You’re Giving Your Dog Too Much FREEDOM TOO SOON

So you’ve gotten a puppy, or maybe you’ve adopted a new dog from the shelter. Either way, you’ve got a crazy new family member in the house. You bring them into your home, you let them run around and explore a bit, you let them get comfortable and settle in. In the beginning, maybe you leave their leash on for a while and you start to do some training with them. You crate train them, you teach them some basic obedience, and you’re doing your best to get them ready for life. Then, a month or two later, you decide, ‘I can probably take the leash off and stop putting my dog in their crate now.’ Well, unfortunately, you’re almost certainly giving your dog too much freedom too soon. Let’s talk.

I understand that we want to give our dogs freedom and allow them to do things that they want to do. But I think we can all agree that there are certain behaviors that we don’t want our dogs to participate in like chewing on furniture, eating garbage, pulling on the leash, etc. Just like with children, we should give our dogs freedom when they can safely and confidently handle the decisions and responsibility that come along with that freedom. If we give them freedom too early, whether it’s our dogs or our children, they’ll be prone to participate in dangerous behaviors, make mistakes, and develop bad habits.

You wouldn’t leave your young baby or toddler to run around the house on their own would you? There are stairs, sharp objects, things that they might put in their mouth, and a whole host of other things that could go wrong. You would put your child in their cot when you couldn’t watch them super closely. So why would you let your new dog constantly run around the house without supervision? You wouldn’t leave random objects out on the floor if your baby or toddler was out and about. So why would you do it when your new dog is out and about? You wouldn’t hand your 6 year old the keys to your car and let them take it for a joyride no matter how much they wanted to do so. We put these rules in place not because we want to be mean or restrictive, but because we know that freedom comes with responsibility. Responsibility that our new pet or child cannot yet handle.

The two biggest mistakes that I see dog owners making with respect to freedom is: taking the leash/collar off of their puppy too early, and not crate training their dog. The leash is the most effective way to communicate with our dogs. We put it on our dogs when we go outside because we need to be able to control them and keep them safe. While many owners understand that their puppy isn’t reliable off-leash outdoors, for whatever reason, I feel like many dog owners feel that this is no longer the case when they come back into their homes. Many take off their dogs' leashes and collars the moment they come through their front door. Especially if you have a puppy, that leash and collar should stay on almost all the time, unless your puppy is in their crate. Even if you have an older dog with some behavioral issues that you’re trying to work through, keeping their leash on can be very useful. Even in your home, there are endless ways for your dog to make bad decisions. They can chew on furniture, counter surf, eat your shoes, bark at the door/window, jump on people that come in and so much more. Taking your leash off your dog removes the best way that you have to control your dog to prevent these behaviors. If they do perform the behaviors, you’ve also lost your best way to communicate to them that what they are doing is wrong. Perhaps leaving a leash on all the time and constantly watching over your dog seems like helicopter parenting to you, but you have to remember that we’re leaving the leash on now so that we can teach our dogs the rules and boundaries that they need to succeed and prevent them from learning and reinforcing bad behaviors by accident. Catching counter surfing the moment it happens and telling your dog that it’s inappropriate is much easier than trying to get rid of the behavior after they’ve stolen eggs and steak off the table for the tenth time. Once your dog understands your expectations and has the ability to follow the rules that you’ve set, we can then safely and confidently remove the leash and trust them with the responsibilities that come with freedom.

Not crate training, or halfheartedly crate training your dog is the other huge mistake that many owners often make with regards to freedom. For many, I’ve heard that they “feel like they’re putting their dog in jail” by putting them in the crate. Going back to our children analogy, you don’t leave your child to wander the halls of your house by themselves if you can’t supervise them. You put them in their cot, or another enclosed space so that they can’t hurt themselves. That’s not jail for your child. It’s a way to keep them safe and under control while you can’t devote your attention to them. This same concept applies to your dog. If you can’t supervise your dog closely and you can’t trust them to behave on their own, you should put them in their crate. The crate is the best, easiest, and safest place to prevent your dog from doing inappropriate things or developing bad habits. Many problem behaviors such as chewing, counter surfing, barking out the window, and more can be stopped before they even begin if you crate train your dog and actually use the crate. The notion that the crate feels like “jail” is just us projecting our emotions onto our dogs. Keep in mind that there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting your dog in their crate. Even for multiple hours a day. Crate training is something that you have to actually train, as most dogs don’t just come home loving being put in a crate. Fortunately, when conditioned properly, the crate can easily be a safe, welcoming, and comfortable place for your dog that you can send them to at any time, as well as a place that they will willingly go to on their own. It’s a place for rest, just like your bed or couch would be for you.

None of this is to say that doing these things will automatically make your dog perfect. Every dog is different and there will always be some individual troubleshooting that you’ll have to do. However, consistently doing the things that we’ve talked about today will help to eliminate many of the common behavior problems that owners run into. I also understand that we want to let our dogs be free and be dogs, but again, they have to be able to handle that responsibility and make good decisions before we let them have that freedom. Personally, my own dogs spent their first year spending a ton of time in their crates, without furniture or bed privileges and I think that’s something that has contributed greatly to their success. I’m not saying that you have to do that, but I want you to remember that a dog is a ten to twenty year commitment. Spend the first year or two making sure that your dog is ready for the responsibilities of freedom that you’ll one day give them, and you’ll watch them reap the benefits for the rest of their long and happy lives.