Quote of a Quote

So I forgot in the last post to give you who wrote this book and stuff. Ok, so it's "Help for Your Fearful Dog A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Your Dog Conquer His Fears" by Nicole Wilde CPDT.

I found an interesting quote in how it relates to puppy mill mothers and their pups in the first part of the book (although the author is not directly speaking about mill dogs.) It's actually a quote of a quote.

"As canine behavior consultant and author Steven R. Lindsay states. 'Emotional stressors affecting the mother during gestation, together with excessively stressful postnatal conditions, may exert a lifelong detrimental influence on the way dogs cope with fear and anger-provoking situations' and 'Together, heredity and adverse prenatal and postnatal stressors may destine many young dogs to express reactive traits and tendencies before they open their eyes...' In other words, breeders can have an effect on the pups' temperaments via careful management of the dam's environment and attention to her stress levels."

This makes perfect sense as to why puppy mill dogs, and particularly Shelties who do not usually respond well to such an environment to begin with, can often be so emotionally damaged and affected. In addition, if the pup is retained by the breeder (or transferred to another breeder's mill) to become stock for further breeding instead of sold, his character is further impacted by never receiving the world socialization needed to be come a healthy dog. (Unless rescued later in life once usefulness as a sire has been exhausted.)

As you have read here, the biggest impact to Duncan's recovery after he arrived in my home was socialization. We of course started out slowly so as not to create negative experiences, but we went for walks in my quiet neighborhood, went for car rides, started visiting parks when there were few people and dogs, and visited the homes of my family members. This allowed him to experience and learn how to interact in these different environments. As he became more comfortable we progressed to more difficult things like visiting Petco late in the evening when not too many people were there and moved on to attending the bustling Petco adoption events with the Rescue Group that he came from. Where Duncan once laid down in the middle of the street on our first walk when he saw a person going into their house up ahead of us and would not move until they were inside, he now actually enjoys being at dog events where there are crowds of people. He was so excited when we went to the recent Paws in the Park event. We got there and he was pulling me from the parking lot to get to where the crowds of people and dogs were so he could see what was going on.

It makes me wonder what kind of dog Duncan would have been had he received the socialization he needed when he was a pup.