Puppy Culture Potluck: Ep34 - Bad Genes and Good Puppies: Genetics, Behavior and Puppy Culture

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I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.

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And this is a Puppy Culture
Potluck podcast.

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You bring the topics,
we bring the conversation.

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This episode's question is about

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how much can we modify
my temperament with protocols.

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And here's the question.

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I was chatting to someone

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recently about nature versus nurture,

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and they said, you can get a bitch
who has a poor temperament

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and using Puppy Culture, you can have pups
who have great temperaments.

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My view is it's more complex than that.

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Yes, it will certainly help,
but the pups are going to learn from mum.

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If she's reactive to people initially
and the pups see that,

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then that could certainly become
a learned behavior from pups.

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And no amount of other input
is going to help that.

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Would love people's thoughts.

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Okay, me again.

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First,

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let me just directly answer the question

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and say Puppy Culture will not overcome

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all genetic temperament characteristics.

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I did an entire podcast
on this, Episode 28.

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If you haven't yet, listen to it
by all means, you should go back

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and listen to that because it's
a good foundation for this podcast.

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I think there are three things
that we have to cover.

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First of all, temperament versus behavior.

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Temperament is what the dog is born with
inherently.

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It's the genetic makeup of the dog.

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It's again going back to that Episode 28.

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It's that genetic box
that we don't know where it is

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when they're little tiny puppies.

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But there is this box
that's a boundry around

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how much we can modify behavior.

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And then there's the expression

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of that genetic temperament,
which is how the dog behaves.

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Now Puppy Culture is about behavior.

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It's really not about temperament.

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You in a true sense,
cannot modify temperament.

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You can modify behavior.

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So you can modify the way
the temperament is expressed.

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And that's what Puppy Culture is.

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It's about raising behaviorally sound

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puppies.

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Okay.

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So now that we've distinguished

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between temperament
which is immutable and behavior

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which is modifiable,
there are still two remaining issues.

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The first one is, can we really modify

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genetic default behavior
with Puppy Culture?

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And the answer is yes.

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But there are limits.

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Puppy Culture will help

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you get the best expression of the dog's
genetic temperament.

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But there are going to be genetic limits
on how much you can modify

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that temperament.

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Again, Episode 28,
we talked a lot more about this.

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The second issue is, as a breeder,

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can we rely on
behavior modification programs

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such as Puppy Culture
for our breeding programs?

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Or do we need to select stock
with genetically sound

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temperaments?

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When it comes to selecting breeding stock.

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Genetics always trumps everything.

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End of story.

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Period.

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You should not have to work

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hard to raise acceptable puppies.

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You should not have to dig yourself

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out of a genetic hole
with extensive protocols.

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Your Puppy Culture protocols
should be to take genetically

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sound temperaments
and make them rock stars,

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not to coax marginal temperaments

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into being acceptable.

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And when I'm saying this,
I'm wearing my breeders hat.

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Okay.

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I'm not talking about ethics or our duty

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to the puppies,
which we're going to talk about next.

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But when you're making decisions
about your breeding program,

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you should not be

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selecting breeding stock
where you have to rely

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on a program like Puppy Culture
just to get you to an acceptable level.

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You should be selecting breeding stock
ideally,

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and key is ideally,
that you really don't have to do much too.

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Okay, so that's when you're

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making your genetic selection
for your breeding stock.

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Now I'm going to put on my Puppy

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Culture dog trainer
hat and say on an individual level,

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okay, once those puppies are on the ground
and that's what Puppy Culture is about.

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Puppy Culture is about,
what do we do with them?

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They're here.

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Okay.

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It's not advising you
how to formulate a breeding program,

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but on an individual level,
the puppies are here

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and we are equally committed
to every puppy.

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And the Puppy Culture program
can, in fact, sometimes allow us

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to take those marginal puppies
and make them fantastic pets.

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Ethically, I believe we

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have a commitment to do that.

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But as a breeder,

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I'm going to say
do not fall into the abyss of believing

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that because you have modified it,
it does not exist.

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That is a real trap and a difficult

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one to be clearheaded about.

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Now it's not black and white.

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It's a continuum.

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So it's not like there's some bright line
and anything less

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with the perfect temperament
gets thrown out.

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But you just have to be aware

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that it's a fault
if it takes your puppies three exposures

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for them to feel safe to approach
something.

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It's a fault.

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If you have such bad sound sensitivity
that you have to do

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extensive desensitization protocols.

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It's a fault.

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If your puppy has any adverse reaction
to being touched, handled, etc.

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the fault is to the degree.

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It's not that you're going to kick
all those dogs out of your program,

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but you have to be honest with yourself.

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Keep your eye on the ball and always,

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always breed away from it.

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Puppy Culture is a guide

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to raising behaviorally sound puppies.

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It's not a blueprint
for a breeding program.

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I have not yet produced much in that area,
but when I do,

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most of it is going to come down
to find the very best genetic stock

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you can get your hands on
and then breed for

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genetically good temperaments.

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Nothing will shut down a breeding program
faster

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than temperament problems.

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Temperament should be your first,

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second, and third consideration

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when selecting breeding stock.

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And then, trust me, you're still going
to get some funky temperaments.

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It's a bell curve.

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That's the way it works.

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But you always want to be moving

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the top of the bell
curve in the direction you want.

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And the only way to do that

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is to select the best temperaments
and be open

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eyed about the temperament faults
in your breeding stock.

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Don't think they're not there

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just because you modified them
and you can't see them anymore.

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I also want to say that

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even though I haven't treated this
in my educational products

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so far,
it is something that I think about a lot.

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And the person who really opened

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my eyes to this issue,
and the sort of trap

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of being able to train away

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problem behaviors, and then believing

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that you've solved the problem genetically

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was Jean Donaldson.

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When we went out
to California to film Jean,

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Jean and I had a long conversation.

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What you see in Puppy Culture
in the resource guarding section is just

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a tiny piece of this very interesting,

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deep, long conversation that we had.

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And one of the things

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that Jean said is, you know,
you can eliminate resource

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guarding in three generations.

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Now, Jean doesn't breed dogs, but somehow

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she came across this information
and she believed it to be true.

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And I contested that.

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I said, well, no,
because we have never used a dog

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that showed any resource guarding, even
as a puppy in our breeding program at all.

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And yet some of our puppies
still show resource guarding behavior.

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So my answer to Jean was, no, this
this can't be true.

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It's not that easy to eliminate it.

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And she just looked at me and said,
Well, Jane but you do protocols.

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And it was like mind blown.

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Yes. Of course.

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Who knows how many of those puppies
that I have might have grown up

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to be resource guarders
if I didn't do my early anti resource

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guarding protocols. Now.

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As a person,
I'm going to say it would be unethical

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not to do the anti resource
guarding protocols.

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And just so we can see who might grow up

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to be a resource guarder
because it's not fair to the dog.

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It's not fair to the family
that gets the dog.

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We should all do these anti resource
guarding protocols.

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But it does put you in a blind spot
as a breeder,

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because you really don't know
which puppy might have grown up

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to be a resource guarder.

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So it's one of those things
where the intersection of our ethics

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and our abilities
and our our breeding programs

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are truly at odds, because

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if we wanted to select the best

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genetics stock,
we wouldn't do behavior modification.

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We just

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leave them in a cardboard box
like they did 50, 100 years ago

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and take the best temperaments
and move on.

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But that's not where we are today.

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That's not modern dog rearing.

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It's not ethical. I don't advocate it.

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But again,
it's just something to be aware of.

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So to recap,

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no, you cannot modify

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temperament with Puppy Culture.

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Yes, you can modify behavior.

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And yes, even if the dam is marginal,

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you can have fabulous puppies

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by doing Puppy Culture protocols.

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So I don't advocate
relying on Puppy Culture

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protocols to produce good temperaments.

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But if for some reason, let's say
you have a super

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low population breed and you're
in some sort of preservation situation,

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and maybe you have to breed
some marginal temperaments,

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then yes, at least

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you know you're going to get those puppies
to a place where they're placeable

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and you can move on and keep trying
to step out of that genetic hole.

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But Puppy Culture is just going to be,

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an aid

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to your selection process

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to to give you a little rope to play with
so that you can get out of that

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genetic hole.

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It's not it's
not fixing the problem for you,

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but maybe it's going to buy you
some generational time

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so you can improve your temperaments.

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If you're interested in this conversation,

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please join us at the Puppy Culture
Discussion Group on Facebook.

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I'd love to hear
people's thoughts on this.

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If you liked this podcast,
you'll love our bundles.

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We have bundles for puppy owners, bundles
for breeders,

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show, puppy bundles, pet puppy bundles.

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Check them all out at puppyculture.com.

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Well, that's it for this time.

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Thanks for listening. Bye bye.