05/03/2021
This is important for every puppy, but even more so for service dog prospects!
Let’s talk about socialization
What do you think of when you hear “socialize your puppy”?
Surprisingly it does not mean to let your dog meet every dog or person that you see in public. This 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, 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 correctly and their dog could try to attack 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 dog go up to every dog that they see, they will find dogs in the environment more exciting than you and you will have a hard time engaging with them.
There are a couple of reasons you don’t need to let your puppy say hi to everyone in public as well. First being that 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 and if you let people pet the puppy when they’re not ready, they will think they have to defend themselves eventually. 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 defend themselves. The second being the same as the last thing I mentioned in the dog category- 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, 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 the first 8 weeks you have your puppy by bringing 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?
Bring them to pet friendly locations that have low dog traffic, instead of bringing them to Petsmart 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. 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. 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 or Petsmart. 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 socialization period and will be much more likely to be fearful of people, dogs and the environment and be at a bite risk 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 smaller bite risk 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 every thing 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 can train all you want, but you’ll 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 shutdown or force your puppy into something they’re terrified of or this socialization will have the opposite of the desired effect. For this reason, please contact a balanced trainer for guidance on specifics on 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.
-Morgan Quick
Owner of Swarlz Haus LLC
