November 11, 2025 • 13 mins
This episode's question is about whether and by how much we can modify temperament with protocols: "I was chatting to someone recently about nature versus nurture, and they said, you can get a bitch who has a poor temperament and using Puppy Culture, you can have pups who have great temperaments. My view is it's more complex than that.…Would love people's thoughts."
Listen in as I discuss:
- The difference between temperament and behavior
- The ramifications of using behavior modification protocols in a breeding program
- Our ethical obligations as breeders vs as puppy raisers
Visit our website madcapradio.com for further reading.
Mark as Played
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 CulturePotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
(00:20):
This episode's question is about
how much can we modifymy temperament with protocols.
And here's the question.
I was chatting to someone
recently about nature versus nurture,
and they said, you can get a bitchwho has a poor temperament
and using Puppy Culture, you can have pupswho have great temperaments.
(00:45):
My view is it's more complex than that.
Yes, it will certainly help,but the pups are going to learn from mum.
If she's reactive to people initiallyand the pups see that,
then that could certainly becomea learned behavior from pups.
And no amount of other inputis going to help that.
(01:06):
Would love people's thoughts.
Okay, me again.
First,
let me just directly answer the question
and say Puppy Culture will not overcome
all genetic temperament characteristics.
I did an entire podcaston this, Episode 28.
(01:29):
If you haven't yet, listen to itby all means, you should go back
and listen to that because it'sa good foundation for this podcast.
I think there are three thingsthat we have to cover.
First of all, temperament versus behavior.
Temperament is what the dog is born withinherently.
(01:51):
It's the genetic makeup of the dog.
It's again going back to that Episode 28.
It's that genetic boxthat we don't know where it is
when they're little tiny puppies.
But there is this boxthat's a boundry around
how much we can modify behavior.
And then there's the expression
(02:13):
of that genetic temperament,which is how the dog behaves.
Now Puppy Culture is about behavior.
It's really not about temperament.
You in a true sense,cannot modify temperament.
You can modify behavior.
So you can modify the waythe temperament is expressed.
(02:35):
And that's what Puppy Culture is.
It's about raising behaviorally sound
puppies.
Okay.
So now that we've distinguished
between temperamentwhich is immutable and behavior
which is modifiable,there are still two remaining issues.
(02:58):
The first one is, can we really modify
genetic default behaviorwith Puppy Culture?
And the answer is yes.
But there are limits.
Puppy Culture will help
you get the best expression of the dog'sgenetic temperament.
But there are going to be genetic limitson how much you can modify
(03:19):
that temperament.
Again, Episode 28,we talked a lot more about this.
The second issue is, as a breeder,
can we rely onbehavior modification programs
such as Puppy Culturefor our breeding programs?
Or do we need to select stockwith genetically sound
(03:42):
temperaments?
When it comes to selecting breeding stock.
Genetics always trumps everything.
End of story.
Period.
You should not have to work
hard to raise acceptable puppies.
(04:04):
You should not have to dig yourself
out of a genetic holewith extensive protocols.
Your Puppy Culture protocolsshould be to take genetically
sound temperamentsand make them rock stars,
not to coax marginal temperaments
into being acceptable.
(04:26):
And when I'm saying this,I'm wearing my breeders hat.
Okay.
I'm not talking about ethics or our duty
to the puppies,which we're going to talk about next.
But when you're making decisionsabout your breeding program,
you should not be
selecting breeding stockwhere you have to rely
(04:47):
on a program like Puppy Culturejust to get you to an acceptable level.
You should be selecting breeding stockideally,
and key is ideally,that you really don't have to do much too.
Okay, so that's when you're
making your genetic selectionfor your breeding stock.
Now I'm going to put on my Puppy
(05:09):
Culture dog trainerhat and say on an individual level,
okay, once those puppies are on the groundand that's what Puppy Culture is about.
Puppy Culture is about,what do we do with them?
They're here.
Okay.
It's not advising youhow to formulate a breeding program,
but on an individual level,the puppies are here
(05:30):
and we are equally committedto every puppy.
And the Puppy Culture programcan, in fact, sometimes allow us
to take those marginal puppiesand make them fantastic pets.
Ethically, I believe we
have a commitment to do that.
(05:51):
But as a breeder,
I'm going to saydo not fall into the abyss of believing
that because you have modified it,it does not exist.
That is a real trap and a difficult
one to be clearheaded about.
(06:11):
Now it's not black and white.
It's a continuum.
So it's not like there's some bright lineand anything less
with the perfect temperamentgets thrown out.
But you just have to be aware
that it's a faultif it takes your puppies three exposures
(06:31):
for them to feel safe to approachsomething.
It's a fault.
If you have such bad sound sensitivitythat you have to do
extensive desensitization protocols.
It's a fault.
If your puppy has any adverse reactionto being touched, handled, etc.
(06:53):
the fault is to the degree.
It's not that you're going to kickall those dogs out of your program,
but you have to be honest with yourself.
Keep your eye on the ball and always,
always breed away from it.
Puppy Culture is a guide
to raising behaviorally sound puppies.
(07:15):
It's not a blueprintfor a breeding program.
I have not yet produced much in that area,but when I do,
most of it is going to come downto find the very best genetic stock
you can get your hands onand then breed for
genetically good temperaments.
Nothing will shut down a breeding programfaster
(07:38):
than temperament problems.
Temperament should be your first,
second, and third consideration
when selecting breeding stock.
And then, trust me, you're still goingto get some funky temperaments.
It's a bell curve.
That's the way it works.
(08:01):
But you always want to be moving
the top of the bellcurve in the direction you want.
And the only way to do that
is to select the best temperamentsand be open
eyed about the temperament faultsin your breeding stock.
Don't think they're not there
(08:22):
just because you modified themand you can't see them anymore.
I also want to say that
even though I haven't treated thisin my educational products
so far,it is something that I think about a lot.
And the person who really opened
(08:44):
my eyes to this issue,and the sort of trap
of being able to train away
problem behaviors, and then believing
that you've solved the problem genetically
was Jean Donaldson.
When we went outto California to film Jean,
(09:05):
Jean and I had a long conversation.
What you see in Puppy Culturein the resource guarding section is just
a tiny piece of this very interesting,
deep, long conversation that we had.
And one of the things
that Jean said is, you know,you can eliminate resource
guarding in three generations.
(09:27):
Now, Jean doesn't breed dogs, but somehow
she came across this informationand she believed it to be true.
And I contested that.
I said, well, no,because we have never used a dog
that showed any resource guarding, evenas a puppy in our breeding program at all.
(09:48):
And yet some of our puppiesstill show resource guarding behavior.
So my answer to Jean was, no, thisthis can't be true.
It's not that easy to eliminate it.
And she just looked at me and said,Well, Jane but you do protocols.
And it was like mind blown.
(10:08):
Yes. Of course.
Who knows how many of those puppiesthat I have might have grown up
to be resource guardersif I didn't do my early anti resource
guarding protocols. Now.
As a person,I'm going to say it would be unethical
not to do the anti resourceguarding protocols.
(10:29):
And just so we can see who might grow up
to be a resource guarderbecause it's not fair to the dog.
It's not fair to the familythat gets the dog.
We should all do these anti resourceguarding protocols.
But it does put you in a blind spotas a breeder,
because you really don't knowwhich puppy might have grown up
to be a resource guarder.
(10:49):
So it's one of those thingswhere the intersection of our ethics
and our abilitiesand our our breeding programs
are truly at odds, because
if we wanted to select the best
genetics stock,we wouldn't do behavior modification.
(11:10):
We just
leave them in a cardboard boxlike they did 50, 100 years ago
and take the best temperamentsand move on.
But that's not where we are today.
That's not modern dog rearing.
It's not ethical. I don't advocate it.
But again,it's just something to be aware of.
(11:32):
So to recap,
no, you cannot modify
temperament with Puppy Culture.
Yes, you can modify behavior.
And yes, even if the dam is marginal,
you can have fabulous puppies
by doing Puppy Culture protocols.
(11:55):
So I don't advocaterelying on Puppy Culture
protocols to produce good temperaments.
But if for some reason, let's sayyou have a super
low population breed and you'rein some sort of preservation situation,
and maybe you have to breedsome marginal temperaments,
then yes, at least
(12:17):
you know you're going to get those puppiesto a place where they're placeable
and you can move on and keep tryingto step out of that genetic hole.
But Puppy Culture is just going to be,
an aid
to your selection process
to to give you a little rope to play withso that you can get out of that
genetic hole.
(12:38):
It's not it'snot fixing the problem for you,
but maybe it's going to buy yousome generational time
so you can improve your temperaments.
If you're interested in this conversation,
please join us at the Puppy CultureDiscussion Group on Facebook.
I'd love to hearpeople's thoughts on this.
(12:58):
If you liked this podcast,you'll love our bundles.
We have bundles for puppy owners, bundlesfor breeders,
show, puppy bundles, pet puppy bundles.
Check them all out at puppyculture.com.
Well, that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.
And this is a Puppy CulturePotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,we bring the conversation.
(00:20):
This episode's question is about
how much can we modifymy temperament with protocols.
And here's the question.
I was chatting to someone
recently about nature versus nurture,
and they said, you can get a bitchwho has a poor temperament
and using Puppy Culture, you can have pupswho have great temperaments.
(00:45):
My view is it's more complex than that.
Yes, it will certainly help,but the pups are going to learn from mum.
If she's reactive to people initiallyand the pups see that,
then that could certainly becomea learned behavior from pups.
And no amount of other inputis going to help that.
(01:06):
Would love people's thoughts.
Okay, me again.
First,
let me just directly answer the question
and say Puppy Culture will not overcome
all genetic temperament characteristics.
I did an entire podcaston this, Episode 28.
(01:29):
If you haven't yet, listen to itby all means, you should go back
and listen to that because it'sa good foundation for this podcast.
I think there are three thingsthat we have to cover.
First of all, temperament versus behavior.
Temperament is what the dog is born withinherently.
(01:51):
It's the genetic makeup of the dog.
It's again going back to that Episode 28.
It's that genetic boxthat we don't know where it is
when they're little tiny puppies.
But there is this boxthat's a boundry around
how much we can modify behavior.
And then there's the expression
(02:13):
of that genetic temperament,which is how the dog behaves.
Now Puppy Culture is about behavior.
It's really not about temperament.
You in a true sense,cannot modify temperament.
You can modify behavior.
So you can modify the waythe temperament is expressed.
(02:35):
And that's what Puppy Culture is.
It's about raising behaviorally sound
puppies.
Okay.
So now that we've distinguished
between temperamentwhich is immutable and behavior
which is modifiable,there are still two remaining issues.
(02:58):
The first one is, can we really modify
genetic default behaviorwith Puppy Culture?
And the answer is yes.
But there are limits.
Puppy Culture will help
you get the best expression of the dog'sgenetic temperament.
But there are going to be genetic limitson how much you can modify
(03:19):
that temperament.
Again, Episode 28,we talked a lot more about this.
The second issue is, as a breeder,
can we rely onbehavior modification programs
such as Puppy Culturefor our breeding programs?
Or do we need to select stockwith genetically sound
(03:42):
temperaments?
When it comes to selecting breeding stock.
Genetics always trumps everything.
End of story.
Period.
You should not have to work
hard to raise acceptable puppies.
(04:04):
You should not have to dig yourself
out of a genetic holewith extensive protocols.
Your Puppy Culture protocolsshould be to take genetically
sound temperamentsand make them rock stars,
not to coax marginal temperaments
into being acceptable.
(04:26):
And when I'm saying this,I'm wearing my breeders hat.
Okay.
I'm not talking about ethics or our duty
to the puppies,which we're going to talk about next.
But when you're making decisionsabout your breeding program,
you should not be
selecting breeding stockwhere you have to rely
(04:47):
on a program like Puppy Culturejust to get you to an acceptable level.
You should be selecting breeding stockideally,
and key is ideally,that you really don't have to do much too.
Okay, so that's when you're
making your genetic selectionfor your breeding stock.
Now I'm going to put on my Puppy
(05:09):
Culture dog trainerhat and say on an individual level,
okay, once those puppies are on the groundand that's what Puppy Culture is about.
Puppy Culture is about,what do we do with them?
They're here.
Okay.
It's not advising youhow to formulate a breeding program,
but on an individual level,the puppies are here
(05:30):
and we are equally committedto every puppy.
And the Puppy Culture programcan, in fact, sometimes allow us
to take those marginal puppiesand make them fantastic pets.
Ethically, I believe we
have a commitment to do that.
(05:51):
But as a breeder,
I'm going to saydo not fall into the abyss of believing
that because you have modified it,it does not exist.
That is a real trap and a difficult
one to be clearheaded about.
(06:11):
Now it's not black and white.
It's a continuum.
So it's not like there's some bright lineand anything less
with the perfect temperamentgets thrown out.
But you just have to be aware
that it's a faultif it takes your puppies three exposures
(06:31):
for them to feel safe to approachsomething.
It's a fault.
If you have such bad sound sensitivitythat you have to do
extensive desensitization protocols.
It's a fault.
If your puppy has any adverse reactionto being touched, handled, etc.
(06:53):
the fault is to the degree.
It's not that you're going to kickall those dogs out of your program,
but you have to be honest with yourself.
Keep your eye on the ball and always,
always breed away from it.
Puppy Culture is a guide
to raising behaviorally sound puppies.
(07:15):
It's not a blueprintfor a breeding program.
I have not yet produced much in that area,but when I do,
most of it is going to come downto find the very best genetic stock
you can get your hands onand then breed for
genetically good temperaments.
Nothing will shut down a breeding programfaster
(07:38):
than temperament problems.
Temperament should be your first,
second, and third consideration
when selecting breeding stock.
And then, trust me, you're still goingto get some funky temperaments.
It's a bell curve.
That's the way it works.
(08:01):
But you always want to be moving
the top of the bellcurve in the direction you want.
And the only way to do that
is to select the best temperamentsand be open
eyed about the temperament faultsin your breeding stock.
Don't think they're not there
(08:22):
just because you modified themand you can't see them anymore.
I also want to say that
even though I haven't treated thisin my educational products
so far,it is something that I think about a lot.
And the person who really opened
(08:44):
my eyes to this issue,and the sort of trap
of being able to train away
problem behaviors, and then believing
that you've solved the problem genetically
was Jean Donaldson.
When we went outto California to film Jean,
(09:05):
Jean and I had a long conversation.
What you see in Puppy Culturein the resource guarding section is just
a tiny piece of this very interesting,
deep, long conversation that we had.
And one of the things
that Jean said is, you know,you can eliminate resource
guarding in three generations.
(09:27):
Now, Jean doesn't breed dogs, but somehow
she came across this informationand she believed it to be true.
And I contested that.
I said, well, no,because we have never used a dog
that showed any resource guarding, evenas a puppy in our breeding program at all.
(09:48):
And yet some of our puppiesstill show resource guarding behavior.
So my answer to Jean was, no, thisthis can't be true.
It's not that easy to eliminate it.
And she just looked at me and said,Well, Jane but you do protocols.
And it was like mind blown.
(10:08):
Yes. Of course.
Who knows how many of those puppiesthat I have might have grown up
to be resource guardersif I didn't do my early anti resource
guarding protocols. Now.
As a person,I'm going to say it would be unethical
not to do the anti resourceguarding protocols.
(10:29):
And just so we can see who might grow up
to be a resource guarderbecause it's not fair to the dog.
It's not fair to the familythat gets the dog.
We should all do these anti resourceguarding protocols.
But it does put you in a blind spotas a breeder,
because you really don't knowwhich puppy might have grown up
to be a resource guarder.
(10:49):
So it's one of those thingswhere the intersection of our ethics
and our abilitiesand our our breeding programs
are truly at odds, because
if we wanted to select the best
genetics stock,we wouldn't do behavior modification.
(11:10):
We just
leave them in a cardboard boxlike they did 50, 100 years ago
and take the best temperamentsand move on.
But that's not where we are today.
That's not modern dog rearing.
It's not ethical. I don't advocate it.
But again,it's just something to be aware of.
(11:32):
So to recap,
no, you cannot modify
temperament with Puppy Culture.
Yes, you can modify behavior.
And yes, even if the dam is marginal,
you can have fabulous puppies
by doing Puppy Culture protocols.
(11:55):
So I don't advocaterelying on Puppy Culture
protocols to produce good temperaments.
But if for some reason, let's sayyou have a super
low population breed and you'rein some sort of preservation situation,
and maybe you have to breedsome marginal temperaments,
then yes, at least
(12:17):
you know you're going to get those puppiesto a place where they're placeable
and you can move on and keep tryingto step out of that genetic hole.
But Puppy Culture is just going to be,
an aid
to your selection process
to to give you a little rope to play withso that you can get out of that
genetic hole.
(12:38):
It's not it'snot fixing the problem for you,
but maybe it's going to buy yousome generational time
so you can improve your temperaments.
If you're interested in this conversation,
please join us at the Puppy CultureDiscussion Group on Facebook.
I'd love to hearpeople's thoughts on this.
(12:58):
If you liked this podcast,you'll love our bundles.
We have bundles for puppy owners, bundlesfor breeders,
show, puppy bundles, pet puppy bundles.
Check them all out at puppyculture.com.
Well, that's it for this time.
Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
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