It's A Puppy - Not A Puppet!

I'm convinced that many of the people who get puppies thought they were getting a puppet.

It's an understandable confusion. Both can be cute, lovable, and both can come with strings attached.

There are a few key differences, though. Puppets, unlike puppies, can be purchased on Amazon and rarely mess up your rugs.

A puppy, unlike a puppet, is a living sentient being that thinks for itself. Unlike puppets, puppies resent being physically steered and maneuvered, just as you would if someone did that to you.

Yet that is what the vast majority of (otherwise loving and affectionate) dog guardians do. They use the leash to steer the puppy to their side on walks, to steer the puppy in and out of the house, and to steer the puppy away from gross things on the sidewalk.

Why? Are they controlling madmen? Of course not. They're just trying to keep puppy safe and "teach" puppy how to walk on a leash.

The problem is that the puppy learns all the wrong lessons.

When the leash is used to puppeteer the dog from one place to another, the dog learns to go where they are steered. This is true. At first puppies will balk and refuse to move when their leash is tightened. Dogs are agreeable creatures though and many come to be philosophical about the human's need to control their exact physical location.

Many others decide that the leash is a matter of might makes right, and use the leash to steer their human towards trees, fire hydrants and other key points of interest.

Even for the dogs who learn to simply follow the guidance of the leash from one place to another, they are not learning where you would like them to be - only to go where they are steered.

Neither type of dog learns a key skill that we teach to our children when they are tots - to pay attention to your walking companions and match the pace of the slowest member to keep the group together.

Dogs naturally will do this if they are allowed to develop the skill. Puppies raised in rural areas off of a leash will follow the farmer around the fields, always keeping track of where their human is even as they romp about chasing gophers and flushing birds.

Pups who are used to going on off-leash trails with their human circle back constantly to track their human's movements.

But when constantly on a leash and steered by that leash, the puppy never has to exert any brain energy into paying attention to where their group members are. They simply go where they are steered, and devote their brain power to sniffing, scanning the horizon for birds and dogs and people, and otherwise enjoying their walk as much as they can, given that they can only walk where they are directed.

This is the classic give-a-man-a-fish vs teach-a-man-to-fish problem. It is easier to just steer your puppy into place. Teaching a puppy to pay attention to you, to follow you where you go, to stop when you ask them to and go when you give permission... all of that takes a lot of patience and hard work.

But when we put in that time and effort, we are repaid with a dog who watches where we are on walks, who walks with us willingly and consciously instead of treating us like a ball and chain, and who pays attention to and manages their leash. They will even untangle their own legs from the leash!

It is an investment in puppyhood that can result in over a decade of easy walks.

Whether you want to invest in that future is entirely up to you, but I highly recommend considering it.