One of the worst things you can do to any animal is to rear it in isolation. It’s critical that your dog is properly socialized to other animals as well as socialized to people. Predominantly animals do what they learn from other animals. Adults teach their young where and what to eat and whom to socialize with. A dog isn’t born knowing the rules. He needs to be taught the rules by other dogs. Adults teach the young social rules and respect for their own kind. If an animal does not learn these rules when it’s young, it’s almost impossible to instill rules when it’s older.
When training, it’s easier to bring a new, younger dog into a home where one or more dogs already exist. The older dogs do a lot of the trainer’s work by teaching the newbie how things are supposed to happen!
I can remember a time in the suburban neighborhood where I lived that dogs were free to come and go as they pleased. It was not uncommon to see dogs roaming about the streets and everyone knew the dogs and to whom they belonged.
Before long, leash laws were put into effect and now witnessing a dog roaming a town is very rare. When it does happen it’s assumed the dog escaped from its home. Leash laws were necessary for the safety of residents as well as the dogs themselves. We need these laws, because stray dogs running loose can be dangerous, especially if a group of stray dogs starts thinking of itself as a pack. Several dogs together are more dangerous than one dog on its own because pack mentality. But leash laws have probably come at a cost.
Such laws, however, may be the root cause of some adverse effects on dog socialization. Unless the owner makes an effort, many dogs do not get properly socialized to other dogs, or to other people. It’s possible that leash laws may be short-circuiting some core principle of animal behavior. In nature, where animals are free to come and go, animals almost never seriously injure other animals that are familiar to them. On the flip side, dogs living side by side in fenced yards often do hurt each other if they can, even when they’ve known each other for years. This may be a case where proper socialization won’t help. The dogs have been properly socialized, but their environment, a fenced-in yard, isn’t helping.