Babying dogs is the single most destructive thing an owner can do for their dogs – also known as anthropomorphism.
Often people believe or would guess that dogs displaying unwanted behaviour such as aggression or anxiety based behaviours is due to being abused or mistreated… but from our experience, its nearly ALWAYS from overly loving homes with no boundaries, treating the dog like a baby.
Lets talk about what babying a dog actually creates, because people need to know this. As trainers like ourselves are the ones that end up trying to clean up the mess.
It creates an animal that is extremely confused and does not know what species they are. It creates a dog which is anxious, nervous and fearful. It creates dogs that have zero resilience and are flaccid. It creates dogs that are mentally neurotic, frantic and all over the shop. It creates dogs that cannot be left without their owner for more than a minute without going into extreme separation anxiety. It creates dogs that protest and think its okay to not do as their told. It creates dogs that are more likely to bite people, dogs or their owners. It creates dogs that display entitled, bratty behaviours. The list really can go on, and on, and on.
We understand that some breeds are more easier to ‘baby’ than others, but in particular when we look at dogs that are bred to be hard, solid, resilient working dogs, such as the German Shepherd, Doberman, Rottweiler, Malinois etc, to see the state they are left in due to being overly babied is horrific and cruel.
There is more to just loving a dog. A dog does not do well with just being loved. A dog needs boundaries, they need teaching what is acceptable and what is not, they need structure, they need outlets for their genetic traits and so on.
If you carry your dog around like a baby instead of letting them use their legs, you need to drastically change your approach (unless its for medical reason of course). If you pander, kiss and cuddle your dog, talking to them like a human when they are anxious or booting off at another animal or person, you need to change your approach.
Most of the time with children when they do something wrong, we hold them accountable and tell them. We ensure they have good values, know the value in hard work and being cooperative. Yet for some bizarre reason with dogs, we tend to see it is the complete opposite.
Humans are ruining dogs and it must stop.
We need to do better. Respect dogs for the incredible species they are.
