What is Puppy Socialization?
Puppy Training Classes & Other Tips Can Create Good Experiences for Dogs
Think of puppy socialization as “puppy shots” for the mind. If your puppy has lots of good experiences with children, and, one day, a child accidentally falls on her, chances are she will continue to like children—but if the child who fell on her was the first child she ever met, she might conclude that children are dangerous and develop a fear of them.
Good experiences are like inoculations against future bad experiences, and you teach good experiences through daily socialization or, in some cases, puppy training classes. Consider the story of Scooter, who needed a case of puppy kindergarten fast.
What Happens Without Socialization?
“Scooter, no!” Laurie yelled at her scruffy terrier mix, but it was too late. Scooter lunged at a stranger, a man who had tried to pet her.
Laurie pulled her back, mortified, as Scooter’s teeth clicked in the air. Laurie didn’t understand why Scooter was so afraid of people—or that she had made Scooter that way by failing to provide him with adequate puppy socialization.
Scooter had been sick at about eight weeks old, and, although the pup recovered quickly, Laurie was uneasy about taking her anywhere she might encounter germs until her vaccinations were complete. Laurie decided to shield Scooter inside the house. She thought she was doing the right thing until, at four months old, Laurie finally introduced Scooter to the real world. Scooter was terrified. It wasn’t Scooter’s fault—she had never received the most important inoculation of all, that against fear of the unknown. She hadn’t been socialized.
When Is The Best Puppy Socialization Period?
Puppies start off life relatively fearless, but, at about five weeks of age, they start to get more cautious of new situations and people. Sometime after 12 weeks of age, the fear response becomes dominant, making it difficult for the puppy to accept new situations she has never experienced before.
This means that you have a deadline for puppy socialization. You must introduce your puppy to a wide enough range of people, places, and things to prepare her for the rest of her life. In her first 20 weeks of age, your puppy should see, feel, hear, and experience just about everything she will ever come across.
Puppy training classes can be a good place to start the exposure, but life is its own puppy kindergarten, too—if Laurie had taken Scooter outside as a puppy, she would have been socialized more naturally.
Not only does the puppy have to experience things, the experiences should all be positive. The more you can control your dog’s first encounters and outings, the better your chance of preventing her from forming bad associations before she has had a chance to form good ones.
How to Socialize Your Puppy
It’s the quality, not quantity, of puppy socialization that counts. Good intentions can too often lead to bad results if you overwhelm your pup.
As with all things puppy, you need to introduce new experiences gradually, never pushing your puppy to the point of fear. Your goal is to make your puppy comfortable around strange people, dogs, animals, places, and situations. Introduce her to different types of flooring, stairs, car rides, playgrounds, and things she’ll be doing and seeing later in life. Introduce her to places with loud noises, like construction sites, and play fun games during thunderstorms.
You want introductions to go well, so it’s a good idea if you have control over the meetings. Puppy training classes are a great place to meet other puppies and their owners or you can ask friends to come over and greet the puppy by kneeling down and rubbing her under the chin or on the chest. Have your friends wear sunglasses, hats, and high heels (maybe not all at once—puppies do have some sense of fashion). Your puppy should meet young people, old people, men, women, people in wheelchairs, people with canes, and people of all races and sizes.
Don’t take your puppy to a crowd with the idea of letting her meet lots of people at once. She could be stepped on, or people may try to pet her all at once, and she could become terrified. Your puppy doesn’t have to go on a campaign tour to meet hundreds of strangers. Meeting a few well-chosen people under good circumstances is more valuable than meeting a horde of humans under overwhelming circumstances. Ideally, however, she should meet hundreds of new people in her first 20 weeks of life.
Can the lack of puppy socialization ever be made up? Yes, but not entirely. Laurie is still working with Scooter, introducing her to one well-chosen stranger at a time. What could have been an easy learning experience has turned into a major challenge for Laurie and Scooter. Fortunately, Laurie isn’t backing down, and she has pledged to do better with her next puppy.
Caroline Coile, PhD, is an award-winning author of 26 books about dogs. Her own dogs have been top ranked in show, obedience, agility and coursing competitions, but she most enjoys the time she shares with them at home.