Why we cringe when we hear "he goes to daycare":

Day Care for dogs - sounds brilliant doesn't it? Surely it means we can have it all? We can work full time away from home, but don't need to stress about our dogs spending the day alone anymore. All their needs can be fulfilled at daycare: they get to have constant companionship, can have fun and play all day and all that dog-dog interaction will ensure that they are super social. What could possibly be more perfect?

Well.... it's actually far from perfect. The more popular daycare becomes, the more social problems of a different sort we are seeing. Many people are contacting us for training because their dogs are out of control on walks, especially when they see another dog. The email or message goes something like this:

"I need to bring Barney to training so he learns to listen to me around other dogs. Whenever we go out he runs off as soon as he sees another dog and won't come back. He just wants to play, but even if the other dog won't, he just carries on and won't leave them alone. Walking him on a lead is a nightmare. If he sees another dog, he loses the plot completely and lunges and barks and sounds really aggressive. I don't understand it - he goes to day care 3 times a week and loves his dog friends there?"

Well, we do understand it. You see, it actually makes perfect sense. When a dog is regularly put in a situation where they spend hours and hours playing with other dogs, other dogs become a predictor for an exciting activity. Other dogs become a predictor for play. Other dogs become a predictor for the feelings caused by play i.e. the high of opioids exploding in the brain. Now a little of that is okay. Puppies having supervised play in a puppy class for a few minutes (a SMALL percentage of the whole class), dogs meeting and playing briefly on walks before moving on calmly or two dog friends having an occasional romp together all helps to create positive associations with other dogs and keep social skills in shape. BUT (and it is a HUGE BUT), hours and hours of play, several times a week, creates an expectation that this is what MUST happen every time another dog is encountered. The expectation for this is so strong, that if the dog is prevented from playing with other dogs (on lead), the denial of this expected reward leads to extreme frustration and frustration leads to anger i.e. the reactive outburst.

There are other problems as well: hours of largely unsupervised play (and no, it is highly unlikely that the majority of day care play is properly supervised or supervised by anyone qualified in the field of dog behavior) leads to dogs becoming over-aroused and rehearsing inappropriate social behaviors. Some dogs may learn to become bullies, while others become increasingly anxious and defensive. We have countless clients whose dogs have come home with injuries from "play" - most of which no one could account for, because what happened was not witnessed. Then of course, there are those facilities where supervisors are armed with spray bottles or worse and random punishment becomes the order of the day, resulting in all sorts of phobias developing as a result of daycare attendance.

Daycare is NOT all it is cracked up to be, most of the time. In fact, it is usually a disaster. That is why we cringe when clients tell us that their dogs go to daycare. Of course, there may be a rare few who get it right: those facilities run by qualified individuals where numbers are kept small, all interactions are supervised and dog-dog play is NOT the main activity. Facilities where dogs have plenty of rest or down time and their individual needs are considered and taken into account and they are sent home relaxed and rested, not exhausted and over-tired.

credit - Kommetjie Canine College