Who Invented the Term “Drive Capping” in Dog Training? Armin Winkler

By Sam Basso

 

If you have spent time around Schutzhund (now IGP), police K9 training, or other working-dog sports, you have probably heard the term “drive capping.” It is a term that gets used frequently, but not everyone understands what it means, where it came from, or what the original concept was intended to accomplish.

 

I want to give credit to someone I have known personally for many years: Armin Winkler. Armin is a highly accomplished working-dog trainer, instructor, and author whose experience includes Schutzhund, police K9 work, and protection training. He also translated Dr. Helmut Raiser's influential book Der Schutzhund into English.

 

From my personal knowledge of Armin and his work, he originated the term, "drive capping". His writings remain among the best places to learn what he meant by it. Even better, arrange to personally train alongside him.

 

What Did I Find On Social Media? 

 

“Armin Winkler was writing about and teaching drive capping well before it became a mainstream buzzword popularized by the later wave of North American instructors.

 

Winkler's seminal articles, published across the mid-to-late 1990s on platforms like his original Schutzhund Village website and distributed at early seminars, established the framework for how modern trainers understand the balance between drive and control." 

 

The True Origins: Armin Winkler’s Philosophy 

 

When Winkler introduced the concept in print, he did so to address a massive problem in Schutzhund (now IGP) and protection work: obedience training traditionally suppressed or "shut down" a dog's natural drive. 

 

Winkler defined capping as "the dog's ability to follow the directions of his handler... and contain but maintain his drive while doing so". He explicitly noted: • Harnessing, Not Crushing: Instead of using obedience to overpower the dog's instincts, capping was a way of "collecting drive through obedience". • The Master's Touch: Winkler famously wrote in his Prey Drive Promotion series that "it takes a master to make that technique work well" because of how incredibly difficult it is to have a dog maintain intense internal pressure without letting it leak or breakdown into frustration. Setting the Timeline Straight • The Pioneer: Armin Winkler was dissecting these advanced behavioral dynamics in the 1990s, bridging the gap between old-school European methods and clear-headed modern sports/police work. • The Later Wave: Other trainers took these core principles of containment, possession, and cooperation under high drive and packaged them into commercial, highly structured video systems throughout the 2000s and 2010s. • The Modern Adopters: they were building directly on top of the foundation Winkler laid decades earlier. Winkler's work proved that a dog didn't need to look away from the decoy or decoy's sleeve to be obedient. Instead, the dog could look directly at what they wanted most, bottle that explosive desire, and use the obedience itself as the "trigger" to get it. Unfortunately, many now use the term, “capping”, incorrectly and are actually using suppression, the complete opposite of, and violation of, what capping was meant to describe. 

 

My Early Exposure

 

I first heard Armin Winkler use the term, capping, when I first started working with him around 1999. He already had a firm definition and application of capping and was using it in his training. I learned the term from him. And when I tried to explain it to Schutzhund club members, they didn’t understand it and thought it was suppression… regardless of how I explained it or demonstrated it. So, there was a lot of resistance to changing minds then, and the same mistakes are being made today. 

 

I still use capping today in my work with pet dogs, and have taken it beyond my early education. It has broader applications than just in the sport world, where I first used it. How I use it today is something better put into a separate article or seminar. Further, Armin has never been one to stand still, and he has taken capping even further these days, well beyond what we were discussing back then.

 

If you meditate on a concept, and work with it for many years, it grows and matures. You will read this article and still not master it for many years. 

 

What Do Dog Trainers Mean by “Drive”?

 

Before discussing drive capping, it helps to understand what working-dog trainers mean when they use the word drive.

 

In dog training, drive refers to a biologically grounded motivational system that organizes a dog's attention, behavior, and physiological responses toward achieving a particular goal. It is more than excitement, energy, or enthusiasm. A drive influences what the dog wants to accomplish, which behaviors it is inclined to perform, and how persistently it pursues an objective.

 

The concept has a long history in European working-dog training, particularly in German training traditions, where the term Trieb has been used to describe different motivational systems. Three familiar examples are:

 

• Prey drive: The motivation to detect, pursue, capture, and possess prey or prey-like objects. Selective breeding has modified how this drive is expressed in different types of dogs, including retrievers, herding dogs, and protection dogs.
• Defense drive: The motivation to confront or resist a perceived threat. Unlike prey drive, which is organized around pursuit and acquisition, defense drive is concerned with neutralizing or stopping a threat.
• Pack drive: The motivation to maintain social relationships, proximity, and cooperation with valued members of a social group, including human handlers.

 

These are not simply different names for excitement. They describe different motivational objectives, which can produce very different behaviors even when the dog's outward level of arousal appears similar.

 

For example, a dog pursuing a moving toy may be expressing prey motivation. A dog confronting a threatening individual may be expressing defensive motivation. A dog searching for its missing handler may be motivated by social attachment or what working-dog trainers have traditionally called pack drive.

 

The distinction matters because the same outward appearance does not necessarily indicate the same underlying motivation. Barking, pulling, biting, or intense focus can occur for different reasons.

 

Drives also interact with learning. A dog can learn when, where, and how to express behaviors associated with an active drive. However, learning does not necessarily eliminate the underlying motivation.

 

This brings us to Armin Winkler's concept of drive capping. When a dog is strongly motivated to pursue an objective, the trainer may need that dog to temporarily delay or modify its actions without losing its motivation. A protection dog, for example, may need to remain under the handler's direction while still intensely motivated to engage the helper. That is the essential distinction behind capping: regulating the expression of drive while preserving the motivation itself. Further, the dog is capping, the handler isn’t making the dog cap.

 

A dog that remains still because its motivation has been suppressed is not necessarily demonstrating the same thing as a dog that has learned to control its actions while remaining highly motivated.

 

Understanding that difference is fundamental to appreciating what Armin Winkler was explaining in his original writings.

 

An important scientific distinction: Drive terminology is widely used in working-dog practice, but these categories are functional descriptions of motivational systems, not proof that each drive corresponds to a single, independent neurological circuit.

 

What Is Drive Capping?

 

Imagine a working dog intensely focused on something it wants. Perhaps it is a protection dog anticipating an opportunity to engage a helper, or a sport dog waiting to be released to perform an exercise. The dog is highly motivated. It wants to act. Now imagine asking that dog to remain under the handler's direction without losing the motivation that makes its performance so powerful. That is the challenge drive capping is intended to address.

 

In his article Only the Nose Really Knows, Part 4, Armin described capping as the dog's ability to follow the handler's directions while continuing to maintain its drive.

 

The important distinction is that the dog remains motivated even though it is temporarily prevented from expressing that motivation through action. This is different from simply suppressing behavior.

 

Capping Is Not the Same as Shutting a Dog Down

 

One of the most important points in Armin's writings is that capping can be misunderstood and improperly applied.

 

A dog might remain perfectly still because it understands the exercise and is waiting for the opportunity to act. Another dog might look almost identical but actually be inhibited, intimidated, confused, or experiencing conflict. The outward appearance of obedience does not necessarily tell us what is happening inside the dog.

 

In Protection Obedience: A Closer Look, Armin explained how easily trainers can mistake forceful obedience for successful capping.

 

His point was that simply compelling a dog to remain in position does not establish that its drive has been maintained. In fact, excessive pressure may diminish the very motivation the trainer was attempting to preserve. This is an important distinction for anyone training working dogs.

 

You can see online trainers tell their students, “now, cap your dog”. They then use a leash and collar, or e-collar, to implement that instruction. That isn’t capping. They are doing it wrong. And the side effects can be very… hmmm…. let’s use the word, undesirable. And create a lot of other problems for the dog.

 

Why Is Drive Capping So Difficult?

 

In Prey Drive Promotion, Part II, Armin discusses the difficulties involved in maintaining drive during obedience.

 

He acknowledges that successful capping requires considerable skill and that the technique is not nearly as simple as it might sound. The handler must understand the individual dog, its motivation, its training history, and the effects of obedience on its performance.

 

A dog that is intensely motivated to pursue something may not automatically understand why it must first remain still or perform another exercise. The trainer's responsibility is to teach that relationship without unnecessarily diminishing the dog's willingness to work. And not every dog responds to the same approach.

 

That is one reason I believe Armin's original writings are worth reading rather than relying on a brief definition or a demonstration taken out of context or listening to or following someone who is already doing it wrong.

 

Capping Applies to More Than Protection Work

 

Although the terminology is frequently associated with protection training, Armin also discussed its relevance to tracking, retrieving, and other Schutzhund exercises.

 

The common issue is the relationship between motivation and the dog's ability to follow learned directions. A highly motivated dog may need to delay an action, change its behavior, or wait for a release while remaining engaged in the task. Understanding the difference between maintained motivation, frustration, inhibition, and genuine learned control is essential.

 

It is also worth remembering that drive is terminology drawn from working-dog training traditions. It should not automatically be treated as a precise measurement of a single biological or neurological process. It is more complex than that.

 

Where Can You Read Armin Winkler's Original Articles?

 

Rather than relying entirely on secondhand explanations, I encourage working-dog trainers and serious students of canine behavior to read Armin's own words.

These are especially useful starting points:

1. Protection Obedience: A Closer Look ,  Part 2

One of the most directly relevant discussions of capping, including the distinction between maintaining drive and suppressing behavior.

https://siriusdog.com/schutzhund-protection-obedience-winkler-2/

2. Prey Drive Promotion, Part II

Discusses the relationship between obedience, motivation, and the dog's ability to return to intense work after a control exercise.

https://siriusdog.com/prey-drive-schutzhund-promotion-winkler2/

3. Only the Nose Really Knows ,  Part 4

Explains how the capping concept applies beyond protection work, particularly in tracking.

https://siriusdog.com/dog-tracking-winkler-schutzhund-4/

4. Articles by Armin Winkler ,  SamTheDogTrainer.com

 

I have also maintained a collection of references to Armin's writings on my own website. These cover prey drive, defense drive, protection obedience, gripping, tracking, and other working-dog subjects.

https://samthedogtrainer.com/articles/articles-by-armin-winkler/

 

Giving Credit Where It Is Due

 

Dog training terminology changes over time. Expressions become popular, their meanings sometimes evolve, and eventually people may forget where they first encountered them.

 

I have known Armin for many years, and I wanted to acknowledge his contribution to the language and practice of working-dog training. 

 

But there is a more important reason to revisit his work.

 

Understanding a training term requires more than knowing its definition. We also need to understand the reasoning, limitations, and practical observations behind it.

 

Armin's articles provide that deeper explanation.

 

If you are interested in drive capping, I recommend starting with his original writings. They offer considerably more substance than the abbreviated explanations of the concept that circulate today.

 

Sam Basso is a professional dog trainer and behaviorist serving the Phoenix, Arizona area. He writes about canine behavior, learning, development, and the practical application of dog training principles.

 

Are Babies and Puppies Really That Different? What Attachment Science Can Teach Us

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.