Are You a Control Freak?

If you have an untrained puppy or dog at home, you need to become one.

The more variables you can control in a situation, the more successful you and your puppy/dog will be.

Laissez-faire might be good for market stability somewhere, but it doesn’t work for raising a dog to be a well-behaved member of your family. Dogs and puppies, when left to their own devices, by and large will not make the choices you want them to make.*

Taking control of your relationship is necessary, humane, and happiness-inducing. It may produce whining, moaning, tantrums, and avoidance. But once you buck up and stop whining, moaning, throwing tantrums, and avoiding the responsibility, you will be on the path to greatness with your canine companion. 😊

Thanks for laughing at my joke. In truth, your dog may whine about and avoid your attempts to control, especially if he has had too much freedom until now. (This is why I always recommend starting with more structure when the dog enters your life and gradually granting more freedom when he has earned it. Are you finally listening?)

For example: If you haven’t previously crate-trained him, and you begin the process, it may not be pretty. It may be noisy. He may tap into your emotions and fiddle with your sappy, bleeding heart. This can be difficult to endure, but it is indeed endurable—for both of you.**  My article The Crate is Great can help your reluctant dog enjoy his space.

If you stop allowing him on furniture where he was allowed previously, you might experience some pushback. It won’t be easy to keep him off. It won’t be a cinch to get him to leave the couch or bed once he has snuck up on it. But if it is what he needs, you will calmly persevere.***

Until your puppy or dog is trained, you need to be able to control where he goes, when he goes there, and what he does when there. We use structure to get that control, and it allows us to set the dog up for success. Once he has mastered some fundamentals, we can relinquish some control because he is capable of making better decisions. The more he learns and becomes proficient at, the less control we need to exert over him.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~George Bernard Shaw

How can you use structure to gain control? Let’s talk about tools that can help you.

First, control freedom inside the home, to prevent accidents and destruction.

Use a crate. Use tethering. Use gates. Use a dragline. The pros all do it. Copy us.

CRATES—when you are not actively watching your puppy or dog, he should be in his crate.

TETHERS and DRAGLINES—having the dog attached to something or dragging a line helps you with control. These should be used only when you are home and can supervise.

Tethering helps with supervision

GATES—use baby gates to set boundaries and control the dog’s access to rooms or areas where he should remain, or stay out of. Walk-through gates are easiest to use. NOTE: smart dogs can learn to scale baby gates or push them over. Use them only when you are home until you know if he will try; crates tend to be safer containment areas, but exceptions do occur.

Next, control interactions with the dog and humans.

What does this look like? If you imagined it to be yelling at the dog to stop doing X, or physically “showing him who is boss” by hitting, shoving his nose in his waste, or body-slamming him, forget that crap. It’s counterproductive and we know better now.

Speak in your normal voice. Stand up straight unless you are inviting the dog into your space for a snuggle. Teach one-word commands and stick to them; dogs don’t understand long paragraphs. Be consistent and clear—the dog’s comprehension of our strange world depends on clarity and consistency.

In many household situations, you don’t even need commands. Dogs are excellent at paying attention to the things that matter to them. They are reading us all the time and learn quickly what certain gestures, ways of moving, and events mean. It doesn’t take but a few repetitions for the dog to learn that the sound of keys means you are about to walk out the door; the sound of the can lid popping, the refrigerator opening, or the microwave dinging signals food being prepared; even the sound of the toilet flushing signals something to the dog.

With a bit of practice, you holding his food bowl means sit, and eventually lie down and wait. You moving toward him means back up, please, or move aside. You pointing at a nearby bed means “go there and remain until I release you.” You patting your leg means “walk right here with me.”

Teaching the dog to do these things takes a bit of practice, but it's not difficult, and it makes sense to the dog.

Learning to wait at doors is crucial

It can take several forms, but the leadership protocol I’ve been using for years that works very well is having the dog perform a command before he is given something of value to him. This way, he sees that the things he wants and enjoys are rewards for his behavior towards you or other humans. Before you put down his food bowl, or open the door to let him into the yard, or put his leash on, or allow him on the furniture, or give him affection, you should have him sit, or lie down, or stay, or come to you, or even perform a trick occasionally. You can use any command or behavior the dog knows. I like to make the sit the default command for all “life rewards,” and then as the dog learns more commands, I “raise the bar” and ask him for harder things for the rewards he finds more valuable, like food.

Another way to control the interactions is to make sure you aren’t rewarding pushy behaviors like darting out of the crate, shoving a toy on you for play, banging into you when playing, putting teeth on you when playing, refusing to move out of your way or get off furniture when told, or grabbing food in any context. Don’t allow the dog to do these things and make him getting the things he wants contingent on his calm choices like sitting, lying down, coming happily when called, and ceding space to you.

Next, control your dog’s freedom outdoors.

Use securely fenced yards, leashes, boundary training, recall training, and pack-relevance training to teach your dog that you are worth being paid attention to, even in the exciting outdoors. Freedom needs to be earned. Far too many people make assumptions about what their puppy or dog will or won’t do outdoors in unsecured places. Don’t make assumptions. Dogs are good until the day that they are not. The only thing that gets you solid off-leash reliability is repetitive training with valuable rewards for compliance and eventually, well-timed corrections for non-compliance.

You must make coming to you, staying near you, and keeping you in sight more rewarding for the dog than dashing off, running away, playing with other dogs, chasing cars or prey, or doing whatever feels good in the moment. And dogs are all about what feels good in the moment!

Until your dog has had enough training to show that he understands what is expected, especially in the face of distractions, he cannot be trusted off-leash in unsecured environments. Period. There’s a razor-thin line between safety and sadness.

Most young puppies don’t have the confidence to stray far from us, so people tend to get cocky and complacent when they acquire a pup at 7-8 weeks and it follows them everywhere, even outside. Up until about 16-18 weeks, most puppies don’t want to be far from us. But as they reach 16-18 weeks, they start to gain more confidence and want to see the world. If you have good recall training on board before that happens, excellent! Now it will be put to the test as you practice EVERYWHERE, ON LEASH, for the next several months.

You may want your puppy or dog to have off-leash freedom before he is ready, but what he needs is a lot of preparation. You don’t get to choose what he needs and your wants do not override his needs.

No matter how friendly your dog actually
is, he should never be allowed to charge
up to people on the street

If your dog runs up to people and/or dogs when he is off-leash, and you cannot prevent this, or at the very least call him back with one command, he should not be off-leash. This is rude and someone is going to get hurt. Leashed dogs do NOT appreciate being approached by off-leash dogs, and neither do their owners. Many of these owners are trying to work on leash skills and your cries of "it's OK, he's friendly!" are as helpful as a screen door on a submarine. You are allowing YOUR wants to mess up the training others are trying to accomplish--training you neglected to do. Leash your dog. Plus, it's the law, for good reason.

If your puppy or dog is the clingy type, you may have tried a few scenarios where he was allowed freedom and he never strayed far from you, or came back easily. You might have even done this multiple times, and have concluded that “he would never run away.” Believing this is folly and folly can lead to heartbreak in seconds. Even the “Velcro” dog needs lots of recall training because these dogs tend to be a bit anxious and when the chips are down, if they panic and bolt, it won’t always be in your direction. Also, do you know what your dog will do if a deer, snake, or bear appears in the woods when you are hiking with him off-leash? If you cannot answer that definitively, he isn’t ready to be off-leash.

What about taking your dog to the dog park?

This subject is long enough for a completely separate post, but I want to take a stab at it here because dog parks have become so ubiquitous. You probably aren't going to like what I have to say, but please bear with me here.

Dog parks are chock full of uncontrollable variables, which by now should be a red flag to you. Dogs must be off-leash in these parks for their own safety. So, strike 1 against the untrained dog: he is basically uncontrollable once that leash is off. Strike 2 is that not only is he uncontrollable, but he is in "Disney World for dogs who love other dogs": a place of unbridled hedonism where humans have very little authority. Playing with other dogs is highly rewarding to most pet dogs², and when the things your dog loves come with no supervisional strings attached, you become less relevant to the dog.

The fact that your dog seems to be super happy during your trips to the dog park and comes home super tired are irrelevant because you are teaching your dog that the BEST THING is barely attached to you. This lesson is not lost on your dog. He learns through proper structure and training that rewards are contingent on behaviors--a necessary lesson--and then every day, or twice a week, or however often you cart him to the park, he learns that there are exceptions to this rule. How many other exceptions might there be? Do you want him to test this theory? I don't. And you shouldn't, either.

"A tired dog is a good dog" is pretty much true, but how your dog gets tired matters. And if you like him tired because it means you don't have to do much with him, then you need to ask yourself why you have a dog. Seriously.

Is the dog park meeting your dogs needs? You may think the answer is yes, but when you look at the dogs actual needs, can you answer the question the same way?

This article explains why I am leery of dog parks. I wrote it long enough ago that it doesn't even touch on the idea of how your dog gets tired matters, but the short version of that is this: allowing your dog to tire himself physically in an activity uncontrolled by humans means he isn't getting much mental stimulation (if any) at the dog park, and while some learning is taking place (he is learning how to interact with other dogs), some of this learning could actually be detrimental. He could be learning how to bully other dogs, for instance. How would you control that? It's something to think about.

Remember: you don’t get to choose what your dog needs, and your wants do not override his needs.

The more variables you can control in a situation, the more successful you and your puppy/dog will be.

This “Mailey’s Maxim” applies even to public situations where your dog will be on a leash, such as public parks, restaurants, your kid’s soccer practice, stores that allow dogs, hiking trails, and fairs/festivals.

All of these environments come with something we haven’t yet touched on: largely uncontrollable variables like people, other dogs (both on and off-leash), and distractions of both the exciting kind (“someone just dropped a hotdog!”) and the frightening kind (traffic, large crowds, loud noises).

Put dogs in environments with fewer distractions until they are trained and have shown that they can handle themselves well. Use these environments to train them and prepare them for more distracting environments later. Add distractions incrementally to inoculate them for real-world situations. Quit on a positive note (earlier than you wanted to) and come back to it after hours or even a day or more. Use rewards that are commensurate with the level of difficulty and use corrections properly.

Before taking your dog in public, ask yourself: How many variables in this potential environment will I be able to control? If the answer is less than half, few, or none, rethink your need to take your untrained or partially-trained dog. If he must go, how can you set him up for success?

The more training he has, the more environments he can handle well. Good socialization is about preparing your dog for the types of environments he is likely to encounter in his lifetime, which include people, other animals, traffic, noises, hotdogs falling on the ground unexpectedly, and the like.

Let me give you some examples:

When you take a walk in your neighborhood, you will generally have more control over variables than when you take your dog to the local park or the fairgrounds for a festival. Why? You know the area, and so does your dog. You are more comfortable, and therefore will not trigger the dog’s anxieties. Is dog trained to walk nicely on leash? That definitely helps. You probably know neighbors and what dogs they have, how many kids you are likely to see, traffic and noise.

Is your neighborhood teeming with uncontrollable variables like off-leash dogs and lots of kids playing? Go at a quieter time of day or night if you can.

When you take your dog in the car to a place that allows dogs to come inside, you are still able to control some of the variables, like where the dog rides in the car (restrain in a crate or harness, please), and where you go in the store itself. If it’s a store you know, and your dog has been before, your chances are better.

But it could present several variables beyond your control, such as the Marauders, other dogs who are not so well-behaved, and chances for you to become distracted.

Practice inside a pet supply
store can be risky because
of marauders.

There are people who cannot see a dog in a store, even in a place where dogs commonly go, without making a gigantic fuss, following the dog and human around, touching without consent (from owner or dog), invading you and your dog’s space, and basically acting like they’ve never seen a dog before. I call them the Marauders and I do my best to avoid them because they scare my dogs and that puts me on edge. They are the main reason I don’t take my personal dogs into many dog-friendly stores anymore—half the time, these people work there!

Sometimes Marauders have dogs with them, and sometimes not. Sometimes, other people’s dogs in the store are the Marauders, who strain at the end of their retractable leashes trying to get to my dogs to play (or something more sinister) and their hapless owners are half an aisle away, distracted, or clueless.

Both of the above are uncontrollable variables that untrained, partially-trained, or anxious/fearful dogs should not be exposed to if at all possible. Marauders can screw up your dog’s confidence, or cause him great anxiety, or set him back, or all of these.

What about taking your leashed dog for a group hike, or to a festival in the park?

How many of variables in those environments do you think you can control? Has your dog shown anxiety, aggression, or unpredictability around large crowds of people and/or dogs? Then he is not ready!

Even the dog who loves everyone and everything is at risk of being overwhelmed and backsliding as the potential for lots of people in not-a-lot-of-space increases. Marauders abound, and even your super-friendly dog has limits. Don’t push it. Protect your dog from uncontrollable variables for which he has not been prepared until you can train him to tolerate or enjoy those situations.

How long will this take? It depends on several factors, including your dog’s innate temperament, his age, his breed (to some extent), how long you have had him, whether or not he sees you as a leader, his current habits, what he already knows, his distractability, the training tools you use, and your access to training opportunities and your willingness to put in the time.

In short, assume months and even years in some situations—not hours and days. Put the work in and get professional help if you need it. The payout is priceless, and you will both be enriched by the process.

The better trained your dog is, the less of a control freak you need to be.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



*Do exceptions exist? Sure. Some dogs are just easier to raise than others. Some people have never used a crate and swear they haven’t ever used any other structural devices and ended up with a fine dog. It is certainly possible, but is it probable? No. Those people are the exceptions, not the rule.

**Some dogs cannot abide being in a crate when their humans are gone. They can easily escape, or will attempt to, and can injure themselves in the process, which we do not want. In some cases, they can be desensitized to the crate and learn to tolerate it, and in other cases, this doesn’t work and an alternative method of containment must be used.

***Whether or not dogs are allowed on your furniture is a personal choice on some level. If you don’t want them up there, don’t allow it from the get-go. They will adapt just fine. If you want them to be able to get on the furniture, that’s fine too, as long as they know the rules: they need to be invited, for the most part, and when they are told to remove themselves from the furniture, they do so without complaint, and quickly. If they cannot, they should not be allowed up. Stopping access to furniture is one way to curtail freedom and may or may not be a necessary part of your dog learning better behavior in your home.

² There are plenty of dogs who do not like dog parks. The reasons can be that they don't like playing with strange dogs, they don't like large groups of dogs, they are uncomfortable with the energy of the park, they prefer the company of dogs they know or humans, they have been injured or scared in dog parks, and more. If your dog doesn't like dog parks and doesn't have fun there, stop going. You are definitely not meeting his needs, and you could be messing him up.

Not sure if he is having fun at the park? Consult a reputable trainer to assess this.

A Sense of Entitlement

Quick quiz: you are walking down the street and someone (a stranger to you) with a dog is walking towards you. The dog is calm and appears well-behaved, and both he and the owner are minding their own business. You love dogs, of course (yours is not with you at the moment). What should you do?

A: Start squealing in a high-pitched baby voice at the dog while moving towards it with your hands outstretched. If it's small enough, go right over and pick it up, then kiss it. If it’s a big dog, bend over it and kiss it.

B: Start cooing in a sing-song voice, stop, bend over and wait for the dog to get close, then try to pet it.

C: Squat down, talking sweetly to the dog, and wait until it comes to you, then let it sniff your hand, and pet it.

D: Ask the owner if you can pet the dog, and then do C.

E: None of the above. It's not your dog, and you don't have a right to pet it. Smile at the owner, say, "cute puppy!" and continue walking.

Did you choose (D)?

The correct answer is (E).

What? Did I just tell you to pretty much ignore a dog on the street, even though it's adorable and you clearly love dogs?

Sigh. I did.

Would you walk up to a stranger and pet their child on the head? Would you touch them? Would you walk up and grab someone's bike, or phone, or dress, and admire it? If the person with the dog was walking without his dog, would you stop him, touch his arm, and interact with him, just because? Why not?

Because it would be rude.

When you go to pet someone's dog, someone who has not explicitly asked you to interact with the dog, you are making an assumption, and you put the owner in a tough spot. If they refuse you, you will think them rude. Why is that?

Dogs are not public property, despite the apparent eagerness of many to be social. If you would feel hurt that someone wouldn't allow you—lover of all dogs--to pet their pup, you need to look at your assumptions--and your desires. 

Because wanting to pet that dog is your desire, your want. It's all about you. It doesn't take the dog, or his human, into account at all.

Just because your dog loves people, and just because you love dogs, that doesn't grant you the right to interact with others' dogs without explicit permission.

If their dog is sketchy around strangers, they don't want you to try and pet it (and you shouldn't want to!). Telling them, "It's ok! Dogs love me!" as you approach and as their dog clearly turns away from you (or growls or barks at you) is not OK. Continuing to approach a dog that is barking in a threatening manner, instead of backing off, is not OK.

If their dog is in training, they may be concentrating on that, and following the advice of a professional to prevent others from touching the dog (I give this advice a lot to my students).

If their dog is too social, and will jump all over you, they may be embarrassed about this and trying not to encourage it. Even the dog that is clearly straining to be petted belongs to someone who may not want him to be doing that.

Please don't put people in an awkward position. You would blame them if the dog bit you (or scratched you in his exuberance), when in fact it would be your fault if you invaded his space. Some dogs just are not social with strangers, and you believing yourself “good with dogs” doesn't imbue you with some magical force that makes it OK. In fact, if you are actually “good with dogs,” you’d never try to pet one you didn’t know—especially one who was clearly sending signals that he didn’t want to be petted.

(People who are “good with dogs” don’t typically announce this fact. They act in ways that dogs understand to be non-threatening. It’s not magic—it’s experience. And practice.)

I don't allow people to pet my dogs when I'm out. They don't care for attention from strangers, and often, we are in training. I never foist myself upon dogs I see in passing. I smile and compliment them, and go home to love on my dogs, because each of us knows and trusts the other. I love dogs, yes, but because I love them, I don’t have a searing need to interact with every one I see--especially uninvited. Self-control around dogs takes some practice, but you can do it.

I once entered a pet supply store with my dog, who I was training. I needed to buy something, and I wanted to work my dog around the distractions of the store while I was doing it. Everything was fine, and my dog was doing quite well, until one of the clerks spotted us. She literally started squealing and following us around the store (I started moving quickly away, on purpose) with her hands outstretched.

My dog was looking to me for help to get him away from this crazy person, and I could not shake her. I finally had to stop, put my dog in a stay behind me, and block her approach like a soccer goalie. She finally asked if she could touch him, and I said no, not rudely, but with conviction. She got her feelings hurt, sure enough (not my intention at all), and probably told her co-worker how rude I was as we left without buying anything, both of us breathing a sigh of relief upon stepping out into the sunlight.

My job was to protect my dog, and I did.

NOTE: I’m not an absolutist. Life is full of shades of gray. Many dogs love people, and want to approach them, and belong to people who are trying to socialize them, and can handle your greetings properly. Many people don’t mind if you pet their dogs. In fact, some may ask you to. Some may even become offended if you don’t touch their dogs! If you meet such people with such dogs, see option D above. And enjoy!

Otherwise, please keep moving.

You Keep Saying That Word...

Your dog sits. You go to give him a treat and he stands up to get it. You think you rewarded him for sitting.

Your dog doesn’t come when you call him. When he finally wanders over, you are angry and pop him with your hand, or shake him by the collar. You think you punished him for not coming.

You come home to find poop on the rug. You yell at, or spank the dog. You think you are punishing him for pooping in the house.

You send your dog out in the fenced yard to potty. He walks 25 feet away and pees and poops. You call him and he runs in, and you give him a treat. You think you rewarded him for pottying outside.

You walk in the room to find your puppy chewing your shoes. You yell “NO!” really loudly, and when you do, he looks up in surprise at the sound. You say nothing. You think you corrected him and he now knows not to chew your shoe.

You are walking your dog and he sees another dog, or a person. He starts to bark and whine, or growl. You shorten the leash and pet him soothingly. “It’s OK, Fido. That dog is friendly!” He keeps barking and straining at the leash, and you keep petting. You think you are comforting your dog.

You sit down to watch TV or read, and your dog barks at you, paws at you, or pesters you for attention. You stop what you are doing and respond to him by grabbing his favorite toy and throwing it for him to fetch. You think you are meeting the dog’s need for play appropriately.

You tell your dog to sit, or stay, or lie down. He gets up and walks off. You do nothing. You think “he wasn’t interested, and that’s OK.” You think it doesn’t matter that he ignored you.

You tell your dog to sit, or stay, come, or lie down. He doesn’t. You pull out a treat to entice him. You think you are rewarding the behavior itself.

You don’t want the dog on the bed, but your husband doesn’t care either way, and doesn’t make him get down when he jumps on it. You think your dog understands that it’s not OK to get on the bed.

All of these common scenarios play out in homes everywhere on a daily basis. Dogs do something, and people respond in ways they feel are appropriate. But as time passes, the dog’s behavior worsens. The owners think they are doing everything right, and cannot understand why Fido isn’t trained.

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” ~Cool Hand Luke

What people need to understand that dogs don’t just “know” how to behave the way we expect. They must be taught, the same way you were taught to tie your shoes or eat with utensils. No one would expect a 4-year-old to know how to ride a bicycle without training wheels and a helpful adult. But every day, dog owners expect their puppies and dogs to read their minds and know what is expected of them.

I think this discord results from our idea of what dogs are capable of knowing. They fit so well socially into our lives and homes that we assume they already know the rules. But the only rules they know instinctively that pertain to living with humans are the ones that bond them to us, not the ones governing proper home behavior. It’s instinctual for dogs to eat anything (or try to) that is in front of them, to chew things, to poop and pee when the need arises, to chase things that move, to bark at novel things or beings, to protect their territory, to seek out things that are fun, and avoid things that are uncomfortable. Some of these things they are born knowing how to do. Others they learn before they leave the mother dog and littermates.

If you want them to do other things instead of these, you need to show them what you want, clearly, using well-timed, appropriate rewards and corrections. You need to prevent them being able to practice the behaviors they know and love that you don’t love. The job of this education is yours. It doesn’t happen by accident.

When your dog sits, then gets up and gets a treat, he thinks that “sit” means “put your bottom down, then get up.” Is that what you meant?

When your dog ignores your call and you get mad when he finally arrives, your dog thinks that “Come!” means “Avoid the human, because she’s a little crazy.”

When your dog poops in the house and you punish him after-the-fact, your dog thinks “don’t be in the same room with a pile of poop if a human is coming. Better hide!”

When you treat your dog after he comes back in the house after a potty break, your dog learns that coming into the house is good. He doesn’t learn to only potty outside.

When you yell at the puppy who is chewing your shoes, and he looks up and you do nothing, he learns that chewing shoes is fun and paying attention to humans gets you... nothing.

When your dog is stressed or upset and vocalizing, and you pet him, he thinks, “My human must like it when I do this. I’ll do it some more!”*

When you respond to your dog’s obnoxious attempts to get your attention with talking, play, or anything else he enjoys, you teach him that he needs only to demand something, and he will get it.

When you allow your dog to ignore a command, he learns that he can ignore you.

When you produce a treat (to entice a behavior) after the dog has ignored your command, your dog learns to ignore you until he sees “the goods.”

When you allow your husband to let the dog remain on the bed, your dog learns that he can get on the bed. “Occasionally” and “sometimes” are meaningless words to dogs.

“What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.” ~Daniel Heath

Be clear. Be concise. Be a communicator. Don’t make your dog guess about behaviors that really matter. Do you know of any meaningful, lasting relationships that thrive without clear communication? I don't.

All behaviors matter. Help your dog succeed. If you won’t do it, who will?

FINAL NOTE: You, presumably, are a human being. You make mistakes. Dogs are exceedingly open to changing their ways if you want to make changes. Don't beat yourself up if every "you" in the above post actually applies to you. It doesn't have to. I am not beating you up, and you shouldn't beat you up, either. 

Now you know better, so you can do better. Take a deep breath, and get started.

*This doesn't necessarily pertain to situations in which a dog is truly in a panic, such as during a thunderstorm or fireworks. Sometimes, hands calmly on a dog can calm them. But this is rarely the case with a dog barking at people, dogs, or objects.

We have met the enemy, and He is Us

The young dog was gaunt, but I knew he’d been fed on a regular basis. Now, in our care, he ate warily but readily, as long as the food was left for him and no one was looking. His eyes darted back and forth, watching everything. He shrank back in his kennel and occasionally we would hear a low growl emanating from him when we came too close. Crouching down and looking over his head was better, but he still wouldn’t readily approach. At one point, I went and sat in the 8X10 run at the far corner, a handful of chicken pieces in my bait bag and a book in the other hand. I would sit and read out loud, and toss chicken in his direction. For the first 15 minutes he ignored it. Growling came and went. I never looked directly at him.

He eventually stuck his slender neck out and snatched some of the pieces hurriedly, fearfully. After a few agonizing minutes he finished the rest, never taking his eyes off me. When I finished the chapter, I stood up very slowly and exited, not looking back. He watched me carefully, but didn’t move a muscle, as I walked away.

After 3 days of this there hadn’t been much change. I was able to loop a leash over his head, and he would walk with me, but it was not a normal walk. He alternated hanging back and forging ahead in an attempt to free himself from the leash. When the door to the outside opened, he bolted through it and stood, shaking, on the other side. I had him out for about 20 minutes, and he never eliminated. I was able to stroke his fur on his side (he started when I touched him, but didn’t move away, so I left my hand there), but I did not try to touch his head. I spoke calmly to him, and watched as he scanned the area hawkishly, his bushy tail tucked between his trembling rear legs. A loud truck went over a bump in the road, and the dog nearly leapt out of his skin.

He looked wolfish, but it was likely German shepherd and some other lanky breeds. Had he been at his correct weight, where ribs could be felt but not seen, he’d have been beautiful. He had what we like to call “human eyes”: dark brown with rimmed irises. His coat was in decent shape, he was neutered, and I knew he’d finished his last round of vaccinations about 6 months ago.

No, Shiloh wasn't some stray we'd picked up on the side of the road.

He was adopted from the shelter as an 8-week-old pup, by a happy couple who had owned dogs before. They were middle class, no kids (yet), and far from ignorant or unprepared--at least as far as shelter personnel knew. There was no reason to believe that this puppy would live anything but a pampered life with them.

But here he was, returned 8 months later, a victim of abuse. Oh, they never laid a hand on him except to pet him (and I know this because they were horrified the shelter staff might assume they had). He was housebroken, but he didn't have much else in the way of "formal training." You might think that's why I considered him abused--refusing to train a social species that hungers for information about how to fit into our world is, well, at the very least disrespectful to dogs--but that really wasn't even on my mind as I sat with him and remembered the wife crying in the Intake waiting room.

"I'm due in 3 months. And I love him--he's very loyal and attached to me--but he is so scared and spooky, and I just can't take any chances with the baby."

Pregnant couples giving up on perfectly good dogs is nothing new in sheltering. It happens a lot, and one can blame them up one side and down the other (I mean, you've known for a while you were gonna have a kid, right?), or even have some compassion towards their predicament, lame as it sometimes sounds, but at that point, it is moot. Cultural traditions, myths, advice from well-meaning people and the glut of information online, coupled with the emotions surrounding the fact that your lives are about to change forever, put seeds of doubt into would-be parents' minds, and often there is no going back.

I didn't fault this woman for the choice she had made. Pregnant couples giving up on perfectly good dogs may not be new, but Shiloh was far from "perfectly good." He was spooky, flighty, and on edge. I couldn't imagine him around a newborn, not to mention all the preparations, and the arrival home from the hospital, and change in schedule, and family in and out after the blessed event. He barely had enough confidence to eat enough to keep his ribs from showing when it was calm and quiet at their home with no visitors or stressful events. A baby in the home would be an accident waiting to happen. I'm childfree by choice, but I know enough to know that nervous, frightened dogs don't mix well with kids, and parents don't usually have a lot of confidence in them--which perpetuates the cycle.

So if they never laid a hand on him or made him go without, how dare I claim "abuse"?

I'll tell you why: he was scared of everything, and not just at first. Shiloh was distrustful even after a period of time had passed with nothing bad happening to him. He couldn't "bounce back" from his fears easily. And while fear has an evolutionary advantage in mammals, an overabundance of fear is not better. It's far worse.

But how is his fear their fault?

Well, the genetics part isn't, at all--they didn't breed him. And though they never laid a mean hand on Shiloh, never yelled or screamed at him, never left him in the cold without food or shelter, never ignored him when they were home with him, and never neglected his veterinary care, they abused him, passively, just the same.

Because Shiloh was never socialized. By their own admission, they kept him inside with them all the time, and during the crucial socialization period that all puppies go through between 3 weeks and 16 weeks of age, when they should be learning positive things about the world, Shiloh was kept from life. They were worried he might catch a disease, so they avoided exposing him to the world. Unknowingly, they took away his ability to develop the capacity to deal with the world outside. Shiloh never went for walks, or on short trips to safe places that wouldn't overwhelm him. He hid in the bedroom when guests came, and he had never seen a child up close. He didn't get to play with other dogs; he didn't attend training classes; he didn't really get to be a dog.

Socialization is inoculation against later fearfulness, and his owners, while meaning well, denied him this vaccination.

And in doing so, they made sure Shiloh would never be normal. Some of his fear was likely hereditary, given his potential breed mix. It was a double whammy, nature and nurture in a negative capacity, and he never saw it coming.

Dogs are social creatures who develop bonds early in life to their own kind and, thanks to years of selective breeding, to humans. It's part of their genetic code to seek a social group, and to seek a place within the hierarchy of that group.

Deny a human child the company of other humans during our formative years (namely, birth to puberty), and the Critical Period Hypothesis says you will get a child that will have lasting damage, including an inability to master language--a result that is not fatal to the child, but certainly increases stress and makes life way more difficult. Puppies go through critical periods of development as well. John Fuller and John Paul Scott, in their landmark study chronicled in Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog (1965), said,

Every highly social species of animal which has been studied so far has a short period early in life when primary social relationships are formed…in the case of the puppy, it looks as if a small amount of contact shortly after 3 weeks of age will produce a strong social relationship which can be duplicated only by hours or weeks of patient effort at later periods in life—if, indeed, it can be duplicated at all.

While Fuller and Scott’s study doesn’t say when the “socialization window” closes, other experts agree that it appears to be around 16 weeks of age. Again, it’s a window, so it never completely shuts. But we do know that if puppies are not handled at all by humans before 16 weeks, they will always live in a feral or semi-feral state.

Most puppies get at least some handling between birth and 16 weeks, whether it be purposeful or not. Shiloh certainly had some. But it appears that he—and many others like him, sadly—didn’t get enough. And that’s something puppy breeders, buyers and adopters can change.

Granted, when we compare the undersocialization of human children to the undersocialization of dogs, the latter seems pretty trite. But dogs are everywhere in our society, by our choice, so undersocialization cannot be brushed aside as inconsequential, since it definitely impairs their ability to adapt to our confusing, loud, emotionally-affecting world. And fearful dogs may not want to bite as their first defense, but when cornered, many will.

Refusing to train a dog to understand the rules of our world is refusing to acknowledge the dog's real needs, does nothing to help dogs, and often harms them. It's especially heartbreaking when you know training isn't difficult, time-consuming, or expensive, it need not be harsh at all (it's actually a lot of fun if done correctly).

But forget obedience training for the moment. Not exposing a puppy to what life will hold for him later, even just the basics of people with different skin tones, outfits and different voice tones; loud noises; cars; children; bicycles; and various and sundry things we take for granted every day is abuse. It's setting up for failure a creature that craves anything but social isolation. It seems inocuous, but it isn't. It seems better for the pup to isolate him from possible disease, but it isn't.

The problem with neglecting to socialize a puppy that is hard-wired for it is that once the crucial window closes, experts agree that it is partly closed for good. Yes, it is more than possible to socialize dogs past 16 weeks (it's a window, not a steel door); people do it all the time. But you can't get back all of what you lost. You can help the dog, but something will always be missing: an important piece of the puzzle that is best acquired while the dog's brain is still forming.

My friend Sarah Wilson is an author, teacher, damn good trainer, student of the human-animal bond, and a wise woman. She does her best work with what she calls "deficit dogs": dogs with decent genetics who had a bad start in life, but with the proper training and an owner who looks to the future instead of dwelling on the past, will make progress. Most make incredible progress under her tutelage, and so do the bipeds holding their leashes. (An article from Sarah with ways to help deficit dogs.)

When it's done right, it can be remarkable. The dog may make infintesimal strides forward for so long you think nothing is happening, and then, Bingo! You see a huge success. If you don't push it, more success will follow.

But it's not an easy, or quick road. Socializing and training deficit dogs is a slow process that happens in small fits and starts, and one setback (e.g. thinking the dog is ready for The Big Leagues before he has even started batting practice) like thrusting him into an unwinnable situation, can reverse all the good progress already made. It's maddening for owners and trainers, and sad for the dogs.

Many of these dogs reach a plateau after a while. They hit the ceiling of As Good As It Gets, and they may never get past it. Owners of these dogs must be prepared for that, and all along they've had to be realistic about Fluffy, realizing she'll never be the outgoing Life of the Party they wanted. But that doesn't mean the dogs don't deserve someone who will try. And many people do--because you don't train the dog you wanted to have, you train the dog that you actually have, the one sitting right in front of you, for better or worse.

Shiloh is not a true deficit dog, by my estimation (though time will tell), because he likely has hereditary fear, and no amount of training will overcome genetics. He'll probably always be a bit flighty and nervous, and never really comfortable around men or small children.

When people see his behavior, most immediately assume the abuse he suffered came in the form of a child teasing him, or a man beating him. But in truth, it's because he was never exposed to children, and the only man he knew was the husband, who is short and very soft-spoken. Though there is no way to know, my experience is that what the public wants to see as conditions arising from physical abuse (cringing, submissive urination or defecation, ducking when an arm or object is raised, avoiding eye contact, bolting for safety, or even snapping when cornered) are more often symptoms of a lack of socialization. If your dog hits the dirt every time you pick up a broom, your first instinct is to assume that someone hit him with a broom. While that is certainly possible in dog you have not lived with his whole life, what is more likely is that a broom fell when he ran into it while exploring during his "fear period,"(maybe more than once), or an adult picked up a broom and gently shooed him with it while yelling, and now he thinks brooms are agents of Lucifer. Things learned during the fear periods have lasting consequences, and even if they are not harsh, they can be perceived or "remembered" by the dog that way.

NOTE: I'm not saying that the "guilt" behaviors mentioned above never have roots in actual abuse. It's positively horrific what humans are capable of doing to animals, and shelters in more rural or depressed urban areas see the effects of abuse far too often. But we do know that a lack of socialization also causes timidity to people and objects, and when we know this, we are less likely to spout The Abuse Excuse. When we let that go, we can move forward with the dog.

So what is good socialization? Experts don't always agree on how much puppies need, but most of us agree that many puppies don't get enough. Good breeders (you know, the ones who do health checks and genetic testing to weed out congenital defects, screen buyers carefully, breed for temperament, work with rescues to take dogs back, breed 1 or maybe 2 litters a year, specialize in one or maybe 2 breeds, don't disappear after the sale, don't try to pawn off multiple pups on unsuspecting buyers, and understand genetics and their breed thoroughly) raise pups in the home and generally follow the Rule of Sevens. (Some say that's a good guideline, but may not be enough.) They don't allow pups to leave the litter before 7 weeks at the earliest, and if they keep the pups longer (some up to 12 weeks) they start crate training, housebreaking, and do even more socialization. Good breeders also encourage the new owners to continue the socialization from the day after purchase through 16 weeks and beyond, with suggestions like well-run puppy training classes, and lots of safe visiting in the community.

Dogs born in puppymills generally have little or no socialization because those producers have no interest in the final product, only the money they receive from the transaction. In spite of that, to dogs' credit, some puppymill dogs manage to turn out OK, though that in no way implies that I support anyone going that route for a pup. But if you adopt a purebred or a designer mutt from a shelter, you may be getting a puppymill dog that an unsuspecting pet store shopper could not handle--so be prepared.

It has long been common knowledge to trainers that a lack of early socialization causes problems down the road. A lack of training will cause problems, too, but the "training window" never truly closes, as dogs (like people) are always learning. Many people have adopted adolescent and adult untrained dogs from shelters and turned them into fantastically-trained, outgoing, happy dogs. It takes longer than with a new puppy, but it's more than possible.

Trying to make up for a lack of early socialization, however, is like trying to push string. It takes a lot of patience and time just to get the dog to a place where obedience training can begin. Unfortunately, this is more of a project than the "average adopter" signs up for, and though deficit dogs tend to be very attached to their owners, excessive neediness is not healthy for man or beast.

It is far preferable to set the puppy up for success, so no matter what obstacles he meets later in life, from the stresses of a new baby at home to having to be rehomed, he can acclimate to them. Well-socialized dogs are easier to train and live with, and live less stressful lives.

Shiloh was adopted eventually, by a young man who'd owned GSD before. He and I talked for a long time about the road ahead, and I really think he understood (though it is likely to be longer than he thought). We discussed how to make up for lost time, and how to go slowly, and we discussed the plans he had to make Shiloh's new life better through training and socialization. I told him that Shiloh didn't need his pity--he needed the young man's strength. I told him that his own confidence, plus guidance and structure (i.e., training), would give Shiloh confidence. I told him not to expect miracles, but to shoot for small successes every day. I told him that he couldn't change the past, but he could affect the future--and for Shiloh, a world with less stress and more chances to "be a dog" would be heaven.

Every dog deserves that.