Confinement

Its fine to teach a puppy to be comfortable in a space, such as the kitchen, or in a crate or pen. The issue comes if your puppy spends a lot of time confined. This impacts on their choices of where to sleep (warm or cool places, being elevated, laying out flat) and their autonomy about what to do (since the space is smaller). It may also restrict your puppy having social access to you or your family. This increased level of confinement is stressful for dogs and will therefore increase their stress chemistry, resulting in behaviour changes.

Consider how long your dog is confined away from you and your family/other dogs… How can you give them breaks from this? How can you teach them the appropriate way to behave?

Body care

Body care is linked to temperature regulation – access to cool places, warm places, water and so on. This is also linked to choices around where to rest and with whom – social resting helps maintain temperature.  It is also about the dog having choices around surfaces to lay on – grass, carpet, scratchy door mat, and for some dogs this could be snow!  Dogs love the option to roll about in a surface of their choice.

Body care is linked to being calm around being groomed, bathed and handled.  This is also true for the choice a dog has about being petted. Some dogs actively seek petting, even from unfamiliar people, but others will tolerate it or try to move away. Its absolutely fine for your dog to have a choice about not being petted and to move away. This choice is much less stressful for them. Grooming, stroking and brushing your dog keeps them from developing mats, lets you feel them all over (so you know what they normally feel like) and helps with the microflora on their coat.

Body care is lastly linked to choices about when and where to go to the toilet. The majority of pet dogs don’t get free access to the outside to choose when to go to the toilet – we close doors, we are out, we may have limited space or grass… Dogs are driven by smell and so having the right location and (for many dogs) surface to wee or poo on is important.

Some of these choices are more easy to offer than others – think through if there is anything here that you could offer in addition to what your dog has now. The choices you can offer support autonomy (who doesn’t love that!) and promote calm, thinking behaviours.