Hard Truth: Your dog was *most likely* not abused before you rescued them.

Yes, of course there are terrible people out there that do horrible things to animals.

No, I am not discounting what someone told you about your dog when you rescued them, it may very well be true.

Yes, I believe a lot of recuses and shelters out there create stories surrounding the dogs they have because tugging on heart strings helps dogs get rescued.

However, just because your dog may not like *insert what they don’t like here*, does NOT mean that they were abused by a man, woman, child, leaf blower, attacked by dogs, etc.

You know what it DOES mean?

It means that there is a much higher likely hood that your dog was under socialized and had little to no exposure during their critical development period.

In dogs, the critical development period is from birth to about 16 weeks old.

Puppies are a SPONGE at this age and they are creating associations about the world around them.

However, some puppies do not get proper exposure during the critical development period.

What this does, is it will create: hesitations, fears, phobias and much more in the dog when they are older and it will manifest in many ways. Such as: reactivity, aggression, extreme fear, anxiety, etc.

Perhaps its not that your dog was beaten by a man in a hat before. 

Perhaps its that your dog has never SEEN a man in a hat before.

Perhaps your dog wasn’t tortured by children, but perhaps your dog has never SEEN children before.

Behavioral science and veterinary medicine clash in a very large way during this sensitive and valuable time that your dog is a puppy. 

Veterinary science says not to take your dog anywhere for fear of Parvovirus or other diseases.

Behavioral science (trainers), know how huge of a risk you are taking if you do not expose that puppy to the world around them before this critical development period closes.

Owning a dog is full of risk and opportunity cost.

So the next time that you get a puppy or you rescue a dog, consider that their behavior can be largely driven by their critical development period.

What are your thoughts?