More often than not, the critical period in the emotional and mental development of a dog is between the eighth and sixteenth week after its birth. At this stage, the environment and many other factors will greatly affect the maturity and foundational personality of your pet.

A good analogy of an eight-week old dog is a blank chalkboard in which anything and everything be written on it. It is a clean slate and the mind of the dog can be fully molded. If for some reason the dog becomes a problem dog, it is most probably because of what happened during the critical period in its development. Thus, the responsibility to properly raise a dog lies solely on the owner and how diligent he or she is in training the dog.

This fact is further proven in the policies of most dog training schools. Often they only accept dogs that are at least six months old because if they are younger, any kind of training they receive will not be retained in their minds. Unfortunately, some dogs are taken to training school only when they are labeled as problem dogs already thus making it difficult to change their habits.

There was one case in which a Schnauzer had bitten every member of its owner's family thus it was put to sleep. Although it was already eight months old, most trainers consider this to be a puppy, still.

It first bit someone at twelve weeks of age and soon after, the bites progressively came and became worse. The sad fact is that nobody tried to discipline and correct the dog because of their love for it. They felt like they would be mean to it if they tried disciplining it.

As you can see, disciplining is a necessity but does not always entail physical abuse of the pet. It is a matter of going through the right process simply because your pet needs it and it is your responsibility to allow it to mature properly.

If a dog is often neglected and becomes problematic and destructive, it will eventually just be brought to the pound where it will rot away and this all begins with how it was raised poorly.

To avoid having a problem dog, owners must understand that dogs try to assume the dominant role within a pack so thus there will be times that a dog will try to test this role. You must learn how to deal with this and properly let the dog know how to respect you and not try to dominate over others.