Successful Guide Dogs Have ‘Tough Love’ Moms

Much has been written of the pitfalls of being a helicopter parent, one who insulates children from adversity rather than encouraging their independence.

A new study seems to back up this finding in dogs. Researchers showed that doting mothers seem to handicap their puppies, in this case reducing the likelihood of successfully completing a training program to become guide dogs.

The study was led by Emily Bray, who earned her Ph.D. in May from the Department of Psychology. She collaborated with her advisors: Dorothy Cheney of the Department of Biology, Robert Seyfarth of the Department of Pscyhology, and James Serpell of the School of Veterinary Medicine. Mary Sammel, a professor of biostatistics in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, was also a coauthor on the paper, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It’s remarkable,” Bray said. “These puppies were with their mom for only five weeks and it’s having an effect on their success two years later. It seems that puppies need to learn how to deal with small challenges at this early age and, if they don’t, it hurts them later.”


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