Puppy Training Madness
So, we're getting a puppy! As we diligently fortify ourselves about the best way to raise a puppy into a happy and healthy companion for life, we find ourselves getting some peculiar advice. One group is the "Treat Cult", which says that all puppy behavior that you like deserves a reward of food for the puppy. Puppy sits for you? Giver her a hot dog. Puppy comes when called? Time for a a piece of cheese. Puppy stays on command? Better give her a jumbo shrimp wrapped in bacon fat. Yet, these are the same folks who tell you not to over-feed the puppy! What happened to the dog wanting to be praised for a job well done? Oh no, the Treat Cult says, your dog will not respect you unless you are simply a dispenser mechanism for fatty, unhealthy food.
And then there are the "Affection Police", who insist that any affection given to the dog during its first fifteen years of life will result unwanted and often deadly behavior from the dog. When your puppy cries the first night in her new home, they say, don't try to comfort her, because that will turn her into a homicidal killing machine later in life. Also, no eye contact or petting the dog, ever. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to be the kind of dog owner that cheerfully says, "Oh, don't mind Snugglekins, she's just happy to see you" as my dog naws a a neighbor's ankle bloody. But can't I just pet my happy, loving puppy once a month or so? Sure you can, the Attenion Police say, once you manage to pry her clenched jaws from Grandma's throat.
Insane people have insane dogs, I guess, but can't the rest of us just have a little fun?

