10/08/2021
An interesting article from an American dog trainer…
Doggy daycare is destroying your dog.
When people think of socializing their dog, they think about it as if they were socializing their child. Meaning, they think their dog needs to go meet and play with every dog, and meet and play with every human. This is where you get into over socializing your dog.. which is just as destructive as under socializing your dog.
Think about it this way:
Have you ever seen a pack of wolves go play with another pack of wolves? No. Because they will get killed in doing so. Because that’s not their pack, that’s not their family.
At doggy daycare, dogs are thrown into a room with multiple strange dogs. The interactions are not structured. Therefore, the dogs are left to rely on their instincts to cope and survive in such a pressing environment. So what happens? Dogs behave like dogs.
The people working at these facilities are not dog TRAINERS. They are not trained to recognize all of the subtle, negative behaviors leading up to a dog fight, or even another dog being bullied/harassed. They are simply there to split up a fight just in case it happens. Then, you get a call saying that fluffy got into a fight today, and is not welcomed back at their facility. But what happened leading up to that? Was Fido pushing Fluffy around, not playing fairly, or trying to mount Fluffy to establish dominance?
Then, your dog who has been in doggy daycare doing “well” for months... now has dog reactivity or even dog aggression issues “out of nowhere”. I can promise you, these behavioral issues are not “out of nowhere”. It has been building up to this point all along.
“But Fluffy is always so exhausted when he comes home from doggy daycare! I know he’s having fun and playing his heart out because he sleeps for days when he gets home!” Was he really having fun though? Or was he so stressed that the moment he got back home to his safe place, he melted in the great release of getting the hell out of that environment?
When you socialize your dog, you should be aiming to teach your dog to be NEUTRAL in all environments and situations. When fluffy sees another dog, he is neither overly excited to go play, nor is he reactive out of fear.. simply because he understands that his owner is in control, and his owner will tell him when is the proper time to go play, or not to play. This is where you get a well balanced, confident, and well socialized dog.
In all honesty, doggy daycare is making trainers more and more money every day. Why? Because it’s destroying dogs. Owners now need help with their dog reactive/dog aggressive dog. But at the end of the day, the money isn’t what matters to us. What matters to us is seeing dogs and their owners set up for success, and living happy, well balanced lives together. These negative experiences at doggy daycare can take months.. even years to turn around.. and sometimes.. they don’t ever get “fixed”. It turns into a situation where the owner is now managing this type of negative behavior for the lifetime of the dog.
Get your dog out of doggy daycare.
