Nature vs Nurture in Dogs: Are Behaviour Problems Born or Made?

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the dog training podcast with people in the faces. Let me start again. It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free

dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, the podcast giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. My name is Jake Lawrence. I'm not a dog trainer, just a dog training enthusiast. But of course, Max O'Neill from the Down Under Dog Trainer is our a resident expert. I had an issue the other day where I had a woman yelling at me, is it okay, is it friendly?

Come full circle.

Yeah, it has. Yeah, I'm sort of feeling— I'm finding it more. I never actually ever had it before we started this podcast, and now I seem to be getting a lot. Sometimes I think maybe they listen to the show and they recognize me.

Yeah, they're just trolling.

Yeah, yeah. But today we want to talk about nature versus nurture.

It's kind of an age-old debate, you know, the nature versus nurture, whether, you know, someone or some things or your dog's genetics matter more than their environment. And I think my problem with this before I had a good understanding of it was when I used to go research, whether it was podcasts or online, is people would get really, really, really bogged down in the minutiae where I'm like, okay, cool, I get it, you've read XYZ textbook, but like, what can I take away from this? And that's something I want to do differently for you guys listening so you can go, oh, okay, I do have a bit of an understanding. And I don't know everything there is to know about it, nor do I, but I know what's important and I know what's relevant to me and my dog. So we'll explain a little bit about it. So nature versus nurture. When a lot of people will go looking around and assessing a dog's, you know, behaviour and personality and traits and characteristics, all this stuff is the 2 biggest influences you'll see in that is their nature or the nurture, either the genetics put into them or the way you've nurtured and raised them in the environment you've created. And people have this very set in stone thing where they'll say it's all genetics. And then some people will say it's all environment. It's all down to how you raise them. And both can be true. But also neither can be true. And that's kind of the complex part because you'll get people like, oh, hey, Daniel, raise them. I had this dog who was this, this, and this. And then once they came to me in this good environment, um, you know, it sorted them out real good. And then you'll have other people who go, I've given my dog the best possible home, but I just cannot get this out of them because it's so hardwired. And again, neither person's lying. Both people can be true. And in my time with, you know, pet dogs, working dogs of various types, That's something I've certainly seen a lot of is some dogs are very, very, very hardwired and pre-programmed where the things they were bred for as a part of their breeding are very strong and they've been passed down. And you go, wow, that dog's an excellent example of the breed. If you put them in an okay home, they'll turn out just great. And then you'll have other dogs where, you know, they shouldn't be anywhere near as good or bad as they are, but they can't— that they are. You put them in a great home and that's, you know, either strongly influences them or has completely no influence on them and everything of the above. So So a dog with very strong genetics, um, again, can be a blessing and a curse in the working dog world. You know, I'm kind of entering in the protection sports world at the moment with Nelson, my dog. So I'm exposed to lots and lots and lots of different dogs. And you see a lot of these, uh, dogs that people have where, because those parents have been selectively bred from to have specific traits and personality, and then their parents and their parents, and basically if you go through the whole family tree, The breeders have constantly made this decision of we need a dog who has this sort of trait about them. It means when you get this dog, it's pretty predictable. You know what it's going to be like. And, you know, like I said, its nature is very strong. All those personalities and things have been passed down. And like I said, you put them in an okay environment and they turn out the way they should. Okay. You could put them in a really terrible environment. It almost wouldn't matter. The dog, you know, is like predetermined to be a certain way. You put them in a really good environment. there's not that much of a range. And that can also be a really tough thing. Again, if you— one of the things I find myself doing every day is talking people out of breeding their dogs, is they'll come to me, they go, oh, we've got this dachshund and that dachshund, and they're super aggressive, reactive, anxious, they've got spinal problems, but we're going to do a litter next year. And again, genetics can also be a massive hindrance because, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. You know, if you've got mum with this behaviour set and dad with that health problem, is half the litter are going to have one or the other. So it can work for you and against you. But again, some dogs are really strongly influenced by their genetics. Again, normally dogs who have really strong breeding and come from a breeder, and then other dogs don't have some, don't have it at all. They might have, you know, their environment be a much stronger influence on their behaviour. And that's really interesting. I'll see dogs every day where, you know, they have everything against them. They might be this crossed with that from a puppy farm, and they've got, you know, teeth sticking out their head and everything like that. Every reason in the world to have behavior problems, but you put them in a good home and that can really influence them. And then I see the other, other side of the coin as well, where people get what they think is a pretty well-bred dog, but because they provide a pretty poor environment, that dog then goes massively downhill. So it's really, really tough. I find that it's, it's such a complex topic, but it almost doesn't have to be. You can just sometimes look at it and just see, like, you know, some dogs are really strongly influenced by nature, some are not. Some really are really influenced by their nurture and some are not, and everyone sort of just lies somewhere in between. So if you've got a dog, guys, you know, the likelihood that it's all down to how you raise them probably isn't true. But also the, oh, it only matters about genetics, you know, nurture counts for nothing, is also not true. It kind of lies somewhere in the middle. Your dog's breeding and genetics, as well as the environment you've played for, you've, uh, put up for them, both things are, you know, going to have a huge influence on their behaviour and their personality. So I hope that helps you understand it a little bit. Like I said, it's a very deep, complex topic, and some people know everything to know about lineage and genetics and this and that. And I'm certainly not going to pretend to do so, but hopefully that gives you a bite-sized understanding of a pretty complex topic and one that's hard to get any relevant information on when you go looking, if you just want a tidbit of it.

Yeah. So, I mean, I suppose looking at that subject matter when it comes to people listening and what they can take away from it, I suppose if someone's looking to get their dog, we've obviously spoken about Getting from a breeder. We've also said, you know, there's a very strong opinion as to buying from a breeder or adopting a dog. But if you wanted to be more, I suppose, confident as to what you were getting, you know, going to, as we spoke about, if you were thinking about going to a breeder, listen to the breeder episode about how to choose the right one. You do choose the right one. And it does come from a good, strong lineage of dogs, whether that be a working line or show line or whatever it is you're looking for.

Mum and dad were Proven with this, this, this generations.

Yeah. So the nature means that you're more likely to get a dog that you potentially are going to be, I don't wanna say happy with, but I mean, generally happy with. You know, as long as you're, if you're bringing them into a good home, they've got a good strong lineage and nature, then hopefully you'll end up with a dog you want. Obviously when you're adopting a dog, which I have done, you know, and lots of people do, You know, you've got no knowledge of parents and where they've come from and what potentially the traits might be.

Yeah.

So it's important, I suppose, to understand that it might not be you.

Yeah.

You know, it might just be their lineage.

It's where they've come from. You know, that's it, is when you go that unpredictable route of getting a dog and you've never met their parents, is some of those things the dogs are going to come with are going to be written in stone, as Pat Stewart likes to say, a slave to their genetic impulses. Shout out to Pat and the Canine Paradigm. And then other dogs is it could come and they're a completely blank canvas. If you just raise them right, you'll, you know, you wouldn't know that they came from this background or had this in or whatever. And yeah, you're right. Like, same when we got Nelson, we were getting him not just to be a pet. We got him for our protection sports that we want to compete in, but we also got him because we knew we wanted to have kids in the not too distant future and we need him to be good. So again, we went looking for a breeder who had like a long track record. So both of Nelson's parents were both very social with people and kids. and both were brilliant workers in the protection sports field. So we're like, okay, cool, that's one generation. What about the generation before that? What about the generation before that? And when we looked at them, we had like 3 solid generations of like good working Rottweilers. Like, we're pretty sure of what we're going to get, and we were right. Versus if we'd gone someone who'd go, oh, like, we just bred these random dogs, but hey, both— we don't know where they came from, but both turned out to be great with kids, great with dogs, let's do it. Like, we'd have a, a lower chance. But also, again, is That's kind of where it comes down to as well. This gets a little bit minutiae, but some dogs are what we call like excellent producers. They pass on their traits very well to their progeny and others don't. You know, we could have got Nelson from where he was and for whatever reason, none of those dogs turned out like mum or dad. So it's a very interesting one. It's a very, it's a very gray area because—

Much like just the dog world in general. I mean, there's a lot of gray and, you know, a lot of one side and the other side and opinions.

Exactly. And that's, I guess, like, yeah, the biggest takeaway from this is, I suppose, is going, if you want, you know, you can't, you can never get certainty, but if you want to be more sure of how your dog is going to be growing up, if you're very set on we want this particular behaviour trait, going a dog where you can track that back, you know, torch chatting to the breeders and seeing what the parents, grandparents, great parents were like will give you the best bet of that. Whereas if you're prepared to gamble on it, that's cool. But like I said, is Sometimes, you know, it's not all down to how you raise them.

I've got an addictive personality and once used to love the pokies, which is why I got Kira. There you go. Having her is like playing the pokies. You just never know what you're going to get.

Now she plays you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do like to think all her poor traits are purely nature and not nurture. Well, there we go. If you've got any questions on that particular topic, as always, the Dog People Podcast on Facebook or Instagram. We'll see you next time. The More People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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