# Over Protective



## davetgabby (Dec 29, 2007)

I thought this quote from one of our IAABC trainers is quite good. With new puppies , sometimes we can be too protective and create an anxious adult. ...

"One of the really important parts about raising a dog is to remember not to create a delicate flower who can't tolerate any kind of aversive experience, adversity, strangeness, *differentness* or stress. Life is full of stress, and if we're always protected against it, and then it happens, we have no idea what to do with that.

Part of properly socializing a dog *must* include desensitizing him to weirdness, rudeness, even mild ickiness so that he doesn't fall apart when it happens, and so that he learns that weirdness is, in fact, not weird at all, but normal and a part of living in the world.

Pass the puppy is an excellent intro to that, IMO, because people will hold a leash tighter or looser, loom, stand back, use different voices, hand out treats differently, *act* differently, all in a safe environment with the owner and instructor there to show that, "Meh, so what?" 

If an individual puppy shows "unreasonable" or unusual stress at such mild differentness, then you know you've got a special case on your hands that needs some additional help. Good information to have.

For the same reason I like to have students practice "stay" while pretending to pick up "a broken wine glass" (how often do we really need our dogs to stay while we stand rigid in front of them?), make stupid faces, practice the name game as if they're panicked, annoyed or excited, and basically act as they do in real life. Personally, I like a dog to know that if I say, "NO!" it means, "I'm not kidding don't do that - but you're in no danger for heaven's sake," because that's the kind of thing that happens in real life!

I'm writing this from Spain, where I've spent the last couple of weeks, and I've watched some truly yucky treatment of dogs, at least by my standards. And while not ideal, these dogs' lives are cared for, and the dogs are loved nonetheless. 

Dogs learn to deal with life - or should, and should certainly be allowed to - just the way people do. Putting them in ideological glass cages does not in my opinion do them any favors. So pass the puppy is one important step, done kindly, safely and led by a skilled instructor to boot, toward creating nice, solid, rebound-able dogs who feel safe in the world even when the world isn't following the script we'd like it to."

Just my 2 Euros.

Marjie

Marjie Alonso
Somerville, MA


----------

