Are classes all I need to socialise my puppy?
What is socialisation?
Socialisation of your puppy is introducing your puppy to a new stimulus, both living and environmental.
Puppy classes will guard your dog against a number of behaviour issues and are the training foundations for a long and contented life with your dog, they will help with socialisation but classes are not the only place to socialise your pup.
There can be a feeling amongst new puppy owners that they need to introduce their dog to every person and dog they meet, this isn’t true and can lead to negative experiences for your puppy.
Socialisation should be taken gently, at the puppies pace, this is how we ensure the interactions your pup has with the world are positive.
Let your puppy sit and watch, if you have taken them to a park, for instance, let them watch the other dogs, watch the children playing. Be your puppies ambassador and don’t let everyone play and pet them.
Impose a rule of three, first ignore, second watch, third interact.
Talk to people, give 1 in 3 of the ones that you interact with a piece of your pups daily food ration to feed the pup.
Share the love, make it so you share these interactions between all different walks of life, men, women, different ethnicities, people with walking aids, beards, hats etc.
Do the same with dogs, look at breed and form, did you know a lot of dogs have problems with flat faced breeds?
Keep sessions short, let your puppy rest and have time to process its day, try not to let the pup get over excited or tired when playing.
We need to be careful not to flood the dog, this means overwhelming your dog with stimulus which can cause the dog to want to escape and not be able to, making the fear worse.
Socialisation isn’t just to people and animals it is also all novel items in the environment, items, flooring, smells, sounds.
Let your pup explore at their pace, if the dog is worried about an object, go and interact with it yourself by touching it, don’t make it ‘live’ or exciting, just interact with it and wait for your dog to approach it themselves, give reassurance and praise as the dog moves closer.
If your dog is worried by something take this as a genuine concern, its ok to comfort your dog, you are not going to make your dog learn to be scared by offering it comfort.
There are many lists in books and on the internet of items that behaviourists and trainers suggest you should socialise your dog to, some of these lists are very long and would lead to a very hectic life for the little pup.
Think about the life you and your dog are going to have, make those areas a priority, will your dog travel in the car or on public transport? Will they be exposed to other animals? Children? Crowds and noise?
Think about walking on different surfaces, what about metal or glass? Has your dog ever encountered these.
Expose your dog to wet, stand them on the bath or a paddling pool add water slowly and feed tasty foods whilst you do being encouraging throughout.
There are somethings that are best to socialise your dog to as they will be a part of your dogs life and as a trainer I see these time after time as problems, that is the vet and fireworks.
Go to the vets when you don’t need to, hang about in the car park and reception, encourage the vet staff to feed your pup parts of their daily food allowance.
Mitchell et al 2012 found that exposure at a low volume to a firework sounds CD, played in puppy class prevented fear responses to fireworks as the dog grew up.
If you come across anything novel in the environment take that as a socialisation training opportunity. Socialisation doesn’t only have to occur outside of the house think about what in the house the dog may need to experience, the vacuum cleaner, washing machine, that the doorbell isn’t for them.
Many of you would have heard about a puppies socialisation period, this was studied and documented by Scott and Fuller of Bar Harbour Maine 1945-1958, they studied many litters of puppies of different breeds and discovered that puppies need human interaction before they are 12 weeks old or they will always be fearful and nervous of people, the interaction could be as little of 20 minutes a week and didn’t require either party to have physical contact with each other.
Interestingly, puppies removed from the litter at birth and given no dog interaction until they were 16 weeks old, when placed back with their litters found that they didn’t know how to interact the other dogs, at the same time they showed no dog aggression issues.
What about our older dogs?
If you have a rescue dog or perhaps you missed a socialisation step with your dog when they were a pup? Don’t worry, with time patience confidence and optimism games will help your dog, classes will really boost dogs confidence just because your dog is older it doesn’t mean it has to live with worry from a lack of experience as a pup it just requires a slightly different approach.
