July 30, 2024 • 27 mins
This week’s podcast is about puppies and owners who can’t seem to bond with their owners. The original question is long, so here’s the gist of it:
“Functionally Mac is excellent. Crate/House training/Obedience excellent…He sleeps through the night. He is great at puppy classes...He is good with other people and dogs…He was good at the vets. No problems so far with loud noises or anything like that…The problem is that we have been unable to build a relationship with him. He doesn’t respond to affection at all. We find it hard to make his tail wag. He will briefly let us stroke him, but this usually ends with a bite. He is unwilling to let us pick him up. He will play enthusiastically with toys, but this will quickly progress to biting and frenzy…We have had rescue dogs before, we have had puppies before, but we have never experienced this lack of relationship…we have tried everything we can think of to improve the relationship... We fear that the situation will become worse”
In this episode I explore:
- The three most common causes of “non-bonding” between puppies and their owners
- When to take back a “non-bonding” puppy and when to try to work to keep the puppy in the home
- If keeping the puppy in the home is appropriate, strategies to improve relationship and bonding between puppies and their owners.
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.
(00:20):
This week's question is about
puppy placements, where the puppy does
not bond with the owners
and it's a long one.
Buckle up.
But the details are important.
This is a beaglepuppy placed at eight weeks old.
(00:44):
The puppy is currently 12 weeks old.
And here's what the question isthat the breeder wrote in:
Advice please.
Never had a puppy returnedand would like to offer the puppy
the best trainingbased on the message from the family.
(01:05):
And here'swhat the family wrote to the breeder.
Functionally.
Mac is excellent.
Crate/house training,obedience. Excellent.
And coming along well.
He sleeps through the night.
He's a great puppy at classes.
And the trainer sayshe learns at a million miles an hour.
(01:25):
We've made sure to socialize him.
Prior to full vaccinationwe took him to car parks
where he would sit in the cratein the back of the car to be exposed
to people's sounds, sights, etc.
We took him to garden centersand supermarkets.
He's good with other people and dogswhen we're out.
He was good at the vets.
(01:46):
No problem so far with loud noisesor anything like that.
He's experienced pheasants, squirrels,
various birds, tradesmen, repairman.
We've had visits from family.
He's the garden hose
drip dipping for carrots, water generally.
We believe he is well socialized.
(02:10):
We make him sit before he has food.
He is not demonstrating resourceguarding or aggression.
He's fit and healthy.
The local vet checked him out.
He loves his foodand is putting on weight.
But he's not overweight.
The problem is that we have been unable
(02:32):
to build a relationship with him.
He doesn't respond to affection at all.
We find it hard to make his tail wag.
He will briefly let us stroke him,
but this usually ends with a bite.
He's unwilling to let us pick him up.
(02:52):
He'll play enthusiastically with toys,
but this will quickly progressto a biting and frenzy.
We've tried both moreand less play with no improvement.
He doesn't show any symptoms of fearor aggression,
such as hackles, raised, growling,tail, either down or to erect.
(03:15):
He bites.
And this has escalated from puppy biting
to more definite bitingand now holding and drawing blood.
He will leap at our legs and bitefor no apparent reason.
We've discussed this with two trainers
and use their recommended techniques,but this hasn't worked.
(03:35):
We don't think it's attention seeking.
We don't think it's aggression.
It may be some kind of dominance,but we don't know.
We've tracked his sleep to ensurethat he does not become overtired
and he gets around 18 hours per day.
He settles well and sleeps in his crate,but nowhere else.
(03:57):
Even though there are various comfyalternatives.
This may be a clue.
Each day we've done play, training,
socializationand habituation, which he's very good at.
Perhaps because
there's no relationship,we can't fix the biting.
(04:17):
We've had rescue dogs before.
We've had puppies before,but we have never experienced
this lack of relationship.
We hate doing this and we are very upsetthat it has come to this.
We wonder if we've done something wrong,but we've tried
everything we can think ofto improve the relationship.
(04:42):
Our prime concern is the bestcare for Mac.
We want him to have the best chancefor the future.
We are very sad that we can't fix thisrelationship problem.
We fear that the situation will become
worse.
Okay, so generally, this is me again.
(05:03):
I have a rule in my discussion groups that
we don't take third partyaccounts of situations.
Right?
So if it's a breeder writing in saying,Hey, my puppy
buyer says that my puppy, their puppyis doing
dominance biting or some such nonsense,what's what shall I tell them?
(05:27):
I'm always like, we need the puppy ownerto write in because I can't
diagnose what's going
on through a third party story of whatthe behavior is.
I mean, they're just there aretoo many questions I have to ask.
I have to know the exact behavior.
I took this question
(05:48):
because it's a little different,
and I'm going to address itfrom the angle of
as a breeder,
when you get a story
like this,what what should your plan of action be?
Okay. So
(06:09):
regardless, we don't knowreally anything about this puppy.
But regardless,
what do you do as a breederwhen you get a story like this?
And as I said to her,let's just start with what she probably
already knows, which is that she's goingto have to take this puppy back
(06:30):
and observe the puppy herselfand draw her own conclusions,
because there is just no way to knowbased on the owner story,
what's going on here.
I mean, we have some clues,but we truly don't know.
This isa puppy you're going to have to take back.
You're going to have to livewith the puppy for a while.
(06:50):
And I guarantee it'sgoing to become obvious very quickly
what's going on.
Okay. That having been said,
I'm going to talk about a few thingsthat this could be.
What would be the likely thingsthat would be in the back of my mind
as I'm running this puppythrough its paces
(07:13):
And by far
the most commoncause of this kind of return
is puppy owner expectations,not matching puppy behavior.
And I think we can talk more about it,but there's a lot of clues to that
in the story that these people, for
(07:34):
whatever reason, just don'tseem to understand what a puppy is.
They're reading it as
a lack of
relationship when it's just a puppy.
You know, they want to pick up the puppy.
They want to cuddle the puppy.
The puppy is not interested in that.It's a puppy.
The puppy then protests and bitewhen they pick the puppy up
(07:55):
because the puppy doesn'tlike being picked up.
Puppies generallydon't like being picked up a lot.
The puppy wants to play, not cuddle.
And you know the puppy owners read thisas no relationship.
I did a whole podcast on this exact topic.
Episode 14 Growling Puppies.
(08:18):
Should you be worried?
And I highly recommend that you go backand listen to that if you haven't already.
But suffice it to say, it's super common
that puppy owners willjust pick up puppies when they do not want
to be picked up and legitimatelythey don't want to be picked up.
But the puppy owner, for whateverreason, feels this is the bond.
(08:42):
They're reaching for the puppybecause the bond is
that they can clasp that puppy to them.
So that
would be the most likely scenario here.
It’s just the puppy owners expectationdo not match what a living,
breathing puppy really is.
(09:03):
Adjacent to this idea is
what my friend Lorelei Craig calls
the training straight jacket,meaning to say that a lot of puppy
owners think that they can train the puppyout of the puppy,
(09:24):
that if they just make the puppy behave,
if they can make the puppy sit before it,it eats its dinner
or sit before patting or sitbefore accessing resources
that somehow this puppy will not do
normal natural puppy behavior
like bite and yes, bite and hard sometimes
(09:48):
and draw blood and and jump up and graband tear your clothes.
And then the more the puppy expresses
this natural puppy behavior,the tighter the straight jacket gets,
the more thethe puppy owner doubles down on on.
I can train this out of the puppythat I can modify this behavior.
(10:11):
And then
frustration increases in the puppyand yes, it converge
on aggressive displays in that case.
This is often the result of the puppyowner going to a dog trainer
who maybe is not a breeder,maybe is not extremely well versed
in young puppies, and the dog
(10:32):
trainer, it,you know, takes it on face value.
Okay, the puppies biting you.
Let's stop the puppy biting you.
And here's how we can stop the puppyfrom biting you. But
that's treating the symptomand not really the disease.
And the disease here is that the puppyowner just doesn't understand normal puppy
behaviorand has unreasonable expectations.
(10:57):
In actual fact,
the puppy owner just needs to be toldthat this is normal behavior
and it will passif they can just manage it.
I also did a podcast on this one episode
15 Mentors for Puppy Owners.
Do we need a new kind of professional?
(11:18):
I do recommend if you haven'theard that one, you also go back
and listen to that one.
Okay, so after unreasonable
puppy owner
expectations, or I should say unrealistic
puppy owner expectations,
the most common reasonfor something like this happening
(11:42):
is a mismatch
between the owner and the puppy.
Puppies sometimesdo like some people more than others.
Nothing wrong with the puppy.
Nothing wrong with the people,just not a good match.
A smart puppy that learns quickly
and is a go, go, go wanting to do thingspuppy,
(12:06):
is not a good match for your sweet care
bear family with kids that they have,you know
all this warmth and loveand hugs to give the puppy,
but you know, not a lot of individualtraining and interaction time.
I have definitely seen puppieswho just don't bond
with the family because it's a mismatch.
(12:28):
But those same puppies bond deeplywith another family
and those families bond deeplywith another puppy.
I have had this happen to mein my own breeding program.
It's like putting on a cozy
oversize sweateron a beautiful summer day.
There is nothing wrong with the sweaterand nothing wrong with the day,
(12:52):
but they just don't go together.
Somewhere in between all of this,
we would have to define
normal for a beagle in terms of bonding.
I don't have a lot of experiencewith beagles,
but what I have observedis that their quirky, quite humorous,
(13:15):
especially when they don'twant to do something.
I've also not observed themto be overly cuddly dogs.
I think their behavior is adorable,especially when they pitch a fit
when they don't want to do something.
But you know, it's not for everyone.
And if you have a puppy ownerwho is hoping to get something
a little more dufus-y golden retriever-ythis can be off putting
(13:39):
the first time they go to move the beagleor make the beagle do something.
The beagle just sort of says no.
So there could be a breed specific
incorrect
expectation on, on the puppy owner's partand again what might be normal for one
breed in terms of bonding and willingnessto cuddle and play and be patted.
(14:03):
You know, it might be very differentfor another breed.
But again, this is where the
the breeder is in the best positionto take the puppy back and assess
whether the puppy is within normalor an outlier behaviorally.
Now, look, I would guess based on thathistory, that it's going to be
one of those two things that we talkedabout or two and a half things.
(14:25):
It's either going to be incorrectexpectations
of a puppy on the puppy owners part.
It's going to bethey don't know what a beagle puppy is
and it's a normal beagle puppyor it's going to be just that.
It's it's a mismatch.
The beagle is a smart puppythat wants to go, go, go do play, learn.
And the owners
(14:45):
just want something that they can,you know, put in a purse and carry around.
So I do think in this case, that'sprobably one of those things.
But again, when I'm taking a puppy back,I'm going through all the possibilities.
Another possibility is maybe the puppyreally is a little bit different.
I do think that dogs are on a spectrum
(15:07):
similar to the human autismspectrum, and I have observed that
dogs, puppies that
have sensory integration issues wherethey don't really like to be touched much.
That does often sortwith emotional attachment issues.
So that that would sort of trackwith a little bit of what the puppy owners
(15:29):
relating here.
The puppy not wanting to wag its tailor be touched or held.
If it is truly outside of breed, normaland puppy normal.
I mean, this puppy could have a touch of
what would be doggy autism,I guess you'd call it.
And those kinds of puppies sometimes dowind up needing something equivalent
(15:52):
to an occupational therapytype thing for their sensor, sensory
integration issues, and those puppiesare likely to be more aloof,
but they can also be really delightfulpuppies.
My Ruby, who is, was, the grandmother
of the Puppy Culture puppies,she was probably on this spectrum.
(16:15):
She was an amazing dog
to do things with,but she really did not have a lot of use
for me if I was not activelysort of entertaining her.
So if we were training, going someplace,doing a walk, competing,
I mean, she was the best, but cuddlingon the couch, you know, not so much.
(16:39):
I would not trade the world for my timewith Ruby.
I learned so much from herand I loved her so deeply.
But, you know, if I was the kind of personthat was just
looking for a dogto cuddle on the couch with and watch TV,
yeah, I really would nothave liked that dog at all.
And finally and
(17:00):
I'm going to put this way downat the bottom, like, you know, you got
maybe a half of 1% chancein most cases of this happening.
There could be somethingreally wrong with the puppy.
The mean the puppy could really havesome kind of serious personality disorder.
But in my 20 odd
(17:20):
years of breeding,I think I've had one puppy
that I would say was just really wrongin the head like that.
So it absolutely can happen.
But again, there's nothing in this historythat these puppy owners
have given you that that would lead youto think this would be the case.
You always have to have it on the table,but I don't think that's the case here.
(17:45):
So now I want to goback to some of the comments
and it was interesting.
A lot of people said,
well, the puppy hasn'tbeen in the home long enough
and they're not giving it a chance.
And, you know,a lot of people were sort of on
the side of working with the puppy
and the ownerand trying to keep this puppy in the home.
(18:05):
And it's an interesting thingbecause I struggle with this myself,
both advising peopleand in my own experience.
And I'm just going to say there'senough red flags in this history
that as a breeder,I'd be taking this puppy back.
I mean, let's just start with the D-word,right?
(18:25):
Dominance.
Where they’re, they’re saying they've doneabsolutely everything.
Everything, everything.
And still the puppy is like thisand it must be dominance.
I don't get a feelinglike they really like the puppy at all.
And I get the feeling from this
letter that they're really just
(18:45):
almost trying to make themselvesabsolve themselves of guilt
for returning this puppyto really just say, Absolutely,
I have done everythingand we don't like this puppy.
We still don't like this puppy.
And when you start reachingfor the dominance thing,
that worries me as a breederbecause it tells me, okay,
they're going down a bad path,that I don't want that for my puppy.
(19:07):
Also, you know, an eight weekold puppy, you're making the puppy sit
before it gets its food.
I don't agree with that.
I mean, if the puppy does sit, boy,that's adorable and fun,
but it sounds likethey've got a very tight
training straight jacket on this puppyand they're just, they're doubling down.
They're making it tighter. And
(19:29):
that really can lead to bad resultswith these puppies
and honestly can breed aggressioneventually.
So, no, for myself, I would not want to bekeeping this puppy in this home.
I'd want to be taking this puppy back.
Now, if you got the same letterfrom a person
(19:49):
who's crying and telling youhow much they love the puppy
and how much the puppy means to them,
but still the puppy seems to bite themand it's so upsetting.
And you know that that's a personthat you can talk them off the cliff
and just go to their house and say, look,I mean, this is the normal puppy.
It's fine.
But these people,I don't know what to tell you.
(20:10):
They don't like the puppy.Get the puppy out of there.
One thing
about this post that I really loved
in the comments was
how many dog trainers wrote in saying
they don't even breed dogs,but they follow Puppy Culture
(20:30):
and the discussion groupbecause they learn so much about puppies
and how many dog trainers said;
Absolutely.
We see it all the timethat people come to us wanting
to train these behaviors outand we're like,
How about you just enjoy your puppyand let the puppy be a puppy?
So I did find that very encouraging that
(20:53):
so many dog trainers,even who are not breeders,
seem to have a very good grasp ofwhat the real issues are
in cases like this.
A number of other people commentedthat they've had the puppy only 30 days
and according to the post,they did an awful lot with the puppy.
(21:15):
Maybe it was too much activity.
Again, I don't think the activity per sayis an issue.
I think it's the attendant emotionaround the activity,
the intent of the activity,which is to somehow make this puppy
not be a puppy,not to be the puppy that it that it is
(21:36):
that to make the puppy be something elseby just running it off its feet.
And yeah, in that sense,sure too much activity but
I don't think with these people doing lessactivity is going to change the picture.
Now, but here's
something greatand I'm going to read this comment.
(21:59):
Just being a hound person,not an expert by any means,
he may need activitiesthat simulate hunting, behavior,
search and find things in the yardand around the house.
He may be overstimulated in waysthat he doesn't understand or like
and not stimulated enough in the houndinstincts.
(22:20):
Some hounds can seem ratherdetached from people,
especially those with high prey drive.
This is really interesting.
It would not change my adviceabout wanting to take the puppy back
because I just wantto stop the bleeding here
and I don't want to get a messed uppuppy back
(22:41):
and I'm afraid that these peopleare going down that road. But,
you know, sometimes
showing the puppy owners how to appreciate
what's exceptional about their puppy
can help.
So things like invite themto take their puppy to a nose work class
(23:01):
and let them see their puppydoing an activity that speaks to his soul.
And you know, some people, when they see
that it it can speak to themlike it can light them up
and make them seejust the magic in their puppy.
I'm not saying all people because again,some people it's just
(23:22):
we want a puppy to sit on the couch with.
We really don't care that this puppyis magical in some other way, but
it's a possibilitythat they might learn to appreciate things
about their puppythat aren't readily apparent to them.
When the puppy is doing
puppy things like biting themand not letting them pick them up.
This reminds me of Fathom Berger's book
(23:45):
written almost 100 years ago now.
I guess, where he was dealing with guide
dog colonies and guardian homes and
one of the rules
in the guardian homeswas that these retrievers
that they couldn't hunt with them,that they would raise the puppies
(24:06):
and they could not let the puppies doany kind of hunting activity
because they felt that
that would make them too
wild, to be good service dogs.
But, you know, naturally,some homes just disobeyed.
And it turns out that the homesthat disobeyed this and allowed the dogs
(24:27):
to hunt the puppies to grow up hunting,
that those puppies did betterin the program.
So, again, there'ssomething about allowing the animal
to do its thing that it was bred to do,
to let its soul wake up and do that thing
can spill over into more amiability
(24:48):
and success in other parts of life.
Ah yes.
And somebody else commented,And I am really remiss
for not putting this upfrontthat if the puppy truly does
not like to be touchedand it's outside of breed normal,
and if the puppy reallyis an outlier in that regard,
(25:09):
we have to rule out any kind ofveterinary problem with the puppy.
I didn't mention itsimply because based on the history,
it doesn't jump out as the first thing,but it goes
without saying,okay, that you first eliminate
any kind of medical issuefor the behavior problem.
(25:31):
I'm just not convincedthat it's a behavior problem.
So I didn'tmention eliminating physical causes
first, but so noted.
Yes, you're right.
The first thing you have to do ismake sure if there is a behavior problem,
that it's not caused by anything medical.
(25:54):
I want to close this by sayingmy heart goes out to this breeder
because it just really stinks
to get a puppy back this waywithout even knowing this breeder.
I don't know you. I never met you.
I know you don't need to take thispuppy back right?
I know you're busy.
I know you've got more on your plate
(26:15):
than you can already handle,and you're getting this puppy back.
But trust me, it is the right thing to do.
Because the only thing worse than gettinga 12 week old puppy back is getting a six
month or a year old puppy backthat actually has been messed up.
So it's the right thing. I'm sorry.
Being a breeder
sometimes feels like you'rerunning a board and train, unfortunately.
(26:38):
But if it makes you feel any better,we've all been there.
If you like this podcast,
you'll love our Puppy Culture bundles.
We have bundles for breeders, bundlesfor puppy owners, bundles
with courses, bundles for showpuppies, bundles for pet puppies.
Check them all out at puppyculture.com.
(27:02):
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.
(00:20):
This week's question is about
puppy placements, where the puppy does
not bond with the owners
and it's a long one.
Buckle up.
But the details are important.
This is a beaglepuppy placed at eight weeks old.
(00:44):
The puppy is currently 12 weeks old.
And here's what the question isthat the breeder wrote in:
Advice please.
Never had a puppy returnedand would like to offer the puppy
the best trainingbased on the message from the family.
(01:05):
And here'swhat the family wrote to the breeder.
Functionally.
Mac is excellent.
Crate/house training,obedience. Excellent.
And coming along well.
He sleeps through the night.
He's a great puppy at classes.
And the trainer sayshe learns at a million miles an hour.
(01:25):
We've made sure to socialize him.
Prior to full vaccinationwe took him to car parks
where he would sit in the cratein the back of the car to be exposed
to people's sounds, sights, etc.
We took him to garden centersand supermarkets.
He's good with other people and dogswhen we're out.
He was good at the vets.
(01:46):
No problem so far with loud noisesor anything like that.
He's experienced pheasants, squirrels,
various birds, tradesmen, repairman.
We've had visits from family.
He's the garden hose
drip dipping for carrots, water generally.
We believe he is well socialized.
(02:10):
We make him sit before he has food.
He is not demonstrating resourceguarding or aggression.
He's fit and healthy.
The local vet checked him out.
He loves his foodand is putting on weight.
But he's not overweight.
The problem is that we have been unable
(02:32):
to build a relationship with him.
He doesn't respond to affection at all.
We find it hard to make his tail wag.
He will briefly let us stroke him,
but this usually ends with a bite.
He's unwilling to let us pick him up.
(02:52):
He'll play enthusiastically with toys,
but this will quickly progressto a biting and frenzy.
We've tried both moreand less play with no improvement.
He doesn't show any symptoms of fearor aggression,
such as hackles, raised, growling,tail, either down or to erect.
(03:15):
He bites.
And this has escalated from puppy biting
to more definite bitingand now holding and drawing blood.
He will leap at our legs and bitefor no apparent reason.
We've discussed this with two trainers
and use their recommended techniques,but this hasn't worked.
(03:35):
We don't think it's attention seeking.
We don't think it's aggression.
It may be some kind of dominance,but we don't know.
We've tracked his sleep to ensurethat he does not become overtired
and he gets around 18 hours per day.
He settles well and sleeps in his crate,but nowhere else.
(03:57):
Even though there are various comfyalternatives.
This may be a clue.
Each day we've done play, training,
socializationand habituation, which he's very good at.
Perhaps because
there's no relationship,we can't fix the biting.
(04:17):
We've had rescue dogs before.
We've had puppies before,but we have never experienced
this lack of relationship.
We hate doing this and we are very upsetthat it has come to this.
We wonder if we've done something wrong,but we've tried
everything we can think ofto improve the relationship.
(04:42):
Our prime concern is the bestcare for Mac.
We want him to have the best chancefor the future.
We are very sad that we can't fix thisrelationship problem.
We fear that the situation will become
worse.
Okay, so generally, this is me again.
(05:03):
I have a rule in my discussion groups that
we don't take third partyaccounts of situations.
Right?
So if it's a breeder writing in saying,Hey, my puppy
buyer says that my puppy, their puppyis doing
dominance biting or some such nonsense,what's what shall I tell them?
(05:27):
I'm always like, we need the puppy ownerto write in because I can't
diagnose what's going
on through a third party story of whatthe behavior is.
I mean, they're just there aretoo many questions I have to ask.
I have to know the exact behavior.
I took this question
(05:48):
because it's a little different,
and I'm going to address itfrom the angle of
as a breeder,
when you get a story
like this,what what should your plan of action be?
Okay. So
(06:09):
regardless, we don't knowreally anything about this puppy.
But regardless,
what do you do as a breederwhen you get a story like this?
And as I said to her,let's just start with what she probably
already knows, which is that she's goingto have to take this puppy back
(06:30):
and observe the puppy herselfand draw her own conclusions,
because there is just no way to knowbased on the owner story,
what's going on here.
I mean, we have some clues,but we truly don't know.
This isa puppy you're going to have to take back.
You're going to have to livewith the puppy for a while.
(06:50):
And I guarantee it'sgoing to become obvious very quickly
what's going on.
Okay. That having been said,
I'm going to talk about a few thingsthat this could be.
What would be the likely thingsthat would be in the back of my mind
as I'm running this puppythrough its paces
(07:13):
And by far
the most commoncause of this kind of return
is puppy owner expectations,not matching puppy behavior.
And I think we can talk more about it,but there's a lot of clues to that
in the story that these people, for
(07:34):
whatever reason, just don'tseem to understand what a puppy is.
They're reading it as
a lack of
relationship when it's just a puppy.
You know, they want to pick up the puppy.
They want to cuddle the puppy.
The puppy is not interested in that.It's a puppy.
The puppy then protests and bitewhen they pick the puppy up
(07:55):
because the puppy doesn'tlike being picked up.
Puppies generallydon't like being picked up a lot.
The puppy wants to play, not cuddle.
And you know the puppy owners read thisas no relationship.
I did a whole podcast on this exact topic.
Episode 14 Growling Puppies.
(08:18):
Should you be worried?
And I highly recommend that you go backand listen to that if you haven't already.
But suffice it to say, it's super common
that puppy owners willjust pick up puppies when they do not want
to be picked up and legitimatelythey don't want to be picked up.
But the puppy owner, for whateverreason, feels this is the bond.
(08:42):
They're reaching for the puppybecause the bond is
that they can clasp that puppy to them.
So that
would be the most likely scenario here.
It’s just the puppy owners expectationdo not match what a living,
breathing puppy really is.
(09:03):
Adjacent to this idea is
what my friend Lorelei Craig calls
the training straight jacket,meaning to say that a lot of puppy
owners think that they can train the puppyout of the puppy,
(09:24):
that if they just make the puppy behave,
if they can make the puppy sit before it,it eats its dinner
or sit before patting or sitbefore accessing resources
that somehow this puppy will not do
normal natural puppy behavior
like bite and yes, bite and hard sometimes
(09:48):
and draw blood and and jump up and graband tear your clothes.
And then the more the puppy expresses
this natural puppy behavior,the tighter the straight jacket gets,
the more thethe puppy owner doubles down on on.
I can train this out of the puppythat I can modify this behavior.
(10:11):
And then
frustration increases in the puppyand yes, it converge
on aggressive displays in that case.
This is often the result of the puppyowner going to a dog trainer
who maybe is not a breeder,maybe is not extremely well versed
in young puppies, and the dog
(10:32):
trainer, it,you know, takes it on face value.
Okay, the puppies biting you.
Let's stop the puppy biting you.
And here's how we can stop the puppyfrom biting you. But
that's treating the symptomand not really the disease.
And the disease here is that the puppyowner just doesn't understand normal puppy
behaviorand has unreasonable expectations.
(10:57):
In actual fact,
the puppy owner just needs to be toldthat this is normal behavior
and it will passif they can just manage it.
I also did a podcast on this one episode
15 Mentors for Puppy Owners.
Do we need a new kind of professional?
(11:18):
I do recommend if you haven'theard that one, you also go back
and listen to that one.
Okay, so after unreasonable
puppy owner
expectations, or I should say unrealistic
puppy owner expectations,
the most common reasonfor something like this happening
(11:42):
is a mismatch
between the owner and the puppy.
Puppies sometimesdo like some people more than others.
Nothing wrong with the puppy.
Nothing wrong with the people,just not a good match.
A smart puppy that learns quickly
and is a go, go, go wanting to do thingspuppy,
(12:06):
is not a good match for your sweet care
bear family with kids that they have,you know
all this warmth and loveand hugs to give the puppy,
but you know, not a lot of individualtraining and interaction time.
I have definitely seen puppieswho just don't bond
with the family because it's a mismatch.
(12:28):
But those same puppies bond deeplywith another family
and those families bond deeplywith another puppy.
I have had this happen to mein my own breeding program.
It's like putting on a cozy
oversize sweateron a beautiful summer day.
There is nothing wrong with the sweaterand nothing wrong with the day,
(12:52):
but they just don't go together.
Somewhere in between all of this,
we would have to define
normal for a beagle in terms of bonding.
I don't have a lot of experiencewith beagles,
but what I have observedis that their quirky, quite humorous,
(13:15):
especially when they don'twant to do something.
I've also not observed themto be overly cuddly dogs.
I think their behavior is adorable,especially when they pitch a fit
when they don't want to do something.
But you know, it's not for everyone.
And if you have a puppy ownerwho is hoping to get something
a little more dufus-y golden retriever-ythis can be off putting
(13:39):
the first time they go to move the beagleor make the beagle do something.
The beagle just sort of says no.
So there could be a breed specific
incorrect
expectation on, on the puppy owner's partand again what might be normal for one
breed in terms of bonding and willingnessto cuddle and play and be patted.
(14:03):
You know, it might be very differentfor another breed.
But again, this is where the
the breeder is in the best positionto take the puppy back and assess
whether the puppy is within normalor an outlier behaviorally.
Now, look, I would guess based on thathistory, that it's going to be
one of those two things that we talkedabout or two and a half things.
(14:25):
It's either going to be incorrectexpectations
of a puppy on the puppy owners part.
It's going to bethey don't know what a beagle puppy is
and it's a normal beagle puppyor it's going to be just that.
It's it's a mismatch.
The beagle is a smart puppythat wants to go, go, go do play, learn.
And the owners
(14:45):
just want something that they can,you know, put in a purse and carry around.
So I do think in this case, that'sprobably one of those things.
But again, when I'm taking a puppy back,I'm going through all the possibilities.
Another possibility is maybe the puppyreally is a little bit different.
I do think that dogs are on a spectrum
(15:07):
similar to the human autismspectrum, and I have observed that
dogs, puppies that
have sensory integration issues wherethey don't really like to be touched much.
That does often sortwith emotional attachment issues.
So that that would sort of trackwith a little bit of what the puppy owners
(15:29):
relating here.
The puppy not wanting to wag its tailor be touched or held.
If it is truly outside of breed, normaland puppy normal.
I mean, this puppy could have a touch of
what would be doggy autism,I guess you'd call it.
And those kinds of puppies sometimes dowind up needing something equivalent
(15:52):
to an occupational therapytype thing for their sensor, sensory
integration issues, and those puppiesare likely to be more aloof,
but they can also be really delightfulpuppies.
My Ruby, who is, was, the grandmother
of the Puppy Culture puppies,she was probably on this spectrum.
(16:15):
She was an amazing dog
to do things with,but she really did not have a lot of use
for me if I was not activelysort of entertaining her.
So if we were training, going someplace,doing a walk, competing,
I mean, she was the best, but cuddlingon the couch, you know, not so much.
(16:39):
I would not trade the world for my timewith Ruby.
I learned so much from herand I loved her so deeply.
But, you know, if I was the kind of personthat was just
looking for a dogto cuddle on the couch with and watch TV,
yeah, I really would nothave liked that dog at all.
And finally and
(17:00):
I'm going to put this way downat the bottom, like, you know, you got
maybe a half of 1% chancein most cases of this happening.
There could be somethingreally wrong with the puppy.
The mean the puppy could really havesome kind of serious personality disorder.
But in my 20 odd
(17:20):
years of breeding,I think I've had one puppy
that I would say was just really wrongin the head like that.
So it absolutely can happen.
But again, there's nothing in this historythat these puppy owners
have given you that that would lead youto think this would be the case.
You always have to have it on the table,but I don't think that's the case here.
(17:45):
So now I want to goback to some of the comments
and it was interesting.
A lot of people said,
well, the puppy hasn'tbeen in the home long enough
and they're not giving it a chance.
And, you know,a lot of people were sort of on
the side of working with the puppy
and the ownerand trying to keep this puppy in the home.
(18:05):
And it's an interesting thingbecause I struggle with this myself,
both advising peopleand in my own experience.
And I'm just going to say there'senough red flags in this history
that as a breeder,I'd be taking this puppy back.
I mean, let's just start with the D-word,right?
(18:25):
Dominance.
Where they’re, they’re saying they've doneabsolutely everything.
Everything, everything.
And still the puppy is like thisand it must be dominance.
I don't get a feelinglike they really like the puppy at all.
And I get the feeling from this
letter that they're really just
(18:45):
almost trying to make themselvesabsolve themselves of guilt
for returning this puppyto really just say, Absolutely,
I have done everythingand we don't like this puppy.
We still don't like this puppy.
And when you start reachingfor the dominance thing,
that worries me as a breederbecause it tells me, okay,
they're going down a bad path,that I don't want that for my puppy.
(19:07):
Also, you know, an eight weekold puppy, you're making the puppy sit
before it gets its food.
I don't agree with that.
I mean, if the puppy does sit, boy,that's adorable and fun,
but it sounds likethey've got a very tight
training straight jacket on this puppyand they're just, they're doubling down.
They're making it tighter. And
(19:29):
that really can lead to bad resultswith these puppies
and honestly can breed aggressioneventually.
So, no, for myself, I would not want to bekeeping this puppy in this home.
I'd want to be taking this puppy back.
Now, if you got the same letterfrom a person
(19:49):
who's crying and telling youhow much they love the puppy
and how much the puppy means to them,
but still the puppy seems to bite themand it's so upsetting.
And you know that that's a personthat you can talk them off the cliff
and just go to their house and say, look,I mean, this is the normal puppy.
It's fine.
But these people,I don't know what to tell you.
(20:10):
They don't like the puppy.Get the puppy out of there.
One thing
about this post that I really loved
in the comments was
how many dog trainers wrote in saying
they don't even breed dogs,but they follow Puppy Culture
(20:30):
and the discussion groupbecause they learn so much about puppies
and how many dog trainers said;
Absolutely.
We see it all the timethat people come to us wanting
to train these behaviors outand we're like,
How about you just enjoy your puppyand let the puppy be a puppy?
So I did find that very encouraging that
(20:53):
so many dog trainers,even who are not breeders,
seem to have a very good grasp ofwhat the real issues are
in cases like this.
A number of other people commentedthat they've had the puppy only 30 days
and according to the post,they did an awful lot with the puppy.
(21:15):
Maybe it was too much activity.
Again, I don't think the activity per sayis an issue.
I think it's the attendant emotionaround the activity,
the intent of the activity,which is to somehow make this puppy
not be a puppy,not to be the puppy that it that it is
(21:36):
that to make the puppy be something elseby just running it off its feet.
And yeah, in that sense,sure too much activity but
I don't think with these people doing lessactivity is going to change the picture.
Now, but here's
something greatand I'm going to read this comment.
(21:59):
Just being a hound person,not an expert by any means,
he may need activitiesthat simulate hunting, behavior,
search and find things in the yardand around the house.
He may be overstimulated in waysthat he doesn't understand or like
and not stimulated enough in the houndinstincts.
(22:20):
Some hounds can seem ratherdetached from people,
especially those with high prey drive.
This is really interesting.
It would not change my adviceabout wanting to take the puppy back
because I just wantto stop the bleeding here
and I don't want to get a messed uppuppy back
(22:41):
and I'm afraid that these peopleare going down that road. But,
you know, sometimes
showing the puppy owners how to appreciate
what's exceptional about their puppy
can help.
So things like invite themto take their puppy to a nose work class
(23:01):
and let them see their puppydoing an activity that speaks to his soul.
And you know, some people, when they see
that it it can speak to themlike it can light them up
and make them seejust the magic in their puppy.
I'm not saying all people because again,some people it's just
(23:22):
we want a puppy to sit on the couch with.
We really don't care that this puppyis magical in some other way, but
it's a possibilitythat they might learn to appreciate things
about their puppythat aren't readily apparent to them.
When the puppy is doing
puppy things like biting themand not letting them pick them up.
This reminds me of Fathom Berger's book
(23:45):
written almost 100 years ago now.
I guess, where he was dealing with guide
dog colonies and guardian homes and
one of the rules
in the guardian homeswas that these retrievers
that they couldn't hunt with them,that they would raise the puppies
(24:06):
and they could not let the puppies doany kind of hunting activity
because they felt that
that would make them too
wild, to be good service dogs.
But, you know, naturally,some homes just disobeyed.
And it turns out that the homesthat disobeyed this and allowed the dogs
(24:27):
to hunt the puppies to grow up hunting,
that those puppies did betterin the program.
So, again, there'ssomething about allowing the animal
to do its thing that it was bred to do,
to let its soul wake up and do that thing
can spill over into more amiability
(24:48):
and success in other parts of life.
Ah yes.
And somebody else commented,And I am really remiss
for not putting this upfrontthat if the puppy truly does
not like to be touchedand it's outside of breed normal,
and if the puppy reallyis an outlier in that regard,
(25:09):
we have to rule out any kind ofveterinary problem with the puppy.
I didn't mention itsimply because based on the history,
it doesn't jump out as the first thing,but it goes
without saying,okay, that you first eliminate
any kind of medical issuefor the behavior problem.
(25:31):
I'm just not convincedthat it's a behavior problem.
So I didn'tmention eliminating physical causes
first, but so noted.
Yes, you're right.
The first thing you have to do ismake sure if there is a behavior problem,
that it's not caused by anything medical.
(25:54):
I want to close this by sayingmy heart goes out to this breeder
because it just really stinks
to get a puppy back this waywithout even knowing this breeder.
I don't know you. I never met you.
I know you don't need to take thispuppy back right?
I know you're busy.
I know you've got more on your plate
(26:15):
than you can already handle,and you're getting this puppy back.
But trust me, it is the right thing to do.
Because the only thing worse than gettinga 12 week old puppy back is getting a six
month or a year old puppy backthat actually has been messed up.
So it's the right thing. I'm sorry.
Being a breeder
sometimes feels like you'rerunning a board and train, unfortunately.
(26:38):
But if it makes you feel any better,we've all been there.
If you like this podcast,
you'll love our Puppy Culture bundles.
We have bundles for breeders, bundlesfor puppy owners, bundles
with courses, bundles for showpuppies, bundles for pet puppies.
Check them all out at puppyculture.com.
(27:02):
Well, that's all for this time.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
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