Socializing Your Puppy

What makes some dogs eager to meet new people, try new experiences, and do new things while others seem to hang back, become frightened, and even bite or run away? In part, these differences are influenced by genes. The only thing you can do to influence them is to choose your puppy from an outgoing family. But these differences are also influenced by experiences, and especially by early experiences. The process of exposing a puppy to the experiences he'll encounter later in life is called socialization.

Socialization begins within the litter. Dogs that are separated from their dam and littermates too early have a hard time interpreting dog language, or knowing how to interact properly with other dogs. Canine behaviorists believe the best time for puppies to go to their new homes is at 7 to 8 weeks of age, after they’ve learned about being dogs but before they begin to become fearful of novel situations.

Puppies start off life relatively fearless, but at about 5 weeks of age, they gradually start to get more cautious of new situations and people. Sometime after 12 weeks of age the fear response becomes the dominant one, making it difficult for the puppy to accept new situations he has never before experienced. This means that you have a deadline to meet; a deadline before which you need to make sure your puppy has experienced a wide range of people, places and things to prepare him for the rest of his life. This is the process of socialization.

But how do you get your puppy out and about when he hasn't finished his series of puppy vaccinations? There are lots of new experiences that don’t involve being around potentially unvaccinated dogs. Going for car rides, hanging out at the post office entrance, shopping at stores that allow but don't attract dogs (some hardware and office supply stores allow dogs), playing at a kid's playground (be sure your puppy doesn't leave any mess), and visiting dogless neighbors are all safe methods of accomplishing some, but not all, socialization. No matter what, don't take chances by exposing your puppy to stray dogs or places where stray dogs frequent, or to any place unvaccinated or ill dogs might have been (some disease-causing organisms can survive in the soil and on other surfaces for months). The dog park will have to wait.

Think of 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 him, chances are he will continue to like children. But if the child who fell on him was the first child he ever met, he might conclude that children are dangerous and develop a fear of them. Good experiences are like inoculations against future bad experiences.

This is why it’s so vital to have as many guaranteed good experiences as possible before taking chances on having bad ones. The more you can control your dog’s first encounters and outings, the better your chance of preventing him from forming bad associations before he’s had a chance to form good ones.

When it comes to socialization, it’s the quality, not quantity, 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 past the point that he’s scared. Fear is easy to learn but hard to unlearn.

Your aim is to have your puppy comfortable around new people, dogs, other animals, places, and situations. Introduce him to different floorings, stairs, car rides, and things he’ll be doing later in life.

Remember, you want introductions to go well, so it’s a good idea if you have control over how meetings go. Ask friends to come over and to greet the puppy as strangers should, which means kneeling down and rubbing him under the chin or on the chest. You’ll want your puppy to meet men, women, people in wheelchairs, people with canes, and people of all races, ages and sizes. He should walk up and down stairs, across all sorts of surfaces, and hear a variety of sounds.

Don’t take your puppy to a crowd with the idea of letting him meet lots of people at once. He could be stepped on, or people could start trying to reach for him to pet him all at once, and he could end up being terrified. It’s better for your puppy to meet a few well chosen people under good circumstances than a horde of humans under overwhelming circumstances.

Don't stop socializing just because your puppy has reached the 12 week milestone. He needs refresher exposures over the next months in order to be all that he can be.