by Rory Kress
Once born into a commercial breeding operation, the life-altering trauma continues as the puppy remains “hypersensitive to distressing psychological or physical stimuli” up to around eight weeks of age.11 This is the minimum allowable age to transport a puppy from its place of breeding to where it will be sold, according to the USDA.12 In this extremely sensitive period, McMillan noted that even one negative experience could have a lifelong impact on the dog. Given that the vast majority of commercially bred dogs are separated from their mothers and littermates and moved across hundreds or thousands of miles in a truck or van by a broker before being deposited in pet shops of varying conditions, a puppy will undoubtedly encounter an array of major stressors and likely negative experiences along the road to its future owner’s home.
Even the USDA’s Gibbens tells me that he is concerned about the physical and psychological effects of transporting puppies for sale in the federally licensed supply chain. He broached the topic on his own when I asked him about a specific case in which a buyer had filed a complaint with his department after purchasing a sick puppy.
“The transportation history is interesting to look into, because the puppy may have gone to a distributor for a couple of days and been housed there,” Gibbens says. “Then it may have been transported—in some cases—across the country and put in a pet store over there. It may sit in that pet store for who knows how long: a few days, a couple of weeks. That’s tremendous stress on an eight- to twelve-week-old puppy—which is what most of them are. They’ve probably been through a couple of rounds of vaccinations, their immune system is coming into play, and they are exposed to a lot of other puppies with a lot of other germs and a lot of stress—transport is stressful for these animals.”13
Tremendously stressful—but entirely legal.
As Gibbens mentioned, most of the puppies transported from breeder to point of sale are between eight and twelve weeks old. The question of the age at which a dog is removed from its mother to be transported and sold is not an insignificant one. In a 2011 Italian study led by Ludovica Pierantoni, researchers found that dogs separated from their mothers between thirty and forty days of life had very different behavioral and psychological outcomes from those separated later, around two months of life. As it turns out, puppies pass through a highly sensitive socialization period from the age of two and a half weeks to around fourteen weeks.
“If puppies stay with their dam and siblings during the socialization period, they have the opportunity to learn from them about behaviors that are attendant with social development during this time,” Pierantoni wrote.14
Puppies rely on their family unit to learn how to process new experiences and stimuli. Without that stable support system, a puppy who is placed in a new environment will display signs of severe anxiety and stress.
Worse yet, Pierantoni found that the pet store environment itself may augment the negative impact of removing a young puppy from its dam and littermates too soon. If this is indeed the case, the current system of commercial breeding with the pet store as the destination is setting these puppies up for a lifetime of emotional and behavioral problems.
“Early separation from the dam and littermates, especially when combined with housing in a pet shop, might affect the capacity of a puppy to adapt to new environmental conditions and social relationships later in life,” Pierantoni wrote.15
Overall believes that this Pierantoni study is particularly significant in its implications for the way that commercially bred dogs are brought to market.
“This is important from the puppy mill standpoint because the puppies leave early. So [the researchers] were looking at family separation, and they found out that the puppies who were separated by six weeks of age had more reactions to noise, more fears, and more reactivity when they looked at these dogs eighteen months later,” Overall says, discussing the study’s comparison of the difference between dogs who experienced this separation at six weeks versus those who did so at eight weeks of age. “The only difference here is these dogs got separated from their families two weeks before the recommended time to separate them, and they have all these problems that the other dogs didn’t at eighteen months of age. Statistically, significantly different… So that is the first set of solid data that says, you know, what if you are taking them away too early?”16
Overall points out that while the minimum legal age to sell a puppy is eight weeks, many commercial dog breeders try to ship their pups sooner. After all, as any business owner knows, you have to clear out the old inventory to make way for the new.
Overall herself adopted a dog that was shipped off for sale as early as five weeks. That early separation from the litter left him with cognitive damage so severe that the rescue called Overall personally to come take him, knowing that it would take an animal behavioral expert like her to raise him and not euthanize him.
McMillan revisited this question of the early life experiences of dogs from puppy mills in a 2013 study for the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. Here, he too pointed to the eight-week mark as a time of significant sensitivity in a puppy’s life. But he took the argument even further by explaining that the stress of being transported—a common theme in the lives of most commercially bred puppies—can add significantly to the animal’s stress.17
Taken together, these studies point to a perfect storm for commercially bred dogs in the USDA-regulated system. First there’s the epigenetic influence of stress passed down from the mother dog to her puppies before they are even born. Then there’s the damage done by separation from the family unit at a hypersensitive age. Next, add in the early life trauma of being transported cross-country on a crowded truck or van with hundreds of other dogs—a stress so significant that even the USDA’s own Gibbens points it out as a serious concern. Then deposit these puppies in a pet shop where conditions are not federally regulated and hope for the best. By the time you or I show up to purchase our puppy, the lifelong damage has already been done. And that’s before you even start to concern yourself with the well-being of the mother this dog left behind, soon to be pregnant with her next litter as we happily walk away with our seemingly unscathed eight-week-old puppy, hundreds of miles and a world away from where she came.
But to me, all this research still just amounts to a pile of paper. Izzie is my case study, born in a USDA-licensed breeding facility and then transported across the country to the Long Island pet shop where she languished for several weeks until she met me at around three months of age. Noise phobias aside, she’d always seemed fine enough. Until reading these studies, I naïvely thought that all dogs bark at irrationally minor infractions. This research suggests a very different truth. And now we’re on our way to Overall to see exactly what that means.
CHAPTER SIX
The Capacity to Feel Joy
Izzie and I are circling Philadelphia for the second time as our plane tries to land. My feet straddle her torso as she lies pressed to the floor under the seat in front of me. The turbulence is oppressive, even for someone like me who never gets motion sickness. Izzie smacks her gums and lets out an anxious yawn, pressing her dripping wet snout onto my thigh. I know she wants me to scoop her lanky bones into my lap—that much she’s made abundantly clear. But with the small army of flight attendants on high alert amid the wind shear, I know now’s not the time to try any funny business. I press my forehead to hers and whisper softly to her.
“We’re almost there.”
We’ve traveled across the country from our home in Denver to visit Overall’s lab in the Philadelphia suburbs, where she has agreed to perform her cognitive test on Izzie so that I can better understand her work. And also so that I can better understand Izzie.
This particular test is funded by the Department of Defense, the Army Research Office (ARO), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). They’re trying to learn more about the attributes that make for a good military working dog. For her research, Overall has enlisted pet dogs
to see how they stack up when compared to elite, professional canines. She also received some funding from the American Kennel Club for her work running this test on aging dogs to see how—and if—mental decline impacts their abilities.
“We need more and better dogs, because for the rest of your and my and everybody else in this building’s natural life, dogs are going to save you,” Overall explains of the military’s interest in her work when Izzie and I arrive. “[Dogs] can go places we can’t go.”1
She leads me and Izzie through the veterinary hospital, where she has set up her testing facility. We coax Izzie onto a scale and see that she has dropped a few ounces from her last checkup and is now around twenty-seven pounds. She looks nervous. To her, this has all the hallmarks of a trip to the vet: anxious dogs in the lobby, a weigh-in. So far, this day is not looking good.
Overall leads us into her lab. It’s a converted storage area with a poured concrete floor that’s gridded up into one-foot sections with red electrician’s tape. There are two cameras mounted on tripods trained on the gridded area, poised to record and document our every move. Overall introduces me to her research assistant, Jess, and the three of us sit in chairs to give Izzie time to freely roam the space and get comfortable in her surroundings. Jess scatters a colorful mess of toys on the floor for her to nose through—the canine equivalent of a stack of magazines in a doctor’s waiting room, I assume. Slowly, Izzie warms up to the experience, understanding that this is not how her vet visits typically go.
“[The military spends] huge amounts of money on dogs,” Overall says. “We need for them to be good enough to train in the first two years of their life, and we need for them to last at least ten or twelve years working. We would like them to be biddable, we would like them to be flexible in their jobs, and we would like them to be healthy. We would like them to be smart. The smarter dogs can be more flexible and do more things and will be easier to train and will save us money. When you’re flunking 75 percent of your dogs, that’s a big chunk of change that is leaving.”
“So then why bring in pet dogs?” I ask. “Why put a dog like Izzie in your data set?”
“Well, the question becomes, are our [working] dogs the best dogs, or do they overlap with the pet-dog population?”
Prior to conducting the in-person part of the test, she has all participating owners and professional handlers complete a lengthy questionnaire. After the test, all the dogs in the data set provide a small blood sample. She wants to know if a dog’s breeding, early puppyhood, and upbringing have any bearing on its cognitive performance. Unsurprisingly, all these factors play a role.
The impact of early puppyhood living conditions on cognitive development is the intersection between the military’s interest in Overall’s work and my own. For me, Overall’s findings are applicable to the conditions in American licensed breeding facilities. For the military, her findings could illustrate the problems with the current supply chain of working dogs, many of which come from breeders overseas.
“They come out of puppy mills in the Balkans, and the U.S. military buys them for five or ten thousand dollars—which is what we pay per dog on training—and then they’re shipped to contractors who are really privateering,” she explains. “Honestly, I feel very strongly. I think most—not all but most—of the canine contractors are privateering. They have taken advantage of the instability of the world to just churn out dogs. And they have no real interest in the dog and maybe even less in the military.”
But even though Overall’s work for the military is interesting, I’m really here to learn more about that massive oversight Overall pointed out in our first interview several months prior. I had assumed that the damage done by puppy mills was largely borne out on the dogs who toil their lives away there while the actual products—the puppies—are taken away early enough to live normal, healthy lives. Overall had said I was wrong. Dead wrong. I’ve read the studies that confirm her reasoning, but now, she’s going to actually demonstrate this effect on my own dog who was born in a USDA-licensed commercial breeding facility and shipped off for sale while still a puppy. Overall believes that her cognitive test designed for the military could also prove how even my dog, as lovingly raised as I think she has been, may be permanently broken.
I ask Overall to walk me through what to expect from the test. She explains that most dogs very much enjoy the test and that it is tremendously fun and exciting for them to be mentally stimulated. It helps that so much of the day will involve treats and toys. With the exception of the brief blood draw at the end, to Izzie, much of the experience should feel like a series of new and unfamiliar games.
Izzie gingerly paces the room, nose to the ground, as Overall and I speak. Periodically, Jess tosses lamb lung treats onto the floor for Izzie to peck at. She happily accepts these scattered offerings. Once Izzie settles down on a dog bed with some toys, Jess clasps a bulky rubber tracking collar onto her and begins gathering baseline measurements. The tracker was made by a now-defunct brand called Voyce that engineered special firmware just for Overall’s study.
“It takes data every second and averages it every minute,” Overall explains as Izzie relaxes into wearing it. “So we can have a minute-by-minute analysis of three-dimensional movement for these dogs. It also does heart and respiratory rate.”
“So it’s like a Fitbit,” I offer.
“Yes. But they hate when you say that,” she says with a sigh.
Overall ushers Izzie and me out of the room so she and her assistant can prepare. We sit in the hall, and Izzie laps from a water bowl while we wait. Just a few minutes later, we’re invited back in to begin the test.
The door opens, and I’m instructed to make Izzie sit on a big, red X taped on the floor. I crouch next to my dog, holding her still, my hand threaded through her Voyce collar.
In front of us, the two camcorders are rolling on the red, gridded space where Overall and Jess have arranged about a dozen bankers boxes. Some boxes are overturned; others are stacked. Some boxes have lids loosely laid on top. In most of them, I can see toys sticking out from corners or out from under a lid: a plush monkey arm here or a bushy squirrel tail there. Other boxes have toys hidden but within easy access if Izzie so much as taps the box and checks to pull it loose.
Izzie is excited. I can feel her heart beating against my palm as I hold her on the red X. Jess starts a timer and signals me to release my grip so Izzie can explore the space and they can observe her behavior. I let go, and Izzie scampers toward the boxes.
Izzie flits around the space with interest, her nails clacking on the concrete floors. She seems confused and unsure as to what she should be doing but not distressed. She can certainly see that some of these boxes have toys available for the taking, but she doesn’t go to snatch them from where they lie. And just like that, the first sign of her impairment becomes apparent—but not to me. It takes Overall to point it out. Without her expert eye, I would never have recognized Izzie’s behavior for what it is.
“This is a very classic response for a dog with her background,” Overall says.
I don’t understand what she’s talking about. I watch as Overall tries to encourage Izzie to take a toy for herself, even leading her straight to one box, pulling a ball from it, and rolling it to her. She happily accepts it, sits on her haunches, and gnaws at the ball she’s been given, ignoring the pile of boxes packed with toys and taking no initiative to explore any further. Izzie is clearly not willing to interact with this unfamiliar environment on her own and disturb the boxes.
“What is the classic response? To not be curious? Or to not be interested?” I ask. I’m not sure what she’s seeing in Izzie. This looks pretty normal to me if only a little bit shy. After all, I’ve never given her an exercise like this to complete—this is entirely unfamiliar to her.
“It’s not that she’s not curious,” she says. “But the idea that she would go and disrupt things and find stuff…the idea that she has control over this environment and that
she can go take this apart?” Overall shakes her head.
She explains that many dogs who have had a more advantaged puppyhood and upbringing come into this part of the test and knock the entire setup apart, eagerly seeking all the toys hidden inside it.
“This is very classic. [Izzie’s behavior says] ‘I never learned to have that amount of control and explore things and take advantage. I never had that experience. I didn’t do this.’ And it’s an early, early development thing,” Overall says. “She never really learned to get out there and explore and get into trouble and recover from it… It’s not that she’s not interested in stuff we have… I think it’s about risk. I think she doesn’t know how to take risks successfully.”
“So she’s afraid if she turns over a box, something might come out and grab her?” I ask.
“I don’t know what she’s afraid of. [But] the idea that she would take control of the environment and find out what it does? That’s not in her repertoire.”
I bring up the Pierantoni study and mention how it found the reason for risk-averse behavior in dogs separated from their family unit too early is that they never learn how to take chances as puppies within the safety of their known litter. Overall elaborates on this.
“They’re separated from something they know. In a good situation, the puppies will have begun to separate themselves when they’re ready to start taking risks on their own.”
This test complete, Izzie and I are ushered out of the room so that Overall can execute her scene change. Then we reenter and are instructed to sit on the red X again.
For this next test, Jess is standing behind three bankers boxes turned on their sides with the openings facing away from Izzie and me. She tells me that while Izzie and I were out in the hallway, she hid a toy in one of these boxes.