By Sarah Groves Dog Training - your puppy training specialist covering Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea
When you think about making sure your pup has a good socialisation experience, what's the first thing that comes to mind?
For the majority, socialisation means - 'My dog needs to be good with other dogs, so I need to attend puppy classes for my dog to play with other puppies.'
HOWEVER, this is NOT what effective socialisation looks like.
So, if socialisation ISN'T about playing with other puppies, what exactly is it?
Socialisation is all about exposing your pup to different situations, providing different positive or neutral experiences, and building confidence while also teaching behaviours that are going to be 'socially acceptable' in society.
By allowing your puppy to meet and greet all of the dogs that you come accross at a young and impressionable age, what lesson is your pup learning?
From my experience, here is what tends to happen:
1) Your pup will start to build an expectation that every dog is a friend that they haven't met yet - and will NEED to meet everyone on a walk. This can seem cute at a young age, but there will be a point where your pup cannot meet and greet a dog.
2) Frustration will build - a dog who cannot meet and greet another dog when they expect to will become very frustrated. A frustrated dog can become very stressed, and this can manifest into a dog who barks and lunges at the sight of another dog when kept on the lead.
3) Your dog will start to associate other dogs with FUN TIMES - causing recall to totally go out of the window when they are off lead.
4) Your dog will be unable to relax around other dogs - making days out at the coffee shop an embarrassing mission.
So, what can a new puppy owner do to build a positive or neutral socialisation experience?
There are soooo many things that you can do BEFORE your pup is fully vaccinated!
1) Carry your puppy around the streets - take some tasty treats with you, or some of your pups own food allowance. Allow your puppy to observe and soak in the environment, and every now and then pop a treat in their mouth to pair up these experiences with something that makes them feel good.
Exposures such as this should be short and not overwhelming for the puppy.
A good test to see if puppy is overwhelmed is if you offer food and they refuse to eat it - if this happens, take puppy out of the situation to avoid building negative experiences.
2) Expose your puppy to different sounds throughout the day - go onto youtube and search for some sounds that your pup will likely hear in their lifetime that you want them to be comfortable with - sounds can include firework noises, traffic noises, children and general domestic noises. The dogs trust have a great soundtrack for this.
When playing the sounds, start at a low volume which puppy is comfortable with - you should not see any response to pup.
Over time, gradually turn the volume up.
3) Play 'the random objects game'
The random objects game is a fantastic way of building up confidence and allows your puppy to explore different textures, heights and surfaces at their own pace.
It will also give you a good idea of what your pup loves and maybe be a bit uncertain about at the moment.
The random objects game is easy:
1) find a wide variety of different objects around the house
For example:
An umbrella
A garden orniament
A plant pot
A cardboard box
A cat tunnel
2) Place these objects into a room or in the garden when the pup is preoccupied.
We want there to be objects that the pup can step up on, pop their head into and generally explore.
3) Place some food around, on and inside the objects.
4) Allow your puppy to go and explore at their own pace - leave them to do this by themselves.
5) Observe your puppy's interactions with the objects.
You might find that your puppy is totally happy with exploring all of the objects OR you might find that your puppy is a little reluctant with some objects over others.
Keep note of how your pup interacts and try again with different or similar objects another day.
The more your pup is able to explore at a pace which they feel comfortable with, the more they will start to realise that strange looking objects are just a normal part of day to day life and is nothing to worry about!
Once your puppy is fully vaccinated
This is when the real fun begins!
If you want a pup that you CAN take out to dog friendly coffee shops and establishments with no fuss, have a think about what behaviours you would like to see from your dog in those situations.
Behaviours or skills needed may include:
- Lie down and relax
- Observe or ignore distractions in the environment
- The ability to focus on you when you ask for the attention
- Sit to greet people who may approach
Start teaching the skills that you want from your dog at home, and then start to repeat this training in different environments such as on a park bench.
But what about meeting other dogs?
If you are happy for your puppy to say hello to another dog where the owner has given permissiion to say hi, then of course we don't want to take this part totally out of the equasion - it's about finding the right balance between saying hi to some dogs and then having the ability to ignore and relax around other dogs too!