Episode 34 - Bad Genes and Good Puppies: Genetics, Behavior and Puppy Culture

11/11/2025

This episode's question is about whether and by how much we can modify temperament with protocols.

"I was chatting to someone recently about nature versus nurture, and they said, you can get a bitch who has a poor temperament and using Puppy Culture, you can have pups who have great temperaments. My view is it's more complex than that.…Would love people's thoughts."

I discuss:

The difference between temperament and behavior
The ramifications of using behavior modification protocols in a breeding program
Our ethical obligations as breeders vs as puppy raisers

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To read the transcript for this episode, click the link below.

Transcript - Episode 34

I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist., and this is a Puppy Culture Potluck podcast. You bring the topics, we bring the conversation.

I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist. And this is a Puppy Culture Potluck podcast. You bring the topics, we bring the conversation.

This episode's question is about how much can we modify my temperament with protocols. And here's the question.

I was chatting to someone recently about nature versus nurture, and they said, you can get a bitch who has a poor temperament and using Puppy Culture, you can have pups who have great temperaments.

My view is it's more complex than that. Yes, it will certainly help, but the pups are going to learn from mum. If she's reactive to people initially and the pups see that, then that could certainly become a learned behavior from pups. And no amount of other input is going to help that. Would love people's thoughts.

Okay, me again. First, let me just directly answer the question and say Puppy Culture will not overcome all genetic temperament characteristics. I did an entire podcast on this, Episode 28. If you haven't yet, listen to it by all means, you should go back and listen to that because it's a good foundation for this podcast.

I think there are three things that we have to cover. First of all, temperament versus behavior. Temperament is what the dog is born with inherently. It's the genetic makeup of the dog. It's again going back to that Episode 28. It's that genetic box that we don't know where it is when they're little tiny puppies. But there is this box that's a boundry around how much we can modify behavior.

And then there's the expression of that genetic temperament, which is how the dog behaves. Now Puppy Culture is about behavior. It's really not about temperament. You in a true sense, cannot modify temperament. You can modify behavior. So you can modify the way the temperament is expressed. And that's what Puppy Culture is. It's about raising behaviorally sound puppies.

Okay. So now that we've distinguished between temperament which is immutable and behavior which is modifiable, there are still two remaining issues. The first one is, can we really modify genetic default behavior with Puppy Culture? And the answer is yes. But there are limits. Puppy Culture will help you get the best expression of the dog's genetic temperament. But there are going to be genetic limits on how much you can modify that temperament.

Again, Episode 28, we talked a lot more about this. The second issue is, as a breeder, can we rely on behavior modification programs such as Puppy Culture for our breeding programs? Or do we need to select stock with genetically sound temperaments?

When it comes to selecting breeding stock. Genetics always trumps everything. End of story. Period. You should not have to work hard to raise acceptable puppies. You should not have to dig yourself out of a genetic hole with extensive protocols. Your Puppy Culture protocols should be to take genetically sound temperaments and make them rock stars, not to coax marginal temperaments into being acceptable.

And when I'm saying this, I'm wearing my breeders hat. Okay. I'm not talking about ethics or our duty to the puppies, which we're going to talk about next. But when you're making decisions about your breeding program, you should not be selecting breeding stock where you have to rely on a program like Puppy Culture just to get you to an acceptable level.

You should be selecting breeding stock ideally, and key is ideally, that you really don't have to do much too. Okay, so that's when you're making your genetic selection for your breeding stock. Now I'm going to put on my Puppy Culture dog trainer hat and say on an individual level, okay, once those puppies are on the ground and that's what Puppy Culture is about. Puppy Culture is about, what do we do with them? They're here. Okay. It's not advising you how to formulate a breeding program, but on an individual level, the puppies are here and we are equally committed to every puppy. And the Puppy Culture program can, in fact, sometimes allow us to take those marginal puppies and make them fantastic pets.

Ethically, I believe we have a commitment to do that.

But as a breeder, I'm going to say do not fall into the abyss of believing that because you have modified it, it does not exist. That is a real trap and a difficult one to be clearheaded about.

Now it's not black and white. It's a continuum. So it's not like there's some bright line and anything less with the perfect temperament gets thrown out. But you just have to be aware that it's a fault if it takes your puppies three exposures for them to feel safe to approach something. It's a fault. If you have such bad sound sensitivity that you have to do extensive desensitization protocols. It's a fault.

If your puppy has any adverse reaction to being touched, handled, etc. the fault is to the degree. It's not that you're going to kick all those dogs out of your program, but you have to be honest with yourself. Keep your eye on the ball and always, always breed away from it. Puppy Culture is a guide to raising behaviorally sound puppies.

It's not a blueprint for a breeding program. I have not yet produced much in that area, but when I do, most of it is going to come down to find the very best genetic stock you can get your hands on and then breed for genetically good temperaments. Nothing will shut down a breeding program faster than temperament problems.

Temperament should be your first, second, and third consideration when selecting breeding stock. And then, trust me, you're still going to get some funky temperaments. It's a bell curve. That's the way it works. But you always want to be moving the top of the bell curve in the direction you want. And the only way to do that is to select the best temperaments and be open eyed about the temperament faults in your breeding stock. Don't think they're not there just because you modified them and you can't see them anymore.

I also want to say that even though I haven't treated this in my educational products so far, it is something that I think about a lot. And the person who really opened my eyes to this issue, and the sort of trap of being able to train away problem behaviors, and then believing that you've solved the problem genetically was Jean Donaldson.

When we went out to California to film Jean, Jean and I had a long conversation. What you see in Puppy Culture in the resource guarding section is just a tiny piece of this very interesting, deep, long conversation that we had. And one of the things that Jean said is, you know, you can eliminate resource guarding in three generations.

Now, Jean doesn't breed dogs, but somehow she came across this information and she believed it to be true. And I contested that. I said, well, no, because we have never used a dog that showed any resource guarding, even as a puppy in our breeding program at all. And yet some of our puppies still show resource guarding behavior. So my answer to Jean was, no, this this can't be true.

It's not that easy to eliminate it. And she just looked at me and said, Well, Jane but you do protocols. And it was like mind blown. Yes. Of course. Who knows how many of those puppies that I have might have grown up to be resource guarders if I didn't do my early anti resource guarding protocols.

Now. As a person, I'm going to say it would be unethical not to do the anti resource guarding protocols. And just so we can see who might grow up to be a resource guarder because it's not fair to the dog. It's not fair to the family that gets the dog. We should all do these anti resource guarding protocols. But it does put you in a blind spot as a breeder, because you really don't know which puppy might have grown up to be a resource guarder.

So it's one of those things where the intersection of our ethics and our abilities and our our breeding programs are truly at odds, because if we wanted to select the best genetics stock, we wouldn't do behavior modification. We just leave them in a cardboard box like they did 50, 100 years ago and take the best temperaments and move on.

But that's not where we are today. That's not modern dog rearing. It's not ethical. I don't advocate it. But again, it's just something to be aware of.

So to recap, no, you cannot modify temperament with Puppy Culture. Yes, you can modify behavior. And yes, even if the dam is marginal, you can have fabulous puppies by doing Puppy Culture protocols. So I don't advocate relying on Puppy Culture protocols to produce good temperaments. But if for some reason, let's say you have a super low population breed and you're in some sort of preservation situation, and maybe you have to breed some marginal temperaments, then yes, at least you know you're going to get those puppies to a place where they're placeable and you can move on and keep trying to step out of that genetic hole.

But Puppy Culture is just going to be, an aid to your selection process to to give you a little rope to play with so that you can get out of that genetic hole. It's not it's not fixing the problem for you, but maybe it's going to buy you some generational time so you can improve your temperaments.

If you're interested in this conversation, please join us at the Puppy Culture Discussion Group on Facebook. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this.

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Well, that's it for this time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.