No such thing as a lockdown puppy

[Thewifefury]

More news today of how "lockdown puppies" have potentially contributed to the increase in dog attacks. I don't understand. There were no rules about not walking or socialising dogs during even the strictest of lockdowns. Letting dogs meet and play on dog walks whilst humans maintain a safe distance was all totally possible. Just feels like lazy dog ownership and a very useful, if flawed, excuse! Perhaps I am judging people too harshly? Covid did increase dog ownership, let's face it everyone was looking for a new hobby or interest they could actually do while the world was shutdown. So it makes sense that there was also a rise in Ignorant dog owners. I just get so irritated with the term "lockdown puppies". Shifts the blame off the reality - ignorant owners. And I am sure there will be people who say "I was shielding so I couldn't go out or get within speaking distance of another person" okay so why on earth would you get a puppy then? Again not a lockdown puppy. Another ignorant owner.

I don't really mind what the reason is but I would be so grateful if people could learn to control their dogs. My son is petrified of dogs and it's hard to tell him they are safe because they keep doing unsafe things around us in the park.

We always socialise our puppies by taking them to pubs, cafes, markets etc. I take them to the village school when the kids come out as we don't have children, take them to puppy classes, to dog shows, take them on holiday. Much of this wasn't possible so the puppy I was planning to get for my 50th in lockdown was delayed. There are a lot of under socialised dogs around, and many who can't cope with being left as they were brought up with the family at home 24/7.

I don't think 'lockdown puppy' is seen as a good thing, or an good excuse - I think it's seen as a poor excuse by people who bought a puppy on a whim because they were home loads (knowing full well that wouldn't be forever) and then didn't bother to do anything to train or socialise the puppy. Loads of them were poos which in my experience are often a poorly bred neurotic lot and often hate being left along for 5 minutes no matter what.

It's just a convenient excuse that definitely shouldn't still be applicable, there has been plenty of time to put in the required training since then.

the zoo animals also suffered quite a lot with the unprecedented lockdown

It’s not really a training issue though, if you’ve got a dog predisposed by breeding to issues, you’ve missed the socialisation window.... no amount of training is going to make them a calm stress free social dog tbh.

Thats not to say people should be out there causing problems for other people, but, realistically , it’s going to be management and working towards tiny changes rather than really resolving anything.

My rescue has behavioural issues, because he’s a rescue more than because of when I got him, I’m not saying it to random members of the public to excuse his behaviour because I don’t put him in situations where I have to, but he’s never going to be ok.

I'm not sure it's necessarily lack of access to training but I think you got more people getting dogs who maybe weren't really cut out for it? People who had vaguely thought they wanted a dog but couldn't do it because of work but then thought they might as well give it a try while they had the opportunity. I imagine most such owners are fine, but some of them probably shouldn't have got a dog and wouldn't have if they'd never had a period of WFH.

Letting pups meet and play while
The humans stay at a distance is not socialising them. Not even close.

It's just a convenient excuse that definitely shouldn't still be applicable, there has been plenty of time to put in the required training since then.

The socialisation window closes at 16 weeks. After that, all you're doing is management and counter-conditioning.

And while it can help, it's not an easy solution and many dogs who are attacked or who have bad experiences in their socialisation window sadly never get over it, no matter how much work the owners put in.

I think news media largely just use the term 'lockdown puppies' to refer to the recent boom in dog ownership, with inexperienced non-dog people getting dogs for the first time, influenced by the hugely increased marketing of dogs.

I don't think lockdown as such was the problem. It was just a trigger for the booming numbers of dogs. It wasn't the only trigger, either. In my area, the number of dogs increased much much more in the year or so following covid than it did during the actual periods of lockdown. There have been puppies everywhere, consistently, in all the time since covid. Before covid it would be a novelty to meet a pup when I was out with my dog. Not anymore.

My dog wasn't a 'puppy' as such, but a young dog. As a larger breed, she hit 'teenage' later and didn't mature until much later. We couldn't meet with the group we joined before the lockdown. The group walks stopped.
The dog trainer I used couldn't work. She had more walks but solo with me. As an on lead dog, letting her 'socialise' wasn't possible.
It will have affected her.
She is actually a well trained dog, but I avoid dog on dogs with strange dogs because her social skills aren't as good as they should be. Conversely, her people skills are beyond breed expectations. She should be aloof, but she's the opposite! She wasn't left at all until age was beyond 3.

I will be forever grateful that the changes in working conditions which happened because of the pandemic allowed me to get the dog I have wanted since I was a child. DH works from home 80% of the time now, and this is likely to be a permanent arrangement.

That said, I took training EXTREMELY seriously. Dog isn't a lockdown dog as we got her when the restrictions had eased greatly (end of April 2021), but I was hyper aware of the need to train carefully to avoid separation anxiety and anxiety based social behaviours. I think I read about 30 books, and spent several hours a day training the dog when she was a pup.

She has the odd deaf moment because she's an animal, not a robot, but she's a lovely dog. I know there are several dogs around the village where I live where that level of training wasn't done, and they are a bit of a nightmare to be around.

My dog was 1 when lockdown happened so not a puppy, but we live in a very rural area and barely saw anyone during any of the lockdowns except the occasional neighbour. My dog definitely suffered from the sudden stop in socialising and I don't think for a minute I was lazy because of that, we were told not to go driving off to places for a walk weren't we? There was a lot of public shame about it and we had lots of lovely walks on our doorstep, whilst there were people in cities not able to go into the countryside

I think the sort of person who goes ahead and gets a dog, not caring that they can't be socialised appropriately, means that there is such a thing as a lockdown puppy.

I know this is a bit off-topic, but the thread has made me think of my dear, dear very elderly dog who died just after the lockdowns.
Lockdown was a boon for him. It meant I worked at home, so we had each other all day long. And it meant that I was forced to go on endless little local walks, which were perfect for his old-man exercise needs. It was a golden retirement for him.😔

A gundog trainer near me kept trying to run puppy classes from October 2020 onwards, outdoors, distanced, and had several run-ins with the council. He reckoned it was important to for the dogs.

It was possible to do a lot of socialising during lockdown if you used your imagination. My own view is that a lot of the problem with out of control young dogs is twofold: inexperienced owners who had no clue, who always used to exist but are now out there in droves, and people getting the wrong breed. As @oakleaffy said, working lines are fine in homes that give them what they need, but can be disasters elsewhere. A cockerpoo that got a big dollop of working cocker drive isn't going to be the cute little teddy-bear that the family could have handled, by a hyperactive bored tearaway with no recall....

Lockdown affected so much with not just puppies but adult dogs, kids, people the list goes on.

I've had dogs my whole life and work in a profession that sees these lockdown puppies on a daily basis. It's not just inexperienced owners or irresponsible owners that have issues but many experienced dog owners too. Then you get irresponsible breeding, puppy farms etc and this was producing sick dogs and or dogs that have life long problems or parents with bad behaviour initially (again should never have been bred from).

We also noticed a huge decline in dog behaviour since. Even during with puppies as they all seemed more terrified than normal and less wants to speak to everyone.

During lockdown we had to social distance and lots of people would keep dogs at a distance from other dogs (my experience anyway) people were worried about catching it from others pets but also if the need to intervene if play gets out of hand etc put people off.

Not only did people miss out on key socialisation points (very short window for puppies) they also were unable to do this. People were home much more often so the dogs were never left for long periods, the poor dogs only had a small circle of people so stranger danger (both in and out the home), everyday noises were quieter (roads, kids playing, families in the park, the list goes on). I think a combination of everything makes them more anxious and yes this could contribute to dog attacks (not aggression but fear aggression).

The lockdown puppy is definitely a thing but for a whole load of different reasons

A gundog trainer near me kept trying to run puppy classes from October 2020 onwards, outdoors, distanced, and had several run-ins with the council. He reckoned it was important to for the dogs.
And good for him. He was probably called on Mumsnet "a selfish arsehole who was murdering grannies". We needed more people like him to stand up to the madness, cruelty and inhumanity of lockdowns, which now the government (and many people) are trying to pretend never happened. I will never forget the madness and cruelty of lockdowns, no matter how much the government tries to brainwash me.

This thread shows one of the lesser harms of lockdowns, and now the chickens are well and truly coming home to roost. And I haven't forgotten the other piece of animal cruelty the government considered: killing everybody's pet cats. They would have had to have killed me first.

I got a "lockdown puppy" except it was planned before lockdown and I'm a childminder so our life looked absolutely no different whatsoever during lockdown as it does now.

The main issue around here is the amount of people who got one because they were wfh, then shock horror, they had to go back to work, and dogs live for years ... so there's now dogs left alone constantly barking all bloody day.

I currently have four dogs, all the same breed, all different ages. And have had others of the same breed previously. I work and compete with them. So am an experienced owner by any standard.

The pup I brought home in March 2021 is noticably less resiliant around novel things inspite of me being very aware and doing everything I could to socialise her. The reality is her formative weeks were very different from the others and I can absolutely see the difference.

For first-time owners who didn't know what they were doing I could see the impact being much greater. And, of course, pups born in 2020, when the impact of lockdown was stricter, would have had a tougher time of it than my girl.

It absolutely is a thing.

It wasn't just dogs - more cats than usual were run over after lockdown, including our lovely black and white girl, because they weren't used to the traffic.
So I'm not surprised dogs weren't used to noise, crowds and traffic.

I think the biggest problem is the poor breeding and poor choices of owners maybe who had not had a dog before rather than lack of socialisation. I have quite a few training friends who had planned lockdown puppies and none are dysfunctional.

Definitely true re: first 16 weeks.
A very steady dog's home dog we had was an abandoned puppy left wandering after Travellers had moved on - She was 12 weeks approx by the time we got her home, after a month in the dog's home {she was desperately thin and ill} and the vet said to take her out everywhere before the socialisation window closed.

Because of her start in life she was fine with children {I think the kids on the site played with her} -and fine with hearing noisy vehicles.
She was basically 'bombproof' with other dogs and even fireworks. {She'd lived through firework season outdoors as a tiny puppy}

The most difficult dogs are those who have seen nothing but the inside of a crate or a room for their formative weeks- They really can struggle.

A friend has a dog like this born on a farm who saw very little during his formative phase..and he is really frightened of so much , poor dog.

Basically agoraphobic. She has spent a fortune in behaviourists.

Another dog was the same...kept in a crate in a room from a puppy before being rescued and he too has many issues.

Carrying puppies about to expose them to novel things is good {while waiting for vaccinations to take effect} You can almost see their brains whirring as they make sense of new things. {Although even a small puppy is surprisingly heavy for size}

For people with large breed puppies, maybe a trolley or car is a good idea.

In fairness, the dogs bought at the start of lockdown will have been bred well beforehand.

I agree about dogs not being socialised and not ever being left alone is an issue. Someone I know literally cannot leave their lockdown puppy at home alone. It's anxiety levels are through the roof and is destructive and it is a big dog. They have had to be really creative about always having someone at home or taking it with them everywhere and it has massively damaged their lives. No holidays as they can't leave the dog in kennels.

They have spent the past year shelling out bucket loads of cash on behaviourists and trying to correct all this after the fact. But the dog is 4 now.

The alone thing is a red herring. I didn’t leave my dog alone until she was well over a year old. We built it up very slowly at her pace. No problems now. You can’t just leave them for 4 hours with no preparation but it’s a massive outdated (proven) load of crap that they need to be left as puppies to be ok as adults. They do need gentle and consistent alone time though but only when they’ve grown up a bit. My neighbours 8 month old pup has screamed the place down since 8 weeks as well as injuring himself on his crate. She still thinks he’ll get used to it when I suggested a kinder way.