What have I seen regarding the differences, other than physical, between puppies and adult dogs?
When I evaluate a puppy, or any dog, I am looking at the cumulative past experiences that dog has had, which will be the interplay between innate abilities, maturity, and acquired learning.
The younger the dog, and the more I know about what that dog has been through up to that point, gives me an idea of how much foundation I must build upon, and what is missing. I know that how a dog perceives anything will be influenced by experience.
And when evaluating puppies, if a puppy has no experience, then all it can draw upon is what it has genetically.
Why is this an important point? Many times, I have encountered people who have lost their temper with their puppies and done something abusive to them as a result. How unfair, right? If the puppy doesn’t have enough experience, learning, and training to do the desired task, then why is it fair to get angry with the dog? It isn’t, but it happens all the time.
As soon as a puppy is born, learning starts. What a new puppy sees, meaning what it can perceive and figure out, isn’t the same as what it can do just a few weeks or months later. For example, have you ever seen how difficult it is for a young puppy to go up, or especially down, stairs? I don’t believe the typical answer, that puppies are nearsighted. I believe that the information that is coming in visually into the retinal optic nerve isn’t yet structured enough by the brain that processes those incoming signals, to navigate that kind of challenge yet. I think the younger puppy can innately visually make out some basic shapes and relationships, such as the figure-ground relationships, they can perceive what is closer and further away, for example, but how to navigate the physical challenge of going up or down the stairs must be learned. I have worked with numerous adult dogs that can’t go up or down stairs. They have to be taught to do so, and it is sometimes a slow process since we have to make up for lost ground that could have been accomplished months or years before.
Here’s another observation. Have you ever noticed how young puppies can’t discern the difference between friends and enemies? To a young puppy, everyone is a friend. Some owners are alarmed that their young puppies won’t protect them or their homes. Well, of course not. Even human babies take about 6 months to figure out who people are and their relationship to them. Thus, you don’t need to start doing guard dog training with a 2-month-old puppy because you see that the dog loves everyone in every situation.
Or let’s consider house training. The young puppy is mostly cared for by its momma in the nest. She licks and stimulates the puppies to eliminate, and she laps all that up. When you bring the puppy home, it knows basically nothing about being clean in the home. For the most part it relies on pressure sensitive nerve receptors in the bladder and rectum which cause them to squat down to either urinate or defecate. Other innate responses are activated (more than I wish to enumerate here for time’s sake) such as the inhibition to do either if they are afraid. Most of the rest that we want a puppy to do is learned. But how much learning has occurred when the new puppy comes into the home? Unless the breeder started the puppy in some way, not a lot. So, if the puppy has no clue, why is it fair for the owner to then abuse the puppy for urinating or defecating in the home? Why do people assume dogs will train themselves, as if they are programmed like some kind of insect or robot? And why get a dog if you aren’t willing to accept the responsibility to train them to be clean in the home? Spanking and yelling aren’t training, they are abuse.
Have you ever noticed that young puppies aren’t able to catch a tossed treat like an older puppy? Lob a treat towards a young puppy, and it will bonk them on the head. But when they get closer to 5 months of age, most puppies can do it proficiently. Similarly, young puppies aren’t typically going to fetch a toy and bring it back to you and drop it. In both these cases, you can help these things along with some time (maturity), and by tossing things for the puppy to chase and capture. Later you can work on teaching them to bring things back to you and dropping them on command. But no hunting dog puppy is ready for field work at 3 months of age. Puppies that young have not had enough exposure to the elements involved or learning to do something that complex. So, what do owners do when a puppy runs off with a sock or slipper? Chase the dog into a corner, yell at the dog, and often punish the dog. That’s also not fair.
One more. Many dogs that are going to be put into a professional working environment are not ready to do real work until at least a year and a half. What I recommend is giving a young puppy a lot of proper challenges and learning opportunities along the way until they are ready for the final finishing work. I look at it this way… for the best results, raise your puppy in a kind of like kids are worked with in a Montessori program: pups are given a wide variety of opportunities to 1.) explore and learn; 2.) successfully and happily go through their known “sensitive periods”, and other psychologically significant growth stages; 3.) develop their innate breed tendencies and talents; and 4.) think through problems and discover solutions. We can help all this along if we raise them properly. As dogs get through adolescence, then the final skills can be taught. Since current abilities are a product of genetics, experiences, and learning, we should do all we can to fill them up so they have as much in their brains as we can safely fit in there. Then, the adult dog will be maximized.
For advanced tasks, perception is going to be based upon all that you have programmed into that dog. If they can understand how to navigate terrain, differential scents, properly interact with others, grasp how to exercise self-control when highly aroused, and such, the final dog will be as good as it can be.
Learning takes time. It moves along slowly. I’m not just referring to the obedience stuff. That comes along much quicker. I’m referring to all that other stuff that a dog should have to be well adjusted and to maximize its potential. Remember the 6-month-old infant. It’s not ready for the adult world. It takes nearly 2 decades for everything to come together. Yes, your kid might be a genius at 12 years of age, but still not an adult. You have a lot more parenting to do. Same with any puppy, especially a working puppy. The social lessons will be the hardest. What is done with the young puppy, especially under 16 weeks of age, has tremendous influence on what the adult dog will become. There is no way to make up for missed social and exposure opportunities that should have been presented at that interval. There are also important things that adolescent dogs need to learn. You can help prepare them for those times, and navigate it successfully with them, or end up with behavior problems that are harder to fix later.
All the above is why we train puppies. We fill them up with love, proper challenges, learning and training, so they result in functional adult dogs. Anything less risks the result.
I have found that the puppies I have trained in this manner have all turned out to be surprisingly smart as adults.
Plan accordingly.