Dog Responsibly
My good friend’s business tag line is “Dog Responsibly.” I love that. And that extremely applies to my experience!
Just before Christmas, a friend who exclusively works with Labrador Retrieves reached out to me. She said a puppy had just been relinquished and is 10 weeks old. The owners said, “it just wasn’t going to work out anymore.” But, she pushed how awesome this puppy is and how she wasn’t going to place with puppy with any available family. He had to go to the right family. To the perfect family. And she was starting with us.
The initial reaction is often, “What do you mean they gave up a 10-week-old puppy!” “What do you mean it’s not going to work out!” And that is the important Part 1 of Dog Responsibly. It is better for a family to recognize quickly the partnership isn’t going to work then the dog suffering because it really isn’t going to work out in the end and they would still be relinquishing the puppy but now at 6 months or 1 year or even older. And then relinquishing a dog that now has many behaviors to be modified because it hasn’t been working out for years. And some will still disagree that once a commitment is made, this dog is family and you don’t give up on family. I, however, support creating a successful environment for all and sometimes that means a new home.
But now the largest part of my blog is me and my family. I’m sure you are wondering, “Did we get a new puppy!?”
We did not. And it was a HARD decision. It was hard because I can literally go either way and defend it valiantly. And I’ll do that for you here:
Why should we accept?
Somewhere in the middle of our late Labrador, Hadley, I knew that the next dog needed to be bomb proof. In other words, I would do everything in my power at the appropriate puppy timeline to train an impressive dog. With Hadley, we were her 5th home by 6 months old including the shelter. She had none of the proper socialization during her 0-16 weeks old Critical Socialization Timeline and she had minimal training. There were psychological behaviors that were ingrained in her DNA during that critical time that were unchangeable as an adult. That wasn’t going to happen to our next dog. So accepting this puppy meant a lot of work and who better to do the work than an experienced dog nerd like me! I know what to do and when to do it. I know how to do it. I know how to rearrange antecedents (triggers/stimuli/cues) and consequences (what happens after the behavior) to get behaviors I want! This puppy would be in fantastic hands!
Why should we decline?
I have two kids. And while Labradors are excellent family dogs, I have a little who is a rough and tumble, take on the world, do it first, think about the consequences later and another little who is an extremely compassionate, sensitive, old soul who has developed a fear of dogs.
I know how much time the two of them need from me. I know how much time I want them to have of me to create a magical childhood. I know how much time I need to put into this new puppy. And though we all share the same 24-hour clock, my 24 hours has already run out of minutes! Something would take a backburner… and chances are, it would be the puppy. I would be spending all my time managing dog environments instead of creating them. I would be redirecting dog behaviors instead of training the good ones first. So, by being realistic to us, considering the whole big picture, and Dog’ing Responsibly, we chose to allow the puppy to go to a different family who had the time, resources, and focus for a pup!
Sometimes there is no right answer or wrong answer. Sometimes the answers are very clear. Can a dog trainer be a dog trainer and not own a dog? Yes. And I promise… the dog is coming.
