Puppy Socialization

You can basically never do too much!  The more sights, sounds, smells, etc. that your pup is around, the better off you’ll be. 

The socialization process actually begins while the puppy is still with its littermates.  Puppies begin to learn bite inhibition and clues to interpreting body posture or other dog’s intentions.  Make sure to avoid a puppy that has been removed from a litter before 7 weeks old or that was a single puppy if possible. Temperament testing of puppies (such as the Volhard puppy temperament test available at www.volhard.com ) is also done at 7 weeks of age and is highly recommended in your selection process for a puppy.

Some breeders prefer to keep their puppies longer than seven weeks.  This may be fine if the breeder can offer as much socialization to each puppy as you, the new owner, could provide.  There is nothing to gain by leaving a puppy with a breeder who is working long days or has no children to expose the puppies to.  If a breeder would like to keep the puppy past this period daily visits to see the puppy and taking them out of their usual surrounding may provide a great compromise.

After your puppy has arrived home try to ensure that the puppy has many positive experiences in different situations.  For example, choose kids that have had experience with dogs to play with your puppy rather than a child that has the potential to drop a puppy on its head or be too rough with it.  I would consider supervision essential to avoid any unnecessary traumatic experiences for your new puppy.

If a puppy is nervous about a situation, don’t avoid it, but try to tone the situation down to a level that the puppy can deal with it.  Associate positive stimulation along with the stressful situation until the puppy seems more excited about the food (or toy) than being nervous.  Then, very slowly, increase the stimulus over a series of steps until you have reached the original level that originally the puppy had a hard time dealing with.

Don’t let the fear of your dog catching a “bug” stop or delay the start of your socialization process. Before 6 months old, and even more importantly the age before 16 weeks old are considered critical times in socialization.  If your dog doesn’t have the appropriate exposure during these time periods they will not reach there full genetic potential for dealing with new people, dogs, and stressful situations.  Unless your dog has been immunologically compromised, the natural maternal immunity and puppy vaccine series should keep your puppy healthy. The benefits of socialization will outweigh the low risk of catching a disease.  Of course, use common sense and avoid areas that are known to be infected with certain diseases, such as the yard of a puppy that has recently had parvovirus.

Try to use a checklist of all of the aspects of socialization that this particular dog should be exposed to (depending on if the dog will be a pet, working/performance dog, or show dog).  Try to give the puppy as many exposures to these areas.  Here are some ideas: