Dogs, puppies, and radio controled fences.

Factual Questions
1

There is a thread currently on dogs and instinct as to learning tricks. Also, a previous thread I saw had a similar theme.

That being said, it caused me to think up the following:

You have a male and female dog, and have raised them since they were puppies on your property. This property has radio rences (invisible). The dogs have been trained to stay in the fence since they were puppies.

Will these dogs pass on the knowlege and respect of the boundries to their puppies, or is this wishful thinking?

2

No.

You’ve probably housebroken your dogs too but the puppies won’t be born housebroken. It sure would be nice though. :slight_smile:

3

Well, they won’t be born housebroken, but I don’t think that’s what the OP was wondering about. I think he was asking about the adult dogs training the pups, not some sort of Lamarkian inheritance of knowledge.

To which I say, it’s certainly possible. Dogs can communicate to each other things like acceptable boundaries of their “turf”, and older or more dominant dogs in a household will often teach younger or submissive dogs the rules. At the very least, if the adult dogs are well trained, it’ll make it considerably easier to train the puppies, since they’ll have an example to follow.

4

Agreed, I thought the same thing Chronos. And I agree that older dogs can - often do - teach younger dogs the rules. It is part of the pack mentality.

5

Correct.

6

Sorry! I totally misread your question.

7

On the other hand, I wonder if the older dogs could see the young pups break the rules and follow their lead, assuming the electric fence and collars are no longer in use.

8

I would guess it’s very unlikely that a mother dog would teach her puppies about “danger, about to be zapped” zones or areas to be avoided in general.

Not once the puppies are moving around on their own at any rate.