Let’s talk about socialization
Surprisingly, and contrary to common pet owner belief, it does not mean letting your dog meet every dog or person that you see in public. This practice is actually not a good idea for several reasons.
Let’s start with the dog aspect. You don’t want to let your puppy meet other dogs in public for two main reasons. First, you don’t know which dogs are vaccinated and which aren’t, so when your puppy is not fully vaccinated yet, you risk their health. Second, you do not know which dogs are friendly and which aren’t. Even if the other person says their dog is friendly, they may not be reading their dog’s behavior correctly and their dog could hurt your puppy. Even if the puppy does not get hurt physically, this can traumatize them and stay with them for a long time and possibly lead to dog reactivity down the road. The third reason, which is important, but not about safety per se, is that you want your dog to think you are the coolest thing in the room. If you let your puppy interact with every dog that they see, they will find dogs in the environment more exciting than you which can lead to difficulty engaging with them or getting their attention.
There are also a couple of reasons you shouldn’t let every person in public say hi to your puppy. First, you do not want your puppy to ever feel forced to be pet by someone. Your puppy needs to know that you have their back. If you let people pet the puppy when they’re not ready, they will eventually think they have to defend themselves or make the person go away by scaring or hurting them. Your dog should always know that you will never let anything bad happen to them so that they never feel the need to snap at or bite someone in order to control their environment. The second reason will sound familiar since I mentioned it before- you don’t want your dog to want to engage with other humans more than they want to engage with you. Be the coolest thing in the room.
So, if socialization doesn’t mean meeting other people and dogs, what does it mean?
It means your puppy should see, hear, smell and touch as many different things in the environment as possible. This means observing (not necessarily being touched by) people with hats, sunglasses, umbrellas, beards, wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, big coats, backpacks, masks, anything they might see a person with or wearing at any given time in their lives. Also seeing people running, walking, people on bicycles, scooters, skateboards and skates. It means hearing a lot of different noises including but not limited to leaf blowers, lawn mowers, low flying airplanes, the big saws in a home improvement store, big crowds (observing them from the outside, not being in the middle of them), creaking of any sort, dogs barking, sounds of chickens or livestock- whatever you can access in your particular environment. It means walking on different surfaces such as grates, solid sewer tops that clunk underneath them, shiny floors, carpet, rubber matting, concrete, flat carts at a home improvement or feed and tack store, the tactile strips at sloping curbs used to show visually impaired people that they are approaching the street and any other surface you can think of.
Get creative!
In order to accomplish this during the critical socialization period, which is 4-16 weeks (though you won’t have your puppy until at least 8 weeks) you have to make the most of your first 8 weeks with your puppy. Bring them out and about as often as possible, but at least 4 times a week even if it’s only a 5 minute outing. At this age, shorter is usually better.
But, your puppy isn’t fully vaccinated yet, so where can you bring them that is safe?
Try pet friendly locations that have low dog traffic. Instead of bringing them to an actual pet store, bring them to a local feed and tack or home improvement store. Instead of bringing them to a dog park, which I never recommend no matter what age your dog is, set up a play date at your home with a vaccinated and safe dog that you know well. Of course you should be conscious of diseases that lurk in the environment in regards to your new puppy, but as long as you are smart about where you take your puppy the pros outweigh the cons of keeping your puppy at home until they are 4 months old. Some rules of thumb include- don’t let them go anywhere that a dog may have pooped, carry them into the vet office when getting vaccinations or exams, don’t bring them into high traffic dog environments like Petco, Petsmart, etc.. I’ve been involved in veterinary medicine and I have also been a professional dog trainer and here are your choices:
1). Keep your puppy at home until they are 4 months old and have all their vaccinations. BUT your puppy will have completely missed their critical socialization period and will be much more likely to be fearful of people, dogs and the environment and be at risk to bite out of fear.
2). Socialize your puppy in clean and safe environments with a small risk of disease (as long as you are smart as to where you take them) but a HUGE difference in how they interact with their environment as an adult and have a well balanced dog who is at a much lower risk of biting or being fearful (depending on their genetics).
Here is an analogy to help you understand why this process is SO vital to your puppy’s socialization. Think of everything your puppy encounters as a file. Up until they are 16 weeks the filing cabinet is wide open and they are putting everything they encounter into their filing cabinet for later use. When they encounter something as an adult they can look in their filing cabinet and say, ‘oh, that’s no big deal’. Or, they will come up blank and choose fear or aggression to get through the situation. Once they turn 16 weeks the filing cabinet closes and you will never be able to create that filing cabinet for your dog. Basically, you can shove some papers underneath the door, but you’ll never have the same filing system as if they had these experiences as a young puppy.
Lastly, there is a wrong and a right way to socialize your puppy even when following these guidelines. You do not want to overload your puppy so much that they shut down or force your puppy into something they’re terrified of or socialization will have the opposite of the desired effect. When you are out socializing your puppy seeing if they will take food or respond to their name are good ways to check for their state of mind. If they take food and respond to their name, great! If they won’t take food and won’t respond to their name, get farther away from the situation or just take them home and try again tomorrow. There are a lot of nuances to socialization and doing the process correctly, so please contact a reputable trainer for guidance on specifics with how to interact with your puppy when you are following these socialization guidelines. If you are unsure of what trainer to contact, please let me know and I will do my best to try and help you locate someone reputable in your area.
This post is not meant to be a complete guide to socializing your puppy. Here are some links I recommend to help you if you'd like to learn more about socialization:
Happy socializing!
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