Mistakes in Advocacy - 3. "It's all how you raise them"
Over the next few days we are going to talk about the five most common mistakes we see advocates making when posting on social media. Please see yesterday’s post for the full background, and for our first post on owner and victim blaming.
Today we are examining a statement we see a lot: “it’s all how you raise them”
Here are some actual comments we read online in response to a recent dog bite fatality:
"It's all how you raise them 100% we have 5 pitbulls and they are big babies but if provoked like any animal they could do damage yes!!"
"Dogs are 80-90% how their human owners treat them and train them. The humans responsible for that dog should be held fully accountable for that attack."
"It's all about how they're raised, my dog is a rescue and has bad traits due to this. A dog is a product of their environment."
This seems to be an appealing sentiment, because it allows us to believe that we have full control over our dog’s behaviour. Unfortunately, it’s simply not true.
A dog is a product of both nature (genes and heredity) and nurture (environmental and external factors). Both factors play a significant role in all beings, not just dogs.
A dog can be raised in a home environment that has done everything possible to ensure a happy, healthy, and well-mannered dog. But despite these efforts they still end up with a fearful, anxious, unstable or even aggressive dog.
Why? Because genetics are real. A predisposition towards anxiety and fear can develop at the time of conception and can imprint a puppy from this moment. The mental and physical state of the momma dog during pregnancy has also been shown to affect the puppies for life.
We don’t know the exact balance of nature/nurture in any creature, but we know that temperament is ALWAYS a combination of both. That goes for good temperaments as well! Some dogs have naturally stable and resilient personalities. These are the ones you see rescued from abusive or puppy mill seizures but go on to make fantastic family pets, even therapy or service dogs. If it was “all how you raise them” there would be no hope for these dogs, but there are a ton of these examples.
By denying the reality that a dog’s behaviour (like ours) is dictated by a combination of genetics, brain chemistry, environment – and probably a number of factors we don’t even know about yet – we aren’t giving them the respect they deserve. They are not blank slates or robots. They are complex, sentient, emotional animals. And that’s why we love them.
We suggest that we stop using “it’s all how you raise them” and refer instead to proven risk factors for behaviour. You could also talk about the responsibility of an owner to use behaviour modification and responsible management if their dog does show concerning behaviour. You can find information on both topics on our website.