A tail of two puppies

A Fictional account of the fate of two littermates.

Mary was in love with Golden Retrievers.  She had two Goldens of her own, and belonged to the local Golden Retriever club, participated in Golden Retriever meets, trained her two Goldens in Rally, Nose work and Agility, and lived in her Golden socks and her “Goldens are Golden” sweatshirt.  Even her license plate reflected her love for the breed; her vanity plate read “Golden R”.  A particular passion for Mary was supporting Goldens in need.  Every week she would visit the websites of her local shelters and rescues and if a Golden or Golden cross was in need, she was right there on their doorstep to help.  Over the years, Mary was responsible for matching over 50 Goldens in her community and saving the local shelters and rescues all the resources those dogs would have taken up.  Mary was so well known that if a Golden came into care, she was often the first call that a local group would make. 

The people who are deeply committed to their breed can be wonderful resources to help when a specific breed comes to the shelter.

Mary was really lucky.  Her contacts in the Golden Retriever world included many very experienced breeders.  Within days of Lucy coming home, Mary had her whelping box set up, and had boxes and boxes and boxes of supplies to help the litter to succeed.  And like everything else “Golden” that Mary did, she had the energy to put into raising the litter properly, along with a Tiktok account where she could post updates. By Saturday, Lucy began to show signs of going into labor at about four in the afternoon.  Mary called her breeder and mentor who showed up shortly with a thermos of strong coffee and a lifetime of knowledge. 

From the first moments those puppies were born, they got the best of everything.  They were weighed daily, and the vet came to check in at three days of age.  In week one, they had a heat lamp to help keep them warm, and mom nursed the 7 little pups like a champ.  By week two, on the advice of her mentor, Mary put down rolled up towels, covered in flannels so that the puppies were challenged to creep and crawl over uneven surfaces.  As their eyes opened, they got a few small plush toys, and then more and larger toys, and wobble boards and a ball pit and artificial turf and trips to the bathroom to learn about tile floors.  Each puppy got handling and daily grooming and gentle nail trims when needed.  At 6 weeks, the pups were active, confident outgoing little bundles of Golden Goodness, and Mary was rightfully proud of the job she had done raising the litter. At 8 weeks, she decided to keep one puppy herself, and helped to place Lucy and the other six pups. 

Newborn puppies require constant attention from mom, and mom needs the support of people who understand what to do to help her. In the dog breeding community, there are many who will step up and help if asked.

Mary decided to call her puppy Miracle because she was such a special dog.  One of Miracle’s littermates went to Mary’s daughter’s sister-in-law, who had three young children between the ages of four and eight.  Mary was so excited for the family, and before the puppy went home, Sally and her kids came regularly to meet the litter.  Sally was so impressed with Mary’s adult dogs, who were in turn delighted to show off their skills to the eager family.  Mary and Sally talked about going to puppy class together, and then continuing into obedience classes, hoping eventually to compete together with their dogs.  Mary had fond memories of taking her daughter to puppy classes and later going to shows where she was able to participate in junior handling activities.  Sally’s kids decided to call their puppy Mickey Mouse, as they’d just returned from a vacation at Disneyland. 

At first, everything went well.  Puppy class started, and Mickey and Miracle were both happy, roly-poly puppies who fit into just about every possible situation.  The kids came to class with Sally and her partner, and the whole family seemed to be really involved with Mickey.  As an experienced trainer, Mary taught Miracle all the behaviours quickly and easily.  Sally and her family muddled through, and taught Mickey to sit and lie down, but she really struggled to teach Mickey to do much else.  Mary and Miracle visited Sally and Mickey from time to time, and Mary tried her best to support Sally, but the bigger Mickey got the more trouble they seemed to have.  Just after puppy class ended, Mary and Frank took a three-week road trip in their RV with all three Goldens, and Sally lost her mentor for the duration.

Rolly poly puppies are a joy to interact with, and interacting with the puppies benefits the puppies too! One of the things that puppies need is the opportunity to meet a number of different people such as they would in a puppy class.

While on the road, Mary and Frank took long leisurely hikes, stopped at lakes for swims, and generally did “favorite doggy activities” every day.  Mary had a daily routine of ten minutes of training for each of the dogs, and everywhere they went, Mary and the dogs would attract a crowd as she practiced group down stays or did obedience routines or searches.  This idyllic vacation created opportunities for Miracle to meet new people, and to experience a wide variety of new places.  When they returned home, the September schedule of training classes was set to start, and Mary had enrolled in multiple classes.  Her oldest dog was enrolled in an agility troubleshooting class and a nose work class.  Her middle dog was enrolled in a different nose work class, and in a Rally Excellent class.  Mickey was enrolled in Family Obedience and Rally Foundations.  Four nights a week, Mary was in classes, and of course on the weekends she was attending dog shows and Golden Retriever meet ups.  During the week, Mary continued her work supporting the local shelter and rescues, and she returned to volunteering with the local therapy dog team, visiting nursing homes and hospitals twice a week. Mary’s life was full of Golden love.

Sally enrolled Mickey in Family Obedience with Mary, and she expected to pick up where they had left off before Mary had left on vacation.  Mickey was now a 45 lb bundle of muscle and enthusiasm, and Sally was struggling to get him to walk nicely on leash.  The instructor recommended a front attachment harness and suggested that Mickey would benefit from a little more exercise.  Mary invited Sally to join her on her daily hike at 7am, but Sally was busy getting the kids off to school then so she could not go.  Mary really wanted to help Sally and Mickey so she agreed to move her hike to 10 am, twice a week so Sally could join her, and the dogs could play.

People who include their dogs in their recreational activities help their dogs to learn the skills and boundaries that are needed to be a successful family dog.

The first time Mary and Sally met, Mickey and the crew had a great time, and Sally had a better class that night.  The first week, this seemed to be a good alternative.  The next week though, one of Sally’s kids caught a cold, and Sally was not able to join in for her hike.  That day Mickey struggled with the activities in class.  Sally was visibly upset that her beautiful dog was not able to do all the things that his sister Miracle could do.  In that class, the students were instructed to demonstrate that they could examine their dog for injuries like you would do after a hike.  Mickey squirmed and grabbed Sally’s arm with his mouth when she tried to examine his feet.  The instructor noticed that his toenails were getting very long and recommended that Sally get them trimmed that week.  Sally had not realized that she would need to do anything with Mickey’s feet, and she did not have a pair of nail clippers.  Mary of course offered to help.  The only problem for Mary was finding the time to do that!  Mary was very busy, and so was Sally.  

The next week, Sally was not able to make it to class, and she missed another walk with Mary.  They did get together though and working together with the help of some peanut butter, they managed to get Mickey’s front feet trimmed.  Mary left Sally with detailed instructions about how to teach Mickey to accept nail trims. 

The next week, Sally returned to class, and Mickey was just wild.  Unwilling to be handled, and unwilling to attend to anything Sally wanted him to do, Mickey was barking and lunging and trying to drag Sally to his sister who was working diligently across the room.  Sally was very embarrassed and left without even saying goodbye to Mary.  Mary was sad watching Mickey, because she knew how wonderful Mickey could be with just a little work.  She looked forward to their next walk hoping she would be able to support Sally and straighten things out. 

Using a crate to confine dogs when travelling keeps them safe and prevents them from leaping and whirling around the cabin of the car. This is the sort of structure that contributes to raising a dog with manners.

On Thursday of that week, Sally and Mary were scheduled to walk together.  When they met up, Mary was shocked to see Mickey loose in the car, whirling around like a dervish, barking and carrying on.  Sally got out of the car and opened the door for Mickey, who burst out of the car and raced around the parking lot, joyously bounding and barking and play bowing, and when he spied Mary, he rushed up to her and jumped up, nearly knocking her over.  Sally began to cry.  Mary took things in hand and let Miracle out.  Miracle was able to attract Mickey, and Mary took his leash and led him to the head of the trail.  Letting both dogs off leash, they played as only two Goldens can, bouncing and bounding and poking their noses into everything.  The two older Goldens joined in for a little, but mostly they had their own goals to fulfill on a walk, and being older they did not play with one another for as long.

As they walked, Mary and Sally talked about Mickey and how he was fitting into the family.  Mary had raised her daughter with her dogs successfully in part because she had the resources to do that.  When Mary’s daughter was young, Mary worked part time writing instruction books from home.  She could fit in her work around her dog training activities and meeting the needs of her child.  Sally had three children, not one, and although she wanted to be like Mary with a well-behaved dog, she did not have the time or resources to meet his needs for exercise and training.  Each of her children was enrolled in an extracurricular activity, and Sally also had a job.  Sally worked as a personal support worker 24 hours a week, often overnight.  Sally was stretched very thin before Mickey came along.  At almost six months old, Mickey was not a manageable cute little puppy anymore and by Sally’s report, he was becoming very difficult to live with.

Some of Mickey’s transgressions were pretty benign.  He liked to steal laundry and race through the house with it.  The kids delighted in chasing Mickey, so once this started, mayhem ensued.  Everyone thought this was cute and fun, so no one stopped the activity when Mickey was small.  As he grew though, Mickey began to guard his stolen items and Sally could no longer get him to trade his prize for a treat.  As noted, Mickey did not like being restrained for toenail clipping, but there was more to it than that.  While Mary had been on vacation, Mickey had eaten some chocolate that the kids had left within reach, and he had to go to the vet where they induced vomiting.  Under ordinary circumstances this would have been unpleasant; Mickey took that to an extreme.  Mickey now objected to any level of restraint.  When guests came to the house, Mickey got so excited that he was racing to the door, barking, and carrying on, and when the door was opened, he was leaping and knocking people over.  This was dangerous in and of itself, but often Mickey was bowling over little children and that just wasn’t safe.

Mary was appalled.  What she thought was going to be a great match had turned into a nightmare.  Mickey was getting less and less exercise as he got bigger and bigger, and he was getting into trouble at home too.  Mary was certain though that with a little bit of effort and coaching, Mickey could still turn into the kind of dog she imagined for Sally and her family.  She did her best to encourage Sally to increase Mickey’s off leash exercise, and to continue with the training exercises they were working on in class.

For two weeks, things seemed to be leveling off.  Mary continued to support Sally, and Sally started to make some progress with behaviours like coming when called and waiting at doors.  Seemingly out of the blue though, tragedy ensued.  Mickey had bitten one of the children and the child required four stitches on her cheek.  Mickey was doing what Mickey did.  He happened to grab one of the child’s favorite shirts and ran through the house.  The kids were in hot pursuit and cornered him in the playroom in the basement.  From what Sally could figure out, her oldest was straddling Mickey’s back, holding onto his collar while her middle daughter tried to pry her shirt out of his mouth.  In a moment of what was likely high arousal, 7-month-old Mickey let go of the shirt and bit the little girl on the face, narrowly missing her eye.  Sally was done.  She could not keep a large energetic dog who was going to injure her children.  Sadly, she sent Mickey back to the rescue that had sent Mickey’s mom to Mary. 

It is not uncommon for a young puppy to jump up and grab clothing. Allowing this to continue on can lead to much bigger problems later on. What happens early in a young dog’s life matters to who he will become.

When he arrived at the rescue, Mickey was confused and scared.  He had been objecting to the crate, so Sally had stopped using it.  Being kenneled was unfamiliar.  And he was difficult to handle.  It turned out that although he had been to puppy class and lived with three kids, he was unfamiliar with a lot of things that dogs need to know.  When a volunteer tried to walk him, he pancaked and trembled when a large truck drove by.  He was aggressive about being restrained.  His long toenails (Sally had not managed to cut them again) needed attention that was difficult to give him.  He objected to wearing a muzzle.  And when a volunteer tried to play with him with toys in the training room, he resource guarded them aggressively.  After narrowly missing being bitten when leashing him up, the head of the behaviour department decided that he could not be placed due to his aggression.  One beautiful morning, with Mary in attendance, Mickey was humanely euthanized, and Mary went home to cry. 

So what can we learn from this situation?  We have two Golden Retrievers, both given every advantage as young dogs.  We have a lovely, caring family who is doing their best.  And we have a serious trainer who knew what to expect, planned for that, and did the work.  It would be very easy to say, “Sally is at fault, she should never have taken on Mickey with everything else she had to do.”  Or to think that Sally just didn’t “step up to the plate”.  It would be easy but unfair.  We could equally say “why didn’t Mary recognize that Mickey would be more than Sally could handle?”  The fact is that blame gets us nowhere.

Young dogs have a lot of needs that we need to attend to.  Many families are not able to meet the needs of a young dog, but an older dog might be a good match.  Preparing families for puppies can be really tough; like Sally, many families hear the message, but they don’t internalize it.  They think they can make it work, without considering the fact that puppies grow.  Puppies under twelve weeks are easy to catch, can be made to mind their manners and are often not big or strong enough to harm a child.  Puppies are relatively easy, compared to young dogs in the 13 to 24 week range.  Puppies need to be taken out regularly enough to learn that toileting should happen outdoors only, they need supervision to make sure they don’t learn to steal items, and they need training so they learn all the behaviours we need them to know in order to be successful pets.  In short, they need everything that Miracle got. 

When we look at all the puppies in a litter, we can tell a lot about them by looking at them as adolescents and adults.  When you see seven puppies who all have the same experience up until 8 weeks when they should go home, you can see clearly the effect of genetics; if the litter is really uniform, where all the pups are generally as confident as one another, and all the pups are generally as good with one another as each other and as friendly to people as one another, you can say that they have fairly consistent breeding for temperament.  If you look at those pups months later, you can see the impact of environment.  Puppies who have the benefit of structure and training will optimize their genetic potential.  Puppies who don’t get training or whose lives are chaotic will show that relative to other members of the same litter.  This is what we can see when we compare Miracle and Mickey.  Miracle became a stable, sensible adolescent who could go places and do things.  Mickey became erratic and guarded things and ultimately, he bit a child. 

Restraint, handling, and husbandry such as nail clipping needs to be thoughtfully and carefully carried out while puppies are young so that when they grow up grooming and veterinary care will be as low stress as possible. This starts at the breeder’s home, and should continue through out the puppy’s development into adulthood.

The real lesson to learn here is that what happens to a dog between 8 and 16 weeks matters to who they will grow up to be.  Regardless of where we place a dog, this time cannot be wasted.  We need to pay attention to the opportunities we provide and think carefully about where the puppy will be placed.    Raising a puppy in a kennel can make a mess out of an otherwise nice pup simply because they don’t get what they need in terms of exposure to the world.  Puppies are extremely attractive and they can generate a lot of attention on social media and in the press.  We should ideally place young dogs between 7 and 9 weeks of age for a number of reasons.  At this age, they are primed to meet their new families, which gives the puppy the greatest chance of being successful as pets.  There is nothing more attractive than the image of a puppy leaving the shelter and going to a home, which makes a wonderful opportunity to celebrate on social media and in the press and that attracts new families, volunteers and donors to your shelter.  When it is not possible to place a puppy immediately, fostering with someone who can prepare the puppy to be placed successfully as soon as possible by giving the pup the kind of attention and education that Mary gave to Miracle is essential. 

Finally, providing support to the fosters and families who live with young dogs is something that is really important.  When a family gets a puppy from a great breeder, the breeder will be with them every step of the way; we owe it to the young dogs born into our care to do the same. 

Puppyhood is magic, but it is also an important stage in a young dogs life, and it technically begins to end at about 16 weeks of age.  If we can ensure that puppies are given every advantage in the litter, and then place them with people who can meet their needs puppies can grow up to be their very best selves.  Some families ARE prepared to put in the work between 16 weeks and 6 months when the pup is firmly into his teens.  During this time, if we can help the family to meet their young dog’s needs to  learn things like toilet training, which toys are appropriate to chew on and which things he should leave alone we are not only going to make a big difference to the life of the puppy we place, but we will also make a lifelong friend to your organization.

Special thanks to Mary Barrett of Tidewater Goldens in Guelph, Ontario, Canada for the images for this blog entry.