When Is the Best Age to Socialize a Puppy?
The best age to socialize a dog is when they are a puppy. The exact age to start taking a young puppy out beyond the home is controversial in the training community, but a good rule of thumb is to wait until all of the rounds of puppy shots have developed the appropriate antibodies in the puppys body to help the puppy avoid any lethal viruses. A discussion with your vet will clear up the timetable for this to occur.
As with all socialization, it is extremely important that the experiences the young puppy receives are positive. As such, it is the owners responsibility to make sure the pup isnt scared during socialization. All stimuli presented to the puppy should be as controlled as possible to help teach the puppy that the noises and experiences in the great world are not to be feared, but tackled with confidence. At this stage of life, frightening experiences during socialization can have the opposite effect, causing fears and aggressions to increase.
Owners should be vigilant for potentially frightening noises, out of control dogs, falling objects, or any other stimulus that a puppy might find scary. An owner should also take into consideration a puppys individual temperament when deciding what might be frightening. For some puppies, a motorcycle going by at close range might cause extreme fear, while for other puppies, it might elicit a desire to play. It is up to the owner to quickly learn the limits of their individual puppy and pay strict attention to keeping the puppys socialization experiences as positive as possible and within the fear threshold of their pup.
When socializing, always keep in mind you are making a positive impression on the dog. As such, be ready to have fun! Bring along treats, toys, your best “lets play” attitude, lots of scratches, and tons of excitement. Socialization time isnt work—it should be playtime. So bring anything you know your dog loves, and go see the world.
Doing daily dog socialization work allowed Laika to earn her first blue ribbon!
Are Some Dog Breeds Prone to Nervousness?
Often, a pet’s fear stems from a specific noise, situation, dog, or person. Sometimes, the source is unknown. In these cases, the dog may simply be prone to nervous behavior. Dog breeds that are more likely to be fearful include:
For a full list of breeds in the Toy Group, check out the American Kennel Club’s comprehensive list. Small pooches often have an intense loyalty to their owners or families, though these dogs may feel uncomfortable around people they aren’t familiar with.
One crucial part of socialization is knowing which dog breeds do well with each other. A toy breed and a Terrier, for example, may not be best pals straight away. This is because Terrier breeds often have a high prey drive, and toy dogs can occasionally resemble prey.
Take some time to slowly introduce different breeds to each other, going at whatever pace the dogs are comfortable with. We’ll cover some more tips to guide this process later in the article.
Sensitive soul or shy guy?
In the past, I volunteered to assess dogs for adoption at our local shelter, where my husband was executive director, one day a week, . When we got the list of dogs for the day, the first thing I did was walk through the kennels and take a quick glance at the ones we’d be working with, to get a first impression. I made a mental note of those who appeared shy, frightened, or aggressive.
Some of these we wouldn’t even take out of their kennels, if we felt a dog’s level of aggression or fearfulness was such that it was too great a risk to the safety of the assessor. However, I always liked to give the frightened ones an extra chance. I would go in and sit on the kennel floor, and coax them to trust me enough to say hi. If I could safely leash them, we took them out.
A surprising percentage of these frightened dogs made a miraculous turnaround as soon as we got them outside. These were simply very sensitive dogs who were traumatized by the cacophony that can exist in any kennel environment, be it shelter, vet hospital, or boarding kennel. I like sensitive dogs; they tend to develop close relationships with their humans, make excellent companions, and do exceptionally well in training. They just don’t do well in chaos. Assuming they pass the rest of the assessment process, these sensitive souls are good candidates for adoption.
If they have to sit in the shelter adoption kennels waiting for a home, however, they won’t show well – and will probably wait in that difficult environment for an excruciatingly long time. Under the constant stress of the shelter, their health and behavior are likely to deteriorate until they are no longer suitable adoption candidates. If they can be adopted quickly, or go to a foster home or rescue group where they don’t have to be kenneled in chaos, their prospects for finding a lifelong loving home and leading a normal life are bright.
Far more challenging are the dogs who are truly shy due to lack of adequate socialization, poor breeding, or both. Simply taking them outside or to the relative calm of the assessment room does little to assuage their fear. Unless a shelter or rescue group has considerable resources to devote to behavior modification, or turns a blind eye and allows them to be adopted by an unsuspecting soft-hearted public, these frightened dogs are often euthanized. As long as there are far more dogs than there are homes, triage tragically dictates that the most promising adoption prospects get dibs on the available kennel space and foster homes.
Learn how to help your fearful dog with my 5 keys to fixing fear
Got a scared puppy? Almost all new dog owners know its a good idea to socialize their young puppy. They envision a happy puppy getting treats from cooing kids and being gently petted by elderly folks. But what happens when this goes wrong? Youve got your adorable puppy and your willing greeters but the puppy is getting anxious. What if your shy puppy wants nothing to do with these well meaning people?
My dog trainer colleague Aryn Hervel and I were discussing just this situation and I wanted to share her ideas which I dont think are mainstream and can be very helpful for shy puppies.
When you have a scared puppy that is fearful of people, keep up your socializing efforts, but with a twist. Your new goal is to work on making people “no big deal”.
To begin making people “no big deal” take your puppy for a walk and simply walk past people without stopping. If the people want to stop and pet puppy, tell them “No, sorry hes in training right now.” Another way to do this is to sit at an outdoor cafe table and allow your puppy to sit underneath, that way the puppy can watch the people without be noticed by most of them and if they do come close he can retreat if he needed to or you can toss a treat under there if someone is a bit difficult in taking no for an answer about interacting with your puppy.
If your puppy barks at people, ignore the barking and move away to a place to give your puppy distance from the people. Slowly work at lessening the distance.
Harness the power of “cookies” to speed up the process! When your puppy notices a stranger approaching, call your dogs name and when he looks at you, say “yes” or click a clicker and reward with your puppys favorite treat. This accomplishes two things: First, it helps with your training your puppy to pay attention to you even when distracted and second, it associates strangers with yummy treats. (For best results, practice this at home first. Call your puppys name and when he looks at you feed him a treat. Check out our article on Name Response for more tips.)
With several sessions of practice of making people “no big deal”, your puppy should start to feel more comfortable with people coming and going around him. Continue not allowing people to greet your puppy until you start to see him getting interested in other people and perhaps begin to want to go up to people and greet them. At this point it is important to be very careful that your newly sociable puppy does not get in over his or her head. Ideally, his first social experience after coming out of his shell a bit should be with someone who is low key. If your puppy moves away from the person or shows anything less than clear happy interest dont allow petting or interaction. The bottom line is that the person should leave the puppy wanting more of their attention.
Once you puppy has a few experiences of interacting with low key strangers and that is going well you will be ready to start introducing your puppy to more and more types of people. (Check out our socialization article for hints on how to do). The key is to not allow people to go overboard and scare your puppy by picking him or her up or being really loud and effusive. Always remember the rule of leaving the puppy wanting more!
Happy socializing! Let us know if you have any comments for us. If you liked this article, please consider supporting our small business by becoming a customer or by sharing our site with your friends. Thanks! ~ Jess