There is a practice of overstating and even abusing the behavioral concept of "fear period."
This is demonstrated when we read on a breeder's web site such fabrications as, "First Fear Imprint Period (8-11 weeks) is what will determine the pup's development and character."
Whether through ignorance or device, such a breeder disregards far more significant developmental influences of
a breeding (such as the breeder's responsibility to select breedworthy, temperamentally sound dam and sire; provide
quality prenatal care and stewardship; properly socialize the litter; appropriately match the pups
with competent owners; provide continuing follow-up and education; etc.). We shouldn't
be surprised to see deficient temperament -- and all manner of creative excuses for it -- as a result.
Puppy buyers are often misled that poor temperament is "just a fear period," or "all puppies do that," or "that's normal for
this breeding" when in fact it is not "normal" for a pup to show protracted, chronic fearfulness of age-appropriate,
common environmental stimuli. (As opposed to assaultive, injurious, or otherwise significantly traumatizing
experiences, such as a rough mauling by another dog, which has a higher risk of imprinting a fearful
association. Pain matters.)
The danger of the popularized "fear period" mythology is that it excuses fearfulness in even the most
minimally stimulating environments. This snowballs into accepting as "normal" the continued expression of
fearfulness for any duration, at any intensity,
for any reason. Contrary to a common misperception, the "Fear Imprint" developmental phase is
not fearfulness.
One determines the nature of a fear expression by observing the pup's first encounter with a
novel environmental stimulus, and then objectively evaluating how the pup recovers from that
first encounter. By evaluating the ability to recover ("rebound"), we can identify whether the pup's fear
expression is based on its developmental status,
life experience or naivete, naturally progressing learning curve, etc. -- or if the pup's fearfulness is a reflection
of unsound temperament.
Much can be learned from the pup's first surprise encounter and fear reaction (if fear even occurs), and then, if
by its own initiative (with minimal or better yet, no handler intervention) the pup investigates to physically and
intellectually process the stimulus. The sound pup demonstrates the capacity and the will to identify
that something encountered is novel, investigate to determine if it is benign and it need not be feared, accept it as a
familiar (known) environmental element, and recognize future encounters as non-threatening and inconsequential
that do not provoke a fearful response.
If a 9-week-old pup shows fear and seizes up the first time it encounters, say, a reflective floor, and this
fearful reaction persists unabated on the fifth, tenth, and twenty-third time the pup encounters this same floor --
heads up. This is not the emotional or cognitive wariness of novelty or the unknown as intended by the concept of
"fear imprint period." This pup has experienced this non-life threatening stimulus many times,
and the pup with well-balanced nerve and cognative function should by now be fully conditioned to co-exist
fearlessly with that environmental element.
This is the area of temperamental weakness where we see the term "fear period" most commonly misunderstood and
inappropriately applied. The chronically fearful youngster demonstrates a lack of capacity to intellectually
categorize a benign environmental element (a reflective floor or the wind or the furnace vent or the toddling
child or the wet grass or the car horn or the door closing or . . . .)
as something that is not a threat to survival and therefore should not be feared. This pup
fails to sequentially resolve and integrate the sensory encounter, even after repeated opportunities
to do so. The stimulus is never successfully processed and categorized in the pup's brain as
something "known" because of faulty cognitive function and insufficient association with and memory of
prior life experience.
The dog that perpetually fails to recognize and integrate subsequent
encounters as something familiar, and continually perceives the environmental element
as something potentially dangerous/life threatening, will likely react with the fight or flight impulse and, in
serious cases, may simply shut down. Like a canine
perversion of the movie "Groundhog Day," the experiential tape is played over and over again and the dog is
trapped in an endless cycle of repeated "first encounters" from which there doesn't seem to be the possibility of a
different outcome or an escape. This is illustrative of neurological/psychological deficiencies that would certainly disqualify a candidate for working service, and that would necessitate a specialized formal training program for the pet companion dog candidate.
Certainly there are causative precursors to chronic environmental fearfulness -- genetics, prenatal assault, neonatal insufficiencies,
physiological abnormalities, inadequate early socialization, traumatic physical abuse, etc. But a precursor
doesn't mitigate the fact that the pup at hand is not demonstrating the capacity to recover from the surprise
and uncertainty of newly encountered common environmental stimuli. This pup is unable to cope with all that the
real world presents, from the utterly mundane and innocuous (bare floors) to the more challenging (thunder).
Age and developmentally appropriate recovery is a cognitive facility that, regardless of a chronological "fear imprint" phase of canine development, one
should expect and demand when making a determination of sound temperament. This is of critical importance
when evaluating a potential candidate for the environmental challenges and psychological and physical
rigors of service training and performance.
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