By Sam Basso
OVERVIEW: Babies and puppies share important developmental needs involving attachment, caregiving, exploration, and stress, but their biology and developmental pathways are not the same.
Babies and puppies have more in common than we might expect. Both depend on caregivers, form important social relationships, and develop through an interaction of inherited characteristics and experience. But there are equally important differences in how they mature, communicate, learn, and become independent. Understanding those similarities and differences can teach us something valuable about both species.
I recently listened to an interview with Erica Komisar, a psychoanalyst and author who discusses the importance of early childhood relationships, emotional availability, and the role of caregivers in helping children develop. Komisar is the author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters(2017) and Chicken Little the Sky Isn't Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety (2021). Her work emphasizes the importance of responsive caregiving, particularly maternal presence during early childhood, and the relationship between emotional security and later development.
Listening to her discussion reminded me of several questions that have interested scientists studying dogs for more than a century. Why do young animals seek familiar caregivers when distressed? Can a secure relationship encourage independence rather than prevent it? Why do some individuals recover from adversity while others continue struggling? And how much of later behavior can reasonably be attributed to early experiences?
These questions connect human developmental psychology with canine behavioral science, although the answers are not necessarily identical.
What Did John Bowlby Discover About Attachment?
John Bowlby proposed that attachment is an organized behavioral system that helps young children maintain access to familiar protective caregivers.
His theory was influenced partly by ethology, the biological study of animal behavior. Rather than treating a child's desire for closeness as merely a learned consequence of feeding, Bowlby proposed that attachment had an evolutionary function related to protection and survival. A young child may seek proximity to a familiar caregiver when frightened, ill, tired, or uncertain. But attachment involves more than staying close.
Bowlby's framework helped establish two particularly important concepts.
· A safe haven is a familiar person to whom a child can turn for comfort during distress.
· A secure base is a familiar relationship that supports the child's willingness to explore the environment.
These functions are related but distinguishable. A child may seek comfort when frightened and return to exploring once the situation becomes manageable. This creates an interesting possibility: a secure relationship may support increasing independence rather than simply maintain dependence.
Bowlby's work provided the theoretical foundation, but subsequent researchers were essential in developing and testing these ideas.
What Did Mary Ainsworth Add to Attachment Theory?
Mary Ainsworth helped turn attachment theory into a systematic program of behavioral research.
Working with colleagues, she developed the Strange Situation Procedure, which examined how young children responded to unfamiliar surroundings, brief separations, and reunions with a caregiver (Ainsworth et al., 1978). The research investigated patterns of exploration, proximity seeking, distress, and behavior during reunion. One important finding was that attachment security could not be determined simply by how much a child cried when separated. The child's behavior toward the returning caregiver and ability to use that relationship as a source of security were also important.
This distinction matters because crying is a behavior, not a complete explanation of the child's emotional or developmental condition. An infant may cry for many reasons. The observation alone does not identify the full underlying process.
Later attachment research has also investigated the relationship between caregiver sensitivity and attachment security.
A large 2024 meta-analysis involving 174 studies and more than 22,000 parent-child relationships found positive associations between sensitive caregiving and attachment security. The findings included both mothers and fathers.
That does not mean all caregivers have identical biological roles or that every family arrangement produces identical outcomes. It does indicate that the broader scientific literature recognizes the developmental importance of responsive caregiving beyond one exclusive caregiver category.
Komisar places particular emphasis on mothers, especially during the first three years. Her perspective deserves to be understood on its own terms, while the wider attachment literature provides additional evidence concerning fathers, other familiar caregivers, and the many circumstances in which children develop.
Do Puppies Form Attachments Similar to Human Babies?
Dogs can develop attachment-like relationships with familiar human caregivers, and researchers have investigated these relationships using methods adapted from human developmental psychology.
In 1998, József Topál and colleagues adapted Ainsworth's Strange Situation approach to examine relationships between dogs and their owners. Later research continued investigating whether dogs use their owners as sources of security in unfamiliar or challenging circumstances. A particularly interesting study was conducted by Horn, Huber, and Range (2013). The researchers examined dogs performing a problem-solving task under different social conditions. Dogs spent more time manipulating the apparatus when their owners were present than when their owners were absent. The presence of an unfamiliar person did not produce the same effect. The researchers interpreted this as evidence of an owner-specific secure-base effect.
This is important because it demonstrates that a dog's relationship with a familiar person can influence its willingness to engage with the environment.
However, we should not conclude that human infant attachment and canine attachment are identical psychological systems. The species differ in developmental timing, communication, social organization, and cognitive abilities. Furthermore, the methods used to investigate attachment in dogs require careful interpretation.
A dog following its owner from room to room does not automatically demonstrate a secure attachment. It might reflect social interest, learned expectations, uncertainty, access to desirable activities, or several influences operating together.
The important question is not simply whether the dog stays close. It is how the relationship influences behavior under different circumstances.
Does Comforting a Frightened Puppy Make It More Dependent?
Comforting a frightened puppy does not necessarily increase its fear or prevent it from becoming independent.
This is an area where dog-training advice can become unnecessarily simplistic. Owners sometimes hear that they should ignore a frightened puppy because providing affection will reward the fear. But emotional and motivational conditions are not identical to the specific behaviors through which an animal expresses them. Fear may involve physiological changes, learned associations, defensive motivation, and other processes.
At the same time, behaviors such as approaching a person, vocalizing, or seeking physical contact can be influenced by their consequences.
Both observations can be true.
A puppy may learn that vocalizing brings its owner into the room. That does not establish that its original distress was imaginary or that comforting it necessarily makes the underlying distress worse.
Social contact may provide reassurance, alter the animal's response to a challenging situation, or influence what it learns about that situation.
The appropriate response depends on the individual puppy, its developmental stage, the circumstances, and what happens afterward.
Consider a puppy that hesitates to explore an unfamiliar room. If its owner remains nearby, the puppy may become willing to investigate. That does not necessarily mean the owner is preventing independence. The owner's presence may be helping the puppy participate in an experience it would otherwise avoid. However, a puppy that explores comfortably with its owner present has not necessarily learned to remain alone comfortably. Those are different circumstances and potentially different learning problems.
The objective is not to choose between affection and independence. It is to help the puppy develop the ability to function successfully under progressively appropriate conditions.
Are the First Three Years of a Child's Life Like the First Twelve Weeks of a Puppy's Life?
Both species have developmentally sensitive periods, but the timelines and developmental processes differ substantially.
Komisar emphasizes the first three years of human life as an important period for relationships, emotional development, and stress regulation. Human childhood is unusually prolonged. Language, social understanding, executive functioning, and other capacities develop over many years.
Dogs mature much more rapidly. The work of John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller (1965), along with earlier research by Freedman, King, and Elliot (1961), helped establish the importance of developmental timing and early social experience in dogs. Puppies undergo substantial changes in sensory functioning, mobility, social engagement, exploration, and responsiveness to their environment during the first months of life. But we need to distinguish three concepts.
· Maturation refers to biological developmental changes.
· Sensitive periods are intervals during which particular experiences may have especially important developmental effects.
· Imprinting refers to particular forms of early learning described in ethological research. It should not be used as a general synonym for attachment or socialization.
· Human infants do not simply imprint on their mothers in the same way that some birds develop early following responses.
Likewise, a puppy's social development cannot be reduced to one irreversible event during its first twelve weeks. Early experiences matter, but development continues. A dog that had limited early social experience may face additional challenges later. That does not establish that subsequent learning or improvement is impossible. The same caution applies to children. Early adversity can matter greatly without determining every later outcome.
Can Early Stress Have Lasting Effects on Babies and Puppies?
Severe or prolonged adversity may influence later development in both humans and dogs, but the effects depend on many interacting factors.
Human developmental research has investigated how stress responses interact with caregiving, health, environmental circumstances, and developmental processes.
Responsive relationships may help buffer some effects of challenging experiences.
Canine researchers have investigated related questions. Foyer, Wilsson, and Jensen (2016) reported associations between maternal care and later temperament in dogs. Buttner, Awalt, and Strasser (2023) examined behavioral and physiological responses among dogs with differing early histories during a social stress-buffering experiment. Espinosa and colleagues (2025) investigated relationships involving early adversity, breed, fear, and aggression.
These studies support investigating developmental history when evaluating later behavior. But they do not justify assuming that every fearful or aggressive dog experienced abuse.
Nor do they establish that a dog with an adverse history must have permanent neurological damage.
This is one of the most important distinctions in my work.
A dog may bark, retreat, freeze, or respond defensively because of several possible influences, including previous learning, inherited characteristics, current environmental conditions, pain, or motivational conflict. The behavior is something we can observe.
The cause must be investigated.
For example, if a dog becomes defensive around unfamiliar people, I would want to know whether the response occurs everywhere or only under particular circumstances. Does the dog respond differently when its owner is present? Does distance matter? Is the dog more comfortable in familiar surroundings? Does its behavior change when the person stops approaching? Those differences may help distinguish competing explanations. A plausible story about the dog's past is not a substitute for evidence.
Is a Baby's Separation Distress the Same as a Puppy's?
No. Separation-related distress can occur in both species, but its meaning depends on developmental stage, relationships, learning history, and circumstances.
A human infant's response to separation occurs within a developmental process involving prolonged dependency and increasingly complex social cognition.
A young puppy separated from its mother and littermates experiences a different biological and social transition.
An adult dog that becomes distressed when left alone presents yet another situation. In that adult dog, relevant possibilities might include separation-related distress, frustration, environmental triggers, confinement-related difficulties, learned expectations, or medical contributors. These explanations should not be treated as interchangeable.
The same observable behavior may also have different meanings at different ages. A young puppy vocalizing during its first nights in a new home is not necessarily exhibiting the same problem as an adult dog that destroys a door whenever its owner leaves. Likewise, a dog that becomes quiet after prolonged vocalization has not necessarily become comfortable.
The question is what changed. Did the dog become more capable of coping with the situation? Did it learn something useful? Did it simply stop expressing a response? Or was another process involved? The absence of vocalization alone cannot answer those questions.
Where Does the Comparison Between Babies and Dogs Break Down?
The comparison becomes misleading when similarities in observable behavior are treated as proof of identical psychological mechanisms.
Both babies and puppies may seek proximity to familiar caregivers. Both may show distress under particular circumstances. Both can learn from social experiences and develop different responses depending on their histories. But the species are not interchangeable.
Developmental feature | Human babies | Puppies |
Early dependency | Prolonged physical, emotional, and social dependency | Intensive early maternal dependency followed by comparatively rapid maturation |
Caregiver relationships | Attachment relationships develop with familiar caregivers | Maternal relationships and later attachment-like relationships with humans |
Exploration | Can be supported by a familiar caregiver's availability | Owner-specific secure-base effects have been demonstrated |
Communication | Develops toward language and symbolic communication | Species-specific vocal, postural, olfactory, and other communication |
Separation | Meaning changes with age and social development | Meaning changes with age, experience, environment, and social relationships |
Recovery | May include language-based reflection and psychological treatment | Assessed through behavior, learning, environment, and relevant medical evidence |
One particularly important difference involves how we evaluate an individual's internal experience. Human children eventually become capable of describing thoughts, feelings, memories, and experiences through language.
Dogs cannot provide that kind of verbal account.
Consequently, canine behavioral assessment depends heavily on observation, documented history, environmental comparisons, and other available evidence. We can investigate fear, attachment, learning, and stress in dogs without assuming that their subjective experiences are identical to those of human beings.
What Can Parents and Dog Owners Learn From Each Other?
The most useful lesson is that secure relationships and developing independence are not necessarily opposing goals.
Bowlby and Ainsworth helped establish that a familiar caregiver may provide both reassurance during distress and support for exploration. Later research has continued examining how caregiving relationships interact with development.
Canine research provides evidence that familiar human relationships can also influence exploration and engagement with the environment.
But this does not mean that every dog requires the same kind of social contact, that every puppy should be comforted in the same way, or that every child develops under identical circumstances. Individuals differ. Their developmental histories differ.
Their environments differ. And the processes influencing their behavior may differ even when the outward responses look similar.
Listening to Erica Komisar discuss the importance of early caregiving encouraged me to revisit these connections between human developmental psychology and canine behavioral science. The comparison is useful because it raises better questions.
Does a familiar relationship support exploration? Is the individual becoming more capable of managing challenging circumstances? Are we observing genuine improvement or simply a reduction in outward behavior? And are we distinguishing what we know from what we merely suspect?
For dog owners, the practical starting point is to observe how a puppy behaves across different circumstances, including when a familiar person is present, absent, approaching, or allowing the puppy to explore independently.
Those observations can tell us more than a label such as clingy, spoiled, stubborn, or anxious.
Babies and puppies are not the same. But studying both reminds us that development involves more than teaching behaviors. It involves the changing relationship between biology, experience, social relationships, and the individual's growing ability to function in the world.
Glossary
Attachment: An organized social relationship involving behaviors associated with maintaining access to a familiar individual, particularly under circumstances involving distress or uncertainty.
Caregiver sensitivity: The ability to notice, interpret, and respond appropriately to another individual's signals and needs.
Developmental sensitive period: An interval during development when particular experiences may exert especially important influences on later behavior.
Imprinting: A term used in ethology for particular forms of early learning. It is not synonymous with all socialization or attachment.
Safe haven: A familiar relationship that provides access to comfort or protection during distress.
Secure base: A familiar relationship that supports exploration or engagement with the environment.
Social buffering: The influence of social relationships on behavioral or physiological responses to challenging circumstances.
Stress response: Interacting physiological and behavioral processes associated with challenges to an organism's regulation or adaptation.
Scholarly Bibliography and Further Reading
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the Strange Situation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bowlby, J. (1969/1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.
Bouton, M. E. (2004). Context and behavioral processes in extinction. Learning & Memory, 11(5), 485–494. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.78804
Buttner, A. P., Awalt, S. L., & Strasser, R. (2023). Early life adversity in dogs produces altered physiological and behavioral responses during a social stress-buffering paradigm. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 120(1), 6–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.856
Espinosa, J., Zapata, I., Alvarez, C. E., Serpell, J. A., Kukekova, A. V., & Hecht, E. E. (2025). Influence of early life adversity and breed on aggression and fear in dogs. Scientific Reports, 15, Article 32590. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-18226-0
Foyer, P., Wilsson, E., & Jensen, P. (2016). Levels of maternal care in dogs affect adult offspring temperament. Scientific Reports, 6, Article 19253. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep19253
Freedman, D. G., King, J. A., & Elliot, O. (1961). Critical period in the social development of dogs. Science, 133(3457), 1016–1017. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.133.3457.1016
Horn, L., Huber, L., & Range, F. (2013). The importance of the secure base effect for domestic dogs: Evidence from a manipulative problem-solving task. PLOS ONE, 8(5), e65296. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065296
Komisar, E. (2017). Being there: Why prioritizing motherhood in the first three years matters. TarcherPerigee.
Komisar, E. (2021). Chicken Little the Sky Isn't Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety. Health Communications, Inc.
Palmer, R., & Custance, D. (2008). A counterbalanced version of Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure reveals secure-base effects in dog–human relationships. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 109(2–4), 306–319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2007.04.002
Scott, J. P., & Fuller, J. L. (1965). Genetics and the social behavior of the dog. University of Chicago Press.
Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., Csányi, V., & Dóka, A. (1998). Attachment behavior in dogs (Canis familiaris): A new application of Ainsworth's (1969) Strange Situation Test. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 112(3), 219–229.https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7036.112.3.219
Additional source: Erica Komisar interview on YouTube.
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