Puppy Culture Potluck: Ep14 - Growling Puppies - Should You Be Worried?

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I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.

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And this is a Puppy Culture

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potluck podcast.

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You bring the topics,
we bring the conversation.

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This week's question is about puppies

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who growl when restrained.

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And here it is.

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This is the question.

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Hey, everyone,
we're raising our first litter.

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English Setters, nearly seven weeks

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old, all have lovely temperaments
and have been going

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through the Puppy Culture process
like little pro’s.

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One thing we've noticed over
the last week is

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if they want to hop down when a puppy

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owner or friend is holding them,

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they'll do a little frustrated
growl or bark.

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I hesitate to say growl, though
I'm sure you will understand

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it's more of a “let me down”
kind of thing.

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We've introduced
gentle restraint over the last week

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and they all get a little annoyed
if they want to go play, explore, etc.

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but nothing out of the ordinary.

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I just wanted to check if this is normal.

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Should we be upping gentle restraint?

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Is this something
we should be concerned about?

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Okay, this is me again.

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So first I'm going to sort of address
this particular case.

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And then second,
we're going to have a discussion about

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what is normal in terms of growling
when restrained.

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So here's the quick answer.

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In this particular case,
you know, it's interesting.

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It's a very common thing
that for some reason, pet people insist

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on restraining puppies
that don't want to be held.

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Even very experienced dog
owners will reach

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and grab and restrain puppies.

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And working on conditioning

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and emotional response to restraint
is super important for breeders.

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We have several protocols on this
for breeders in Puppy Culture

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and also Shaping
Emotional Responses is all about this.

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If you don't have those course videos,
you can go to puppyculture.com

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and learn more.

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But the point is
that you do want to counter condition

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that natural response of aversions
to being restrained.

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It's natural.

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Puppies don't like to be restrained.

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We work on counter conditioning it.

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And if you're a puppy owner, we address
this also in depth in our puppy course

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at Madcap University,
we go into detail about the exact ratio

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of reinforcement that you should have
depending on how your puppies reacting.

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We have protocols for picking up

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and interrupting puppies,
feeding them, putting them down.

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So it's not like
I don't recognize this or address it.

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But, you know, here's the thing.

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While you

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absolutely should do these protocols,

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you can't train the puppy
out of the puppy,

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nor should you expect to.

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Sometimes they don't want to be held.

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Sometimes they would
rather be doing other stuff.

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Sometimes they're just not in the mood.

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So a puppy vocalizing to get down,

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even growling, is not in and of itself

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diagnostic of anything.

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It is unreasonable to expect them
to put up with your desire

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to hold them at any time,
no matter what the puppy would rather do.

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And I find that puppy

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owners are often
surprisingly tone deaf to this

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and are just not open to hearing
what the puppy is telling them.

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So my follow up question
for this breeder was,

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do the puppies ever growl at you?

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And I said, I would bet not,
because you're more tuned in to them.

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At least that has been my experience

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with my puppies and my friend's puppies.

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And this is what she answered me.

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No, they don't growl at me,

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which is why the behavior came
as a bit of surprise.

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We find all the litter
highly tolerant and attachment seeking,

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but I guess we recognize that seven week
old pups are generally less interested

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in a nice cuddle
than noodling around most of the time.

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Exactly.

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I think, you know, in this case
and this is what I advise this breeder,

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you might look more at what's going on
with the person who's holding the puppy

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and evaluate if they're being responsive
to what the puppy is telling them.

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So I think really while

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yes, absolutely we counter condition this.

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Absolutely.

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That is the whole basis
of Shaping Emotional Responses.

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But in this particular case,

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this is a teaching moment
for the puppy owner.

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This is a moment to teach the puppy owner

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what is a reasonable expectation
for a puppy this age.

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So let's go back then

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and talk in more general terms
about a seven week old puppy

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growling at you when you restrain it
or do something that they don't like.

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I mean, not all puppies will push back
against restraint with a growl.

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Some will go catatonic,

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some will just squirm, some will wine.

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So the question is,
should you worry more about the puppies

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that growl than the puppies that just go

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limp, squirm or whine?

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I don't think there's a universal short

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answer I can give you in a podcast,
but here are some thoughts.

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Let's start
with the root cause of the issue,

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which is that puppies
don't want to be restrained.

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This is the fundamental issue, okay?

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Because people appear to think

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that with training and Puppy
Culture, puppies

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will somehow not feel
the normal range of puppy emotions.

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And I'm telling you, the vast
majority of puppies

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just don't like to be restrained
and they don't like to cuddle.

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Not much.

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No training
is going to change that in a young puppy.

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On the whole,
most puppies would rather be on the ground

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doing stuff, biting you
or playing with other puppies.

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That's just a natural fact

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and not a problem that has to be fixed.

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It's where they are developmentally.

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They look cute
and you want to cuddle them,

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but they don't much like it.

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So let's just establish that almost no
puppy wants to be restrained.

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So the

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puppy, the growls at you
for restraining him

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is not fundamentally different
than the puppy that just squirms

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or the puppy that goes catatonic
or the puppy that whimpers.

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The internal state of the puppy
is the same.

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The difference is what tools
the puppy feels

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he has at his disposal to communicate
that internal state to you.

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The difference
between a growl and a squirm

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is difference in degree, not kind.

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So should you worry about the puppy
that growls at you?

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Well, for sure.

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It's information.

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It tells you what that puppy is
going to reach for when there's conflict.

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So it's not like it's
meaningless information.

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But again, the overwhelming

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chances are it's totally normal.

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Most breeds are hardwired

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to push against conflict.

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When you look at the breed
standards of most breeds,

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most dogs did at one time fulfill
some kind of either

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guardian or hunting function
that required them to stand up

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in fairly
daunting situations with courage.

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Those are the puppies

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that are going to growl at you
when you restrain them against their will,

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you know?

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And then you have puppies
that don't push back this way.

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But again, those puppies are still feeling

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that same feeling
as the puppies that growl.

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So no matter what, when you

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restrain a puppy against its will,
you're still creating conflict.

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When you don't listen to them telling you
that they want to get down

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and my advice is restraint
protocols aside, okay,

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put the puppy down
that wants to be put down.

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Yes, we work on counter

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conditioning those negative feelings.

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But if you continue to assault

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puppies in this way, if you continue

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to disregard their feelings in the matter,

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you start building a lack of trust

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and the puppy does not believe he's
being heard.

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And your primary job in that first year

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to 18 months of life is to build trust.

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And that takes time and repetitions over
time.

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We'll come back to that.

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You see, context is everything with this.

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For sure,

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there are times when that puppy, I'm
telling you, you're

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getting picked up, restrained, put away,
and it's not what you want to do.

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But I don't care.

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Let's say
the puppies are in the back yard.

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The landscapers are here to mow the lawn.

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You're getting picked
up, you're getting put away.

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You can grow if you want. I don't care.

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It's my way or the highway
and it's happening now.

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Okay, But you're having a puppy party
let's say,

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there's a roomful of new people
and all the puppies littermates are there?

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There's new equipment,
I mean, it's tantamount to an assault

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to restrain a puppy that does not want
to be held under those circumstances.

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That puppy wants to get
down and explore and play.

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And finally,

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you can't discount that that puppy
that's squirming,

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growling, wants to get out of your arms,

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may actually have a bodily need.

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I have definitely seen puppy owners
just continue to hold and forcibly

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restrain puppies that desperately
had to go to the bathroom.

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So, you know, in sum,

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the overriding rule is don't force it,

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don't grab and clasp a puppy
that does not want to be held.

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Do your restraint protocols,

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but do them in discreet training sessions.

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Don't expect a seven,
eight, ten, 16 week old puppy to enjoy

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being held all the time.

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You know, I realize how fundamentally
we all want to cuddle with our puppies.

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They're cute, but they're not cuddly.

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I'm sorry.

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Cuddling is something that develops
as the puppies curiosity

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and drive to explore and play drive

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wanes and his trust in you increases.

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It's truly a developmental thing

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that you facilitate
by putting money in the relationship bank.

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And the first rule
is not to be making withdrawals

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from the relationship bank
by restraining unreasonably.

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Again, you do a lot of pick up
feed, put down the puppy growls.

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He doesn't want to be restrained.
You put him down.

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So you're teaching him, you know,

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I'll pick
you up, I'll pay you, I'll put you down.

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I'm I'm going to listen to you.

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I mean, sometimes it's going to happen,
but it's not going to be so bad.

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And I know, you know,
we all want to fix it right away,

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but you have to trust me.

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It's a developmental thing that's going
to it's going to smooth out over that,

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you know, that year, that year
to 18 months.

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Okay.

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And you're just going to wake up one day
and the puppy that growled

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when you were stranded growled
when you're trying to his nails growled

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when you know, when you were trying
to do anything, interrupt him.

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You know, one day you're going to be like,
wow, I can't believe it.

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That puppy used to growl at me.

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So you really

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have to look at this
as a developmental period

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and not a specific problem
that you have to fix.

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But I know when you hear that growl,
especially as a puppy owner,

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even if you yourself are doing something
totally unreasonable to the puppy,

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it's scary
because it's just you're afraid.

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You're afraid that you're probably
going to be aggressive.

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And all I can tell you is this that I have

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definitely seen
my share of behavioral issues.

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And I can tell you right now
that the puppies

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that ultimately turned out
to have behavioral problems

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were not the puppies that growled
when they were restrained.

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That has not been, you know,
something that sorted with puppies

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that had behavioral problems.

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I have to say

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I have
a personal feeling about this topic.

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This topic strikes close to home for me
because when I was a child, I didn't,

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I wasn't a cuddly kid and I had qualities.

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I mean, I was a go go, go kid.

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I was inquisitive, I was smart, I was fun.

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But I just I didn't like to be held.

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I didn't like to be restrained.

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And I guess my parents
maybe being a little more progressive,

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understood that and appreciated me
for who I was.

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But, you know, my Sicilian grandparents,
when I went to visit them,

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they were going to hug me.

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I mean, it was that's how it was going
down.

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And I fought it pretty hard
and they would get offended.

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And, you know,
it was always the thing when I went there.

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Now, listen, it it turned out fine.

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I loved my grandparents, in the end,
as I grew up.

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But, you know, when I was a child,
it was a little horrifying.

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And I

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turned out to be a person that I think
has things to offer the world.

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And I'm affectionate.

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So it's not like it was a

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you know, that that natural inclination
for children

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to be more interested in doing things
than being hugged and restrained

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somehow sorts with adult personality

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or capacity to form emotional connections.

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I guess what I'm trying to say,
it's reasonable.

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Okay?

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It's reasonable
that children, that puppies, you know,

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they sometimes
just really don't want to be restrained.

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All right.

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Now, all that having been said,
there are definitely

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behavioral outlier puppies.

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There are puppies that really just hate

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physical touch to the point
where it's pathological.

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That's beyond the scope of this podcast.

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But suffice it
to say that if you as a breeder

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are not experiencing puppies
growling at you when you hold them,

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but suddenly when puppy buyers

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show up or your friends show up,
the puppies are growling at them.

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That's
not a behavioral issue with the puppies.

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Okay.

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That that's that's a people problem,
not a puppy problem.

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Even if your puppies do growl at you

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when restrained,
sometimes it's still not pathological.

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This is a really huge trust issue
that you have to earn over time.

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There are definitely protocols
that will facilitate that process

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and that's what we're all about

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in Puppy Culture
and our films and our puppy courses.

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But there is not a protocol

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that's going to speed up that process
very much.

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You can't really, you know, skip
that year of building trust.

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You have to do it.

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You have to put in the time,
you have to put in the repetitions

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and not freak out if your puppy doesn't
want to be restrained.

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In the meantime.

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In our

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house, puppy taming is Mark's job.

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He gets on the couch,
he tames those puppies.

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Okay? It takes, you know, a year.

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It takes a year.

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And then one day
the puppies will cuddle with him.

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You know, it starts out as little as I'm.

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I'm not exaggerating. 5 seconds.

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If you can get 5 seconds of that puppy
holding still, it's amazing.

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And then somewhere around 18 months,
I mean,

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they're taking a nap with him on the couch
while he reads his phone.

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So I've been through it.

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I've been through it.

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A number of times.

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And again, there's
nothing wrong with the puppy that doesn't

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want to be restrained.

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So I'm going to read you one comment

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that was on that post
that I thought was quite good.

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She said;
I agree with Jane wholeheartedly.

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My breed is a giant breed,
so I really discourage my visitors

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picking up puppies at all.

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I don't want the puppies
to become used to being held.

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I do welcome them
to get down on the ground with the puppies

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and let the puppies climb in their lap

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and let the puppies
go to sleep in their lap if they choose.

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But I'm very picky with the rules
I ask of my visitors.

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My biggest concern is

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because of the size of my puppies
at seven weeks old.

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If one is too wiggly
and someone were to drop them,

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that might be something
that they would not easily recover from.

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I think your puppies are perfectly normal.

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And then the last thing that someone wrote
in was actually a recommendation

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for two whole dog journal articles
that are very similar.

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In fact, I think they're kind
of derivative of each other.

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The original one was by Nicole Wilde,

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and the second one was by Nancy Kerns.

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And again, they're in Whole Dog Journal
and they're both called Work That Body.

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And it's just a punch list
really for puppy owners

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about how to approach dogs and puppies.

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It's really good.

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So I think that's a good thing to put in
your your toolkit

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to share with your puppy owners.

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So I want to wrap this all up with a word

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on handling this

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with our puppy owners.

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Okay. So

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I think we have to address

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why puppy owners do this.

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And even, as I said, very experienced
puppy owners, people that you would think

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00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:25,720
would know better and you see them,
you see them reaching for those puppies,

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00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,800
reaching for them, grabbing them,
grasping them, pulling them to them.

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And I think as a breeder,
what you have to recognize is that

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they're not just reaching for the puppy.

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They're reaching for that bond
right there.

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00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:43,720
There's so excited, they're so charged
and they're so really

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desirous
of forming that bond with that puppy.

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And we're primates, right?

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00:19:51,360 --> 00:19:56,880
So we just physically want to clasp them
to us and on some sort of very deep

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00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:01,520
cellular level, we feel like
this is going to facilitate that bond.

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00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:05,160
And I think as breeders, we have to

348
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help the puppy owner

349
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see how magical it is
to let the puppy come to them.

350
00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:14,200
Okay.

351
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How magical it is to listen to the puppy
and how the puppy

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is so much more open to that bond
when we let go.

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You have to let go to receive.

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00:20:23,760 --> 00:20:27,360
It's a very Zen thing
and I think we can do that.

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00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:30,560
I think, you know,
you can instruct them all you want.

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00:20:30,560 --> 00:20:31,920
You can give them the print out.

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00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:33,960
You can say, Listen,
this is how you touch the puppy

358
00:20:33,960 --> 00:20:36,000
and don't restrain the puppy
and put the puppy down

359
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:37,920
if it wiggles and blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.

360
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:40,200
But it's not satisfying the puppy owner.

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00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:42,440
And I think we have to be
sensitive to that.

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00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:45,920
You really have to reassure
those puppy owners that

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00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:49,560
that bond is going to come,
but it's just not going to be

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00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:54,040
instantaneous, maybe in the way that that
they hope it's going to be.

365
00:20:55,760 --> 00:20:58,120
So in sum,

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00:20:58,120 --> 00:21:01,680
I definitely recommend that you do
all the restraint protocols.

367
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:05,920
You have your puppy owners do
all the restraint protocols that you show

368
00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:09,400
your puppy owners how to handle puppies,
that you demonstrate it,

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00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:13,560
that you give them handouts with lists
of how to handle puppies.

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00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:18,160
But, you know, I also think alongside this

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00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:22,160
you need to acknowledge
the emotional component of this.

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00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:27,120
Show your puppy owners
how letting go of that puppy

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actually increases the puppies approach,
how sitting

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00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,640
passively and just allowing the puppy

375
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:39,080
to come toward you is magical.

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00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:42,720
If you can satisfy
that emotional component for the puppy

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00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:47,760
owner, it's going to go a long way
to giving them the space

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00:21:48,120 --> 00:21:56,520
to be able to be empathetic
toward their puppies.

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00:21:56,520 --> 00:22:00,360
If you liked this podcast,
you'll love our breeder

380
00:22:00,360 --> 00:22:04,080
course at madcapuniversity.com.

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00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:07,360
If you're a puppy owner,
we have a course for you too

382
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,040
at madcapuniversity.com.

383
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,720
If you're new to puppy culture
and you want to get started,

384
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:22,440
visit us at puppyculture.com
and check out our bundles.

385
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:24,240
Well, that's all for this time.

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00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:25,720
Thanks for listening.

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00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:46,320
Bye bye.