A critical amount of variety in early experience is absolutely necessary if dogs are to develop their full potential. Mature dogs raised in kennels, cages or similar stimulus-deprived environments often are easily startled by sound and touch in strange surroundings. Those which have been mainly house or yard pets as well as kennel dogs may overreact to novel visual objects and persons. Such dogs do not normally possess the criteria for selection in narcotic detection training. They identified pack members as such and all other animals fell into the category of outsiders.
Predatory behavior is stifled by unearned daily feedings from owners.
The dog's defensive mechanisms against outsiders are strained to discriminative limits by artificial standards. The pet is expected to accept family friends, but the burglar is to be somehow perceived as such and repulsed. When contrasted with the stable activities and social relationships existing in wild dog packs, it is no wonder that a conflict exists between the dog's naturally simplistic social behavioral tendencies and its domestic environment. Since cooperative pack behavior is a natural pattern in dogs, selection for social adaptation contributes heavily to the wild dog's genetic makeup. Troublemakers are driven away from the pack and rarely produce offspring.