April 9, 2025 • 16 mins
This week, Tony explains some of the most common puppy injuries people might encounter, and how to avoid them.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everyone, Welcome to The Houndation's podcast. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about puppies and
the dumb ways we allow them to get injured. Springtime
is puppy time and a lot of folks will be
adding a new member to their family in the next
couple of months. There are few things more exciting than
(00:25):
getting a fresh recruit, and all of the excitement for
the future usually culminates in a shopping trip for new
leashes and collars and dogbeds and toys. It's all hope
and optimism and I don't want to doom too hard here,
but puppies are prone to injuries, dumb injuries usually, and
almost always ones that we can prevent, which is what
I'm going to talk about right now. I was sitting
(00:53):
in the steam room of the gym a couple of
weeks ago, trying to listen to some death metal when
I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between two women
who are talking about dogs. Now the conversation had gone
anywhere else, I probably wouldn't have paid any attention, but
I liked dogs, and I got the feeling that the
conversation might go in an interesting direction, and it did,
(01:13):
with one woman saying that her dad had bought her
kids a surprise King Charles spaniel puppy. Now listen here, folks,
before I go any further with this, let me say
that you should not buy a puppy for anyone as
a surprise, and you should make it clear to anyone
who might even entertain the thought of buying you a
surprise puppy that you would rather put out a roaring
(01:33):
campfire with the more sensitive parts of your undercarriage than
receive a tail wagging present. Anyway, I ended up talking
to the ladies who happened to be sisters and found
out that the new owner of that spaniel was not
super stoked about their dad's gift, but that she wasn't
the kind of person to return a puppy either, and
(01:55):
even if she were that kind of person, her kids
definitely weren't seemed overwhelmed, and I don't blame her. She
also said that her dog had eaten some batteries that
were plugged into the wall and charging, to which I said,
your dog ate some batteries?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Is it sick? Is it dead?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And she said, well, I don't think he ate the batteries,
but he chewed up the charger. There's an important distinction
in there somewhere. Now, before you judge her, let's take
a second to think about this. In a simple move
to get the puppy some freedom, she let it roam
her living room. Now, anyone with young kids and who
has handled a puppy knows that there is only so
(02:33):
much attention to go around, and one of the charges
in your care might get into trouble even under the
most watchful eye. It just happens, and with electrical stuff
it happens kind of often. Now she got lucky and
that the dog apparently only nowed away on the charger
for a little bit and didn't get like two hundred
and twenty volts of electroshock therapy, because that happens.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I have a wife and two thirteen year old daughters,
So if you walk around my living room, in our bedrooms,
you'd see phone charging cords snaking their way across furniture
in the floor everywhere, as if some stringy spaghetti like
fungus was taking over our house. When I bring a
new puppy into this mix, I will fight a long
and probably mostly losing battle against keeping all of those
(03:17):
cords away from tiny sharp little dog teeth. Our lamps,
our TVs. Our world is powered by electricity, and that
moves through chords and power chords are kind of the
right size and texture to appeal to dumb young dogs,
and they are often accessible because they are often on
the floor. Usually, if a dog goes deep enough into
(03:38):
a power cord, they'll get a burn mouth.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And learn a valuable lesson.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Sometimes they have seizures or die, and occasionally, when they
get to working on a power cord, they create an
extremely unsafe situation where your house could burn down or
one of the two legged members of your family could
touch a live wire by accident. If someone who recently
tried to repair a microwave and forgot to unplug it,
(04:04):
I'll say that it's a real relief to only have
to buy a new pair of underwear and not to
feel man made lightning shooting through your body. But it
was a close one for me. And if forty four
year old outdoor writers occasionally almost electrocute themselves, what hope
does a puppy have?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Not much unless.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
You're careful about it. Just like you would kid proof
your house if you had a baby on the way,
take a long look around the communal areas where you
might allow your puppy to have some freedom. And it's
not just electrical cords that can get them.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
While a young puppy can lose a few teeth chewing
on rocks or maybe your gut or down spouts or whatever,
once it has its adult teeth, you really don't want
it gnawing on something that could easily break a tooth,
or even just cut the crap out of their mouths.
While that will usually resolve itself on its own, there
is an opening there for infection, and oral health with
dogs is really really important. There are other ways our
(05:00):
puppies get injured. I'll never forget when my twin daughters
were maybe like two, I don't know how old they were,
but they weren't great at walking or talking yet, so
whatever age that was. Anyway, I was doing something in
the kitchen when I heard a thump that sounded about
like what it would sound like if a two year
old jumped out of her crib. Then I heard another thump,
which sounded pretty close to what it would sound like
(05:21):
if a different two year old jumped out of her crib.
It turns out that my daughters had figured out how
to go from the top rope of their crib and
hit a pile of stuffed animals on the floor. Little
kids don't really think about danger, and neither do little puppies,
and when you mix the two, that's when bad things
can happen. Now here's the deal. If you have youngsters
(05:41):
in your life, and by this I mean literally any
child that could hold your puppy in its arms, then
think about that, because what happens sometimes is that kids
want to hold puppies.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Shocking, I know.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But what's even crazier is that sometimes puppies do not
want to be held by kids. And when that happens
and you get a squirmy puppy that is determined to
get back to earth, kids often just drop them. Now,
if you have a toddler on soft grass holding a
puppy in that situation, it's probably gonna be okay. The
drop is short and the landing is soft. But what
(06:14):
about a I don't know, a six year old holding
that same puppy in the driveway or maybe the kitchen
where the floor is tile or hardwood. Now you might think, well,
big deal. It's only a couple of feet, but you're
also talking about a baby dog that is a foot
tall to begin with. You imagine getting dropped the equivalent,
which would be you know, two to three times your height.
(06:35):
Even if we all knew it was coming and could
do our best to tuck and roll, some of us
would roll ankles, break femurs, and probably worse.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
We aren't babies, of course, and I absolutely do not
recommend this. It's just a thought exercise. But if we
dropped babies on various surfaces from heights that are two
or three x their height, some of them would inevitably
get injured. Even the toughest babies are honestly weak as shit. Now,
I will never forget watching one of my daughters drop
a puppy in this exact scenario and the look on
(07:05):
the dog owner's face. It was not fun, even though
that little black lab shook it off like nothing. Because
they mostly will, puppies are tougher than human babies. Probably
a better way to approach this is by having any
youngsters who want to hold your puppy go to the
dog's level. In fact, remember that all strangers should go
(07:26):
to your pupp's level for interactions. It's just a good
idea because then you can teach the dog not to
jump up on everyone to get attention. With kids, this
move alleviates the concern that your new pupp might fracture
a leg bone or something that is really not good,
because a kid sitting crisscross applesauce just can't really drop
a wriggling puppy in a way that will produce much
(07:47):
of an injury. My daughters and I got into a
weird documentary watching pattern this winter where we went pretty
deep on the free solo mountain climbers and rock climbing
(08:08):
in general, and then eventually the folks who put on
a wingsuit and jump off a peak to fly right
next to a mountain at like two hundred miles an hour.
While I can't even imagine the rush, I also can't
imagine the mindset it would take to look at a
sheer rock wall and think it would be a good
idea to climb three thousand feet with no ropes, And
if I'm being honest, even with all the best ropes
(08:29):
in the world and a giant mattress on the ground
below me at all times, that could stop my fall
if either of my twelve thousand other safety features didn't
cover it. Can't imagine it, let alone putting on a
goofy flying squirrel suit and hoping that in the eight
seconds I have before I become people paste on the
rocks below that I get just enough lift to start
shooting headfirst down a mountainside. Gravity always wins with these folks,
(08:53):
and it wins with dogs too if you don't pay attention,
because it's not just little kids yeading your puppy onto
the concrete that can injure them.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
A really common one with.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Dogs that are a little older but could definitely still
be considered puppies, is just jumping off the tailgate of
a truck. Generally, the landing there isn't all that soft,
and any of you folks who are past a certain
age know that you kind of have to consider that
distance of a jump, As embarrassing as that might be.
Do you think a five month old German short hair
pup is going to consider that jump and carefully climb
(09:25):
down or wait for the assistance of someone instead of
just going for it. Not a chance, especially when that
jump means they get to instantly run or play or
just do something their little puppy brains really want to do.
What's worse is that we often transport our pups and
crates in the back of our trucks, so this situation
happens a lot. But puppies can get injured jumping off
(09:47):
just about anything, including your couch in your living room.
But it's not just gravity that might injure your pup though.
The dog that doesn't true through your lamp cord and
short out the whole house could just as easily eat
about anything that might make them sick. I would guess
that ingesting something that is not meant to be ingested
is probably the number one way puppies get injured. Because puppies,
(10:09):
just like human babies, experience the world at least partially
through their mouths. They just need to put all kinds
of things in their mouths, and some of those things
can be bad news. Again, this is just a matter
of what your fresh recruit has access to. You can't
keep a dog from eating all kinds of gross shit
because it just happens. A lot of puppies will numb
right down on goose or deer droppings, and they'll carry
(10:31):
around dead toads. They're more like amphibian jerky than anything
else after baking on the asphalt for a few days.
If it resembles food, they'll probably check to see if
it is, And if it doesn't resemble food but can
fit in their mouths, they'll probably check just in case.
This is mostly a cautionary tale about paying attention to
your puppy when it's roaming the world with you, But
(10:51):
there is another issue here that can be big trouble freedom.
One thing that we as dog lovers do is give
our dogs too much credit when they're too young. Look
later in life. This is great. Sometimes freedom's good if
the dog has earned it and is under control. But
where we get into trouble is when the puppy goes
(11:12):
from the sausage legged, easy to catch phase to the
lanky run like the wind phase. With some breeds, this
might be the difference between a four month old dog
and a five month old dog. They grow quickly and
they are quite literally born to run. So if you
have a puppy in that stage, that can put on
the afterburners and you don't have them leashed up or
have them at least trailing a check cord behind them
(11:34):
that you might be able to grab. You have a
situation that can get dangerous in a hurry. I've heard
a few horror stories from vets and pro trainers about
this issue, and it almost always involves traffic. Animals do
not instinctively understand the dangers of roadways in the big
old cars and trucks and vands and semis that roll
down them. Puppies just aren't smart enough to think that
(11:56):
one through, and they often run just to run, and
in fact, when they are just tasting freedom, they often
run specifically to get away from us, since we are
the ones who can keep them from freedom. Now, if
this happens in the middle of a thousand acre park
that is nowhere near a road, it's inconvenient but mostly
just a teachable moment. If this happens in a ten
(12:18):
acre park that is banked in with busy roadways, now
you have something really, really scary. I know a few
people who have watched their puppies sprint across a road,
and none of them said they were eager to see
it again. Some people who that happens to don't have to.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Worry about seeing again.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
If you catch my drift, Now, if you're noticing a
common theme with these examples. It's that we are the
ones that have to anticipate how things could break bad
in a hurry and try to get ahead of them.
The people who are most in tune to this are
pro trainers, anyone who runs a doggy daycare, probably professional
dog walkers, and really anyone who has their hands on
(12:57):
other people's dogs. That's a situation you just don't want
to screw up, because it's not like overfeeding a goldfish
in a TV sitcom type of scenario, where you can
just replace it with a similar looking fish until you're
found out because the new fish doesn't have some little
identifying mark that the old fish did. Puppies are different,
and it's not only the dogs that run hell bent
for the interstate that can get into trouble really fast.
(13:20):
I had a professional trainer tell me about a puppy
that lost its eye once because it had just a
little too much freedom and was encouraged by its owner
to do something that a lot of dog owners do.
But I don't think they really think through the pup
was meeting a strange adult dog for the first time. No,
we think that dogs are like us and they should
(13:41):
just meet other dogs. There are controlled scenarios with older
dogs where this is just fine if you know what
you're doing. After all, our dogs will eventually have to
interact with other dogs. It's just how things work. But
your ten week old setter puppy doesn't really need to
meet the one hundred and sixty pound bowl mastiff that
is out for a walk in the neighborhood park. They
(14:02):
aren't going to become longtime friends. It's just one of
those deals that is at best a net neutral thing.
But if that puppy does what puppies do, and it
will because puppies are predictable idiots, then it's going to
jump at the head and face of that strange dog.
Some dogs will tolerate this really well. Others are a
(14:22):
little less tolerant and are quick to a correction. Now,
in our world, a correction can mean an awful lot
of things, But in a dog's world, it's going to
be a nip or a little bit of a bite
to the offending party. Now, if that works out right,
the puppy gets that instant dog to dog message that hey,
your behavior sucks and I will end you, and it
will react appropriately. But if that correction goes wrong, a
(14:46):
tooth might just go into the eye of your little pupster,
or through its ear or whatever. So you have to
ask yourself, is it really worth it to have your
puppy meet a strange dog that will probably never see again,
just because for some reason we think that's a thing
we should do. The answer is no, no, it's not.
And to put a finer point on this, you might think, well,
I wouldn't let my puppy meet a strange pit bowl,
(15:08):
but what about an adorable female golden retriever. Same rules
apply here, chief, It's just not worth it now. Of course,
just like with kids, you can get away with a
lot of shoddy parenting and not have an er bill
or I guess an emergency vet bill in this case.
But being aware of the common ways that puppies get
injured is just a good idea for any of us
(15:30):
who might have a fresh recruit coming to spring, or
who will eventually be in the market for a new
puppy at some point, which is all of us, i'd guess.
So think about that and think about coming back in
two weeks, because I'm going to talk about exposure to
a wider world of working dogs and how that can
open our minds to so many possibilities. That's it for
(15:51):
this week. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been The
Houndation's podcast as always. I just want to thank you
so much for all your support. It's been really fun
into this dog arena a little bit and we're going
to go a little bit deeper, I think soon, but
I just appreciate everybody showing up and listening. If you
want more content, you know we've got Clay's Bear Grease
podcast and Brent Reeves on there with this Country Life.
(16:14):
We have tons of podcasts, tons of articles, and tons
of videos going up literally every day at the meeteater
dot com. So whether you want to learn a new
recipe on how to cook something, maybe the spring turkey
you're gonna shoot this year, or maybe you just want
to live vicariously through one of the Mediator guys as
it goes and does something cool. Whatever, the mediater dot
(16:35):
Com has you covered.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Thanks again,
Hey, everyone, Welcome to The Houndation's podcast. I'm your host,
Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about puppies and
the dumb ways we allow them to get injured. Springtime
is puppy time and a lot of folks will be
adding a new member to their family in the next
couple of months. There are few things more exciting than
(00:25):
getting a fresh recruit, and all of the excitement for
the future usually culminates in a shopping trip for new
leashes and collars and dogbeds and toys. It's all hope
and optimism and I don't want to doom too hard here,
but puppies are prone to injuries, dumb injuries usually, and
almost always ones that we can prevent, which is what
I'm going to talk about right now. I was sitting
(00:53):
in the steam room of the gym a couple of
weeks ago, trying to listen to some death metal when
I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between two women
who are talking about dogs. Now the conversation had gone
anywhere else, I probably wouldn't have paid any attention, but
I liked dogs, and I got the feeling that the
conversation might go in an interesting direction, and it did,
(01:13):
with one woman saying that her dad had bought her
kids a surprise King Charles spaniel puppy. Now listen here, folks,
before I go any further with this, let me say
that you should not buy a puppy for anyone as
a surprise, and you should make it clear to anyone
who might even entertain the thought of buying you a
surprise puppy that you would rather put out a roaring
(01:33):
campfire with the more sensitive parts of your undercarriage than
receive a tail wagging present. Anyway, I ended up talking
to the ladies who happened to be sisters and found
out that the new owner of that spaniel was not
super stoked about their dad's gift, but that she wasn't
the kind of person to return a puppy either, and
(01:55):
even if she were that kind of person, her kids
definitely weren't seemed overwhelmed, and I don't blame her. She
also said that her dog had eaten some batteries that
were plugged into the wall and charging, to which I said,
your dog ate some batteries?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Is it sick? Is it dead?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And she said, well, I don't think he ate the batteries,
but he chewed up the charger. There's an important distinction
in there somewhere. Now, before you judge her, let's take
a second to think about this. In a simple move
to get the puppy some freedom, she let it roam
her living room. Now, anyone with young kids and who
has handled a puppy knows that there is only so
(02:33):
much attention to go around, and one of the charges
in your care might get into trouble even under the
most watchful eye. It just happens, and with electrical stuff
it happens kind of often. Now she got lucky and
that the dog apparently only nowed away on the charger
for a little bit and didn't get like two hundred
and twenty volts of electroshock therapy, because that happens.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I have a wife and two thirteen year old daughters,
So if you walk around my living room, in our bedrooms,
you'd see phone charging cords snaking their way across furniture
in the floor everywhere, as if some stringy spaghetti like
fungus was taking over our house. When I bring a
new puppy into this mix, I will fight a long
and probably mostly losing battle against keeping all of those
(03:17):
cords away from tiny sharp little dog teeth. Our lamps,
our TVs. Our world is powered by electricity, and that
moves through chords and power chords are kind of the
right size and texture to appeal to dumb young dogs,
and they are often accessible because they are often on
the floor. Usually, if a dog goes deep enough into
(03:38):
a power cord, they'll get a burn mouth.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And learn a valuable lesson.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Sometimes they have seizures or die, and occasionally, when they
get to working on a power cord, they create an
extremely unsafe situation where your house could burn down or
one of the two legged members of your family could
touch a live wire by accident. If someone who recently
tried to repair a microwave and forgot to unplug it,
(04:04):
I'll say that it's a real relief to only have
to buy a new pair of underwear and not to
feel man made lightning shooting through your body. But it
was a close one for me. And if forty four
year old outdoor writers occasionally almost electrocute themselves, what hope
does a puppy have?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Not much unless.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
You're careful about it. Just like you would kid proof
your house if you had a baby on the way,
take a long look around the communal areas where you
might allow your puppy to have some freedom. And it's
not just electrical cords that can get them.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
While a young puppy can lose a few teeth chewing
on rocks or maybe your gut or down spouts or whatever,
once it has its adult teeth, you really don't want
it gnawing on something that could easily break a tooth,
or even just cut the crap out of their mouths.
While that will usually resolve itself on its own, there
is an opening there for infection, and oral health with
dogs is really really important. There are other ways our
(05:00):
puppies get injured. I'll never forget when my twin daughters
were maybe like two, I don't know how old they were,
but they weren't great at walking or talking yet, so
whatever age that was. Anyway, I was doing something in
the kitchen when I heard a thump that sounded about
like what it would sound like if a two year
old jumped out of her crib. Then I heard another thump,
which sounded pretty close to what it would sound like
(05:21):
if a different two year old jumped out of her crib.
It turns out that my daughters had figured out how
to go from the top rope of their crib and
hit a pile of stuffed animals on the floor. Little
kids don't really think about danger, and neither do little puppies,
and when you mix the two, that's when bad things
can happen. Now here's the deal. If you have youngsters
(05:41):
in your life, and by this I mean literally any
child that could hold your puppy in its arms, then
think about that, because what happens sometimes is that kids
want to hold puppies.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Shocking, I know.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
But what's even crazier is that sometimes puppies do not
want to be held by kids. And when that happens
and you get a squirmy puppy that is determined to
get back to earth, kids often just drop them. Now,
if you have a toddler on soft grass holding a
puppy in that situation, it's probably gonna be okay. The
drop is short and the landing is soft. But what
(06:14):
about a I don't know, a six year old holding
that same puppy in the driveway or maybe the kitchen
where the floor is tile or hardwood. Now you might think, well,
big deal. It's only a couple of feet, but you're
also talking about a baby dog that is a foot
tall to begin with. You imagine getting dropped the equivalent,
which would be you know, two to three times your height.
(06:35):
Even if we all knew it was coming and could
do our best to tuck and roll, some of us
would roll ankles, break femurs, and probably worse.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
We aren't babies, of course, and I absolutely do not
recommend this. It's just a thought exercise. But if we
dropped babies on various surfaces from heights that are two
or three x their height, some of them would inevitably
get injured. Even the toughest babies are honestly weak as shit. Now,
I will never forget watching one of my daughters drop
a puppy in this exact scenario and the look on
(07:05):
the dog owner's face. It was not fun, even though
that little black lab shook it off like nothing. Because
they mostly will, puppies are tougher than human babies. Probably
a better way to approach this is by having any
youngsters who want to hold your puppy go to the
dog's level. In fact, remember that all strangers should go
(07:26):
to your pupp's level for interactions. It's just a good
idea because then you can teach the dog not to
jump up on everyone to get attention. With kids, this
move alleviates the concern that your new pupp might fracture
a leg bone or something that is really not good,
because a kid sitting crisscross applesauce just can't really drop
a wriggling puppy in a way that will produce much
(07:47):
of an injury. My daughters and I got into a
weird documentary watching pattern this winter where we went pretty
deep on the free solo mountain climbers and rock climbing
(08:08):
in general, and then eventually the folks who put on
a wingsuit and jump off a peak to fly right
next to a mountain at like two hundred miles an hour.
While I can't even imagine the rush, I also can't
imagine the mindset it would take to look at a
sheer rock wall and think it would be a good
idea to climb three thousand feet with no ropes, And
if I'm being honest, even with all the best ropes
(08:29):
in the world and a giant mattress on the ground
below me at all times, that could stop my fall
if either of my twelve thousand other safety features didn't
cover it. Can't imagine it, let alone putting on a
goofy flying squirrel suit and hoping that in the eight
seconds I have before I become people paste on the
rocks below that I get just enough lift to start
shooting headfirst down a mountainside. Gravity always wins with these folks,
(08:53):
and it wins with dogs too if you don't pay attention,
because it's not just little kids yeading your puppy onto
the concrete that can injure them.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
A really common one with.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Dogs that are a little older but could definitely still
be considered puppies, is just jumping off the tailgate of
a truck. Generally, the landing there isn't all that soft,
and any of you folks who are past a certain
age know that you kind of have to consider that
distance of a jump, As embarrassing as that might be.
Do you think a five month old German short hair
pup is going to consider that jump and carefully climb
(09:25):
down or wait for the assistance of someone instead of
just going for it. Not a chance, especially when that
jump means they get to instantly run or play or
just do something their little puppy brains really want to do.
What's worse is that we often transport our pups and
crates in the back of our trucks, so this situation
happens a lot. But puppies can get injured jumping off
(09:47):
just about anything, including your couch in your living room.
But it's not just gravity that might injure your pup though.
The dog that doesn't true through your lamp cord and
short out the whole house could just as easily eat
about anything that might make them sick. I would guess
that ingesting something that is not meant to be ingested
is probably the number one way puppies get injured. Because puppies,
(10:09):
just like human babies, experience the world at least partially
through their mouths. They just need to put all kinds
of things in their mouths, and some of those things
can be bad news. Again, this is just a matter
of what your fresh recruit has access to. You can't
keep a dog from eating all kinds of gross shit
because it just happens. A lot of puppies will numb
right down on goose or deer droppings, and they'll carry
(10:31):
around dead toads. They're more like amphibian jerky than anything
else after baking on the asphalt for a few days.
If it resembles food, they'll probably check to see if
it is, And if it doesn't resemble food but can
fit in their mouths, they'll probably check just in case.
This is mostly a cautionary tale about paying attention to
your puppy when it's roaming the world with you, But
(10:51):
there is another issue here that can be big trouble freedom.
One thing that we as dog lovers do is give
our dogs too much credit when they're too young. Look
later in life. This is great. Sometimes freedom's good if
the dog has earned it and is under control. But
where we get into trouble is when the puppy goes
(11:12):
from the sausage legged, easy to catch phase to the
lanky run like the wind phase. With some breeds, this
might be the difference between a four month old dog
and a five month old dog. They grow quickly and
they are quite literally born to run. So if you
have a puppy in that stage, that can put on
the afterburners and you don't have them leashed up or
have them at least trailing a check cord behind them
(11:34):
that you might be able to grab. You have a
situation that can get dangerous in a hurry. I've heard
a few horror stories from vets and pro trainers about
this issue, and it almost always involves traffic. Animals do
not instinctively understand the dangers of roadways in the big
old cars and trucks and vands and semis that roll
down them. Puppies just aren't smart enough to think that
(11:56):
one through, and they often run just to run, and
in fact, when they are just tasting freedom, they often
run specifically to get away from us, since we are
the ones who can keep them from freedom. Now, if
this happens in the middle of a thousand acre park
that is nowhere near a road, it's inconvenient but mostly
just a teachable moment. If this happens in a ten
(12:18):
acre park that is banked in with busy roadways, now
you have something really, really scary. I know a few
people who have watched their puppies sprint across a road,
and none of them said they were eager to see
it again. Some people who that happens to don't have to.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Worry about seeing again.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
If you catch my drift, Now, if you're noticing a
common theme with these examples. It's that we are the
ones that have to anticipate how things could break bad
in a hurry and try to get ahead of them.
The people who are most in tune to this are
pro trainers, anyone who runs a doggy daycare, probably professional
dog walkers, and really anyone who has their hands on
(12:57):
other people's dogs. That's a situation you just don't want
to screw up, because it's not like overfeeding a goldfish
in a TV sitcom type of scenario, where you can
just replace it with a similar looking fish until you're
found out because the new fish doesn't have some little
identifying mark that the old fish did. Puppies are different,
and it's not only the dogs that run hell bent
for the interstate that can get into trouble really fast.
(13:20):
I had a professional trainer tell me about a puppy
that lost its eye once because it had just a
little too much freedom and was encouraged by its owner
to do something that a lot of dog owners do.
But I don't think they really think through the pup
was meeting a strange adult dog for the first time. No,
we think that dogs are like us and they should
(13:41):
just meet other dogs. There are controlled scenarios with older
dogs where this is just fine if you know what
you're doing. After all, our dogs will eventually have to
interact with other dogs. It's just how things work. But
your ten week old setter puppy doesn't really need to
meet the one hundred and sixty pound bowl mastiff that
is out for a walk in the neighborhood park. They
(14:02):
aren't going to become longtime friends. It's just one of
those deals that is at best a net neutral thing.
But if that puppy does what puppies do, and it
will because puppies are predictable idiots, then it's going to
jump at the head and face of that strange dog.
Some dogs will tolerate this really well. Others are a
(14:22):
little less tolerant and are quick to a correction. Now,
in our world, a correction can mean an awful lot
of things, But in a dog's world, it's going to
be a nip or a little bit of a bite
to the offending party. Now, if that works out right,
the puppy gets that instant dog to dog message that hey,
your behavior sucks and I will end you, and it
will react appropriately. But if that correction goes wrong, a
(14:46):
tooth might just go into the eye of your little pupster,
or through its ear or whatever. So you have to
ask yourself, is it really worth it to have your
puppy meet a strange dog that will probably never see again,
just because for some reason we think that's a thing
we should do. The answer is no, no, it's not.
And to put a finer point on this, you might think, well,
I wouldn't let my puppy meet a strange pit bowl,
(15:08):
but what about an adorable female golden retriever. Same rules
apply here, chief, It's just not worth it now. Of course,
just like with kids, you can get away with a
lot of shoddy parenting and not have an er bill
or I guess an emergency vet bill in this case.
But being aware of the common ways that puppies get
injured is just a good idea for any of us
(15:30):
who might have a fresh recruit coming to spring, or
who will eventually be in the market for a new
puppy at some point, which is all of us, i'd guess.
So think about that and think about coming back in
two weeks, because I'm going to talk about exposure to
a wider world of working dogs and how that can
open our minds to so many possibilities. That's it for
(15:51):
this week. I'm Tony Peterson and this has been The
Houndation's podcast as always. I just want to thank you
so much for all your support. It's been really fun
into this dog arena a little bit and we're going
to go a little bit deeper, I think soon, but
I just appreciate everybody showing up and listening. If you
want more content, you know we've got Clay's Bear Grease
podcast and Brent Reeves on there with this Country Life.
(16:14):
We have tons of podcasts, tons of articles, and tons
of videos going up literally every day at the meeteater
dot com. So whether you want to learn a new
recipe on how to cook something, maybe the spring turkey
you're gonna shoot this year, or maybe you just want
to live vicariously through one of the Mediator guys as
it goes and does something cool. Whatever, the mediater dot
(16:35):
Com has you covered.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Thanks again,
Host
Cal Callaghan
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