My truth about Makenzie’s puppyhood

This essay follows episode 1 of the Pawplexity Pawdcast, “We thought we were ready, our truth about puppyhood”.

Why quiet isn’t calm.

From the beginning, everyone else thought Makenzie was an easy puppy. She watched more than she acted, she rested often, she did not rush into things, except for play. Quiet behaviour is often read as calm behaviour. They are not the same. The surface reassures us. The nervous system may be telling a different story. Compared to other puppies, she seemed almost effortless. During the day, she fit the picture many of us hope for: observant, contained, undemanding.

And yet, visible composure and internal regulation do not always move in parallel. This is something we talk about in the first episode of the podcast: how easily puppyhood gets labelled before we understand what we are actually seeing. Every evening, without exception, something shifted. For about an hour she would unravel: chasing, growling, snapping, trying to bite. I remember climbing onto the kitchen counter more than once, crying, heart racing, waiting for the surge to pass.

Episodes like this are often described as „witching hours“ in puppies — predictable spikes in arousal when fatigue, accumulated stimulation and immature regulation collide. Development research on young dogs suggests that regulatory capacity is still forming in the early months. What looks sudden is often cumulative. What looks aggressive may instead be dysregulation.

During the day she appeared calm. In the evening she overflowed. The two versions only began to make sense once I stopped reading them as temperament and started seeing them through regulation. It began to look like a system still learning to balance.

When behaviour is quiet, we tend to assume wellbeing. It reassures us. It signals that the environment is manageable. But animal welfare research draws a distinction between predictability and perceived control. Predictability organises events. Perceived control is associated with lower stress responses. An animal can anticipate what happens next and still not feel able to influence what happens to it. Behavioural compliance can increase in structured environments, while physiological stress markers remain elevated. Quiet is not always a reliable welfare indicator.

At the time, I responded with structure. Feeding times, walk times, play, rest. The day became mapped. Structure can reduce chaos. It does not necessarily create a sense of safety. Safety is something a nervous system recognises, not something a schedule guarantees. Nothing dramatic changed — because nothing fundamental had shifted.

We often interpret cooperation as agreement. On walks, if I chose a direction she did not prefer, she would follow. And then, minutes later, quietly redirect back to her chosen route. She cooperated, but did not necessarily agree. Many dogs cooperate. It is less common that we pause long enough to notice whether they would have chosen differently. The distinction becomes visible only when preference is strong enough to reappear.

Crates, routines, rules — these enter early puppyhood for understandable reasons. They promise clarity in a phase defined by unpredictability. Used intentionally, they can stabilise. But studies on confinement and stress responses consistently show that reduced activity does not automatically indicate improved welfare. Suppression and regulation can look similar from the outside. Without careful observation, they are easy to confuse. The absence of visible disruption does not confirm the presence of ease.

Dog culture relies heavily on general rules. What works. What’s normal. What experts recommend. Standardisation creates clarity — but it assumes interchangeability. Temperament, genetics, and early sensitivity do not average neatly. There is no neutral puppy template — or at least, very few puppies behave as though there is. Following shared certainty often feels safer than trusting subtle signals that don’t match the narrative.

There was a moment early on when I corrected her from irritation rather than clarity. Shortly after, she urinated on the bed while maintaining eye contact. Whether that was stress, conflict behaviour, or coincidence matters less than what it revealed: relational tension seemed to shift behaviour faster than any adjustment I tried. Regulation appears to be relational before it ever becomes procedural.

What took longer to become visible is that none of this was exceptional. It only felt that way because the surface did not match the expectation.

Puppyhood is often framed as a management challenge. Energy to channel, habits to shape, and boundaries to establish. It may be more accurately understood as a regulatory apprenticeship for both nervous systems. When we mistake quiet for calm, we reward containment before we confirm comfort.

Quiet behaviour is easy to live with. It is harder to question.

A puppy can appear settled. A nervous system can still be working hard.

And those two do not always move together.

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