28/06/2020
TRANSITIONS: SIMILARITIES BETWEEN REHOMING AND PUPPY DEVELOPMENT
This is Raven, who I have rehomed to me from Northumbria Police (our journey together, and the neuroscientific principles that underlie her transition into a pet home, will feature on this page going forward).
She was loved and well cared for by her handler and is a calm, affectionate beauty, but the transition from a working home to a pet home will necessarily involve a considerable amount of new learning and physiological adjustment. This phase will involve an increase in neuroplasticity as some connections strengthen, some weaken and new ones are formed between individual neurones and different brain areas. The number, density and location of hormone and neurotransmitter receptors will modify, along with the rates of production of those substances (much more on this later). All of these changes and more are to modify the processing and integration of sensory and non-sensory stimuli, modify the physiological responses to stimuli and support habituating (or automatising) new behaviours and bonding with me and my other dogs.
These processes (although less ‘flexible’ in the adult dog) are very similar to the processes occurring when you start exploring the outside world with a new puppy, as many people are now doing post lockdown.
Raven and I met Harvey the labradoodle this morning, a gorgeous, bouncy, happy puppy both excited and sensibly cautious about the big wide world. Harvey, having been in lockdown, is now at the upper end of his critical period for socialisation (arguably considered to be up to 16 weeks old). But his brain doesn’t stop developing at that age, and in fact this period has been functionally defined largely by deprivation studies ie depriving animals of social contact at various points during their development and showing that those deprived during the critical period suffer more negative impact in terms of behaviour outcome and brain development. Such data are not really applicable in Harvey’s case as he hasn’t been deprived of social contact at all, and has in fact been learning lots of social skills within his new home environment. His experience thus far serves him well, as he has progressed through his critical period for socialisation without an adverse event and was demonstrating some beautiful socially appropriate behaviours around both myself and Raven.
So the good news here is, yes it’s important to ensure puppies have positive social experiences during the critical period but that doesn’t necessitate them having all of their new social experiences at that time. And in fact, in terms of brain development what’s most important is that negative social experiences are avoided during this period of maximal neuronal flexibility, as the pro-social brain networks are coming on line and integrating with those involved in resilience and coping mechanisms.
Thank you Harvey and his dad for inspiring this post. And thank you Northumbria police for trusting me with Raven 💖🧠💖🧠
