible.
Do not be afraid.
If you suddenly see one of the hallmarksof a fear period which is acute
onset of fear of the familiar.
(24:12):
Don't be afraid to pull chocksand say we're not doing the test.
It's not worth it.
So rolling back
to the original post where she said
the assessor was going to come outbetween five and six weeks.
Yeah, I mean, that does seem
early, especially in a breedlike golden Retrievers,
(24:33):
which I believe is fairly neotenous,but in some other breeds
that are very precocious,that might not be unreasonable.
I think the thingthat you have to watch out for
is somebody that's very dogmatic aboutthis is the age when we do it,
and this is the same for every litter,and this is how we're going to do it,
(24:56):
because that's just not true.
And if you have a forwardthinking puppy tester,
they should be more flexible than that.
If you liked this podcast,
you'll love our breedercourse at madcapuniversity.com.
Puppy Owners,we have a puppy course for you
(25:17):
too at madcapuniversity.com.
Well, that's all for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
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