The Dogs We Remember and The Dogs We Live With Now

Two yellow Labrador retrievers sit next to one another, looking expectantly into the camera.

Let’s talk about the difference between the dog you had as a child and the dog you’re trying to train now—the one you might be struggling with, which is probably why you’re here, reading this blog post.

Here’s a common story: someone grows up in the country, gets a job in the city, buys a house, builds a fence, and decides it’s time for a dog. They remember the dogs they had as children and expect a similar experience.

I see this a lot in my area. Fargo, ND, and the surrounding communities are a medium-sized city. It’s not what I’d call densely urban; even downtown feels more like a spread-out suburb. Many people who live here grew up in more rural areas—myself included.

If you grew up on a farm or rural property, you probably didn’t have a fenced yard. Your dog may have just stuck around (or at least that’s how it seemed). But when we try to give a dog that same off-leash lifestyle in a city, we’re often surprised when it doesn’t work.

Why It’s Different Now

Risk tolerance.
Life on a farm comes with a different attitude toward risk. My childhood dogs never used leashes and we had no fence. It mostly worked—but we lost three of our nine dogs to car accidents. That’s a third of them, killed after running down the long driveway to the highway. Many people forget those kinds of losses when they reminisce about their “free-range” dogs.
More hazards.
Cities and suburbs simply have more opportunities for accidents: traffic, other animals, construction sites, and so on.
Neighbors and shared space.
In a city, we live much closer to other people. We can’t let our dogs harass passersby, bother other dogs, or damage someone else’s property. It’s unsafe and, frankly, impolite.

The truth is, what might have looked like well-trained farm dogs staying close to home was often just natural selection at work. The ones who wandered onto the road didn’t live long enough to pass on their genes, so over time the dogs who stuck near the house became the ones we remembered.

Modern Dogs, Modern Challenges

Fast forward twenty years and many of us recall, “Our dogs roamed free and it was fine!” We forget the painful part—that some of those dogs died tragically.

Today, we also need to consider the risk from other dogs. We now keep and love more dogs with behavioral challenges than we did decades ago, which is wonderful—but it also means a friendly off-leash dog could stumble upon a reactive dog and get hurt. That’s not fair to either dog or their people.

As a society, we’ve developed a lower tolerance for accidents and pet injuries. But we still carry that nostalgic vision of the free-range dog. Something has got to give:

If your dog is loose and free, the risk is higher.
If you want less risk, you need more control—through leashes, fences, kennels, or long lines.

Bottom line: If we have a lower tolerance for bad things, we need to have more control over our dogs.

Where is the Middle Ground?

Due to our lower risk tolerance, many people now keep their dogs under much tighter control. As a result, a lot of dogs only experience the world in their own yard or at the end of a 6-foot leash—and that can be hard on them, too.

That’s why I love long lines. Long lines offer a wonderful balance: the safety we want and the freedom our dogs deserve.

The dogs can explore and move more freely.
Our arms and shoulders don’t take as much strain.
We’re less likely to get frustrated or hurt.

With a long line we still have the control and safety our society expects, while the dog enjoys more independence and a richer experience of the world.

The Dogs We Remember and The Dogs We Live With Now