Is it really that much harder training a dog from a shelter?
It really does depend on the dog’s personality and how much it was abused, whether it was a house dog and what its breed is. Remember that each dog is as individual and unique as a person.
Let’s just say that it is a given that if you adopt a stray dog that you are taking a bigger risk then if you bought a pedigreed dog from a breeder.
The reason that a dog from a shelter will be harder to train is that you don’t know its history or background. You don’t know if it has ever been kicked or starved or anything else about its history. If it’s a total mutt you may not even be able to determine the dog’s breed mix by its appearance, which makes how trainable it might be even more unpredictable then ever. A mutt could have all of the aggressive personality traits of a breed that is known to be a little hostile to humans without you knowing it.
If you adopt a dog from a pet shelter be ready for anything! First of all dog usually reacts to his new home with some kind of strange behavior. You could encounter biting, chewing, barking, nipping, submissive urination, whining and fear of other dogs or people. The dog could have a chronic health problem or psychological problem due to abuse that you could not even imagine.
However the better Rescue Shelters make sure that any dog that is adopted is not sick. It could also simply be that the dog ended up in a shelter because the original owner simply could not train it. The shelters are full of alpha dogs that pet owners could not control or that they could not afford to send to a professional trainer for behavior management. The dog then becomes YOUR problem.
Not every dog adopted from a shelter is an unpredictable or alpha dog but a dog that is obtained from a shelter has a higher risk of being a threat to other pets and children in your household. This is because losing its home and ending up in a shelter can traumatize it. Sometimes you can find a well-trained dog that was taken to the shelter because its owner passed away in which case you don’t necessarily have to worry about adopting a dog that is too dominant for you to handle. I
f you are going to adopt a dog from a shelter, the only thing you might have to rely on when it comes to guessing how easy the dog is to train is some guess at his breed. For instance, a big Dalmatian would probably be greatly irritated in a house full of kids and a tiny little shaky Chihuahua with health problems is not a great pet for a busy careerist. Usually a staff member can give you at least a little bit of information about the breed so you have some information about how it is most likely to behave after you adopt it.