12/03/2022
🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑socialising🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑
During your puppy’s first three months of life, they will experience a socialisation period that will permanently shape their future personality and how they will react to their environment as an adult dog. Gently exposing them to a wide variety of people, places, and situations now makes a huge, permanent difference in their temperament.
When you buy a puppy from a responsible breeder, the socialization process should start before you even bring your pet home. Gentle handling by the breeder in the first several weeks of your puppy’s life is helpful in the development of a friendly, confident dog. As early as three weeks of age, puppies may begin to approach a person who is passively observing them, so having a knowledgeable breeder who encourages a positive experience with people – adults and children — will help shape the puppy’s adult behavioUr. As their puppies develop, good breeders allow them to experience safe inside and outside environments, car rides, crates, sounds, and smells. The idea behind socialization is that you want to help your puppy become acclimated to all types of sights, sounds, and smells in a positive manner. Proper socialisation can prevent a dog from being fearful of children, for example, or of riding in a car. It will help them develop into a well-mannered, happy companion.
Having a dog who is well-adjusted and confident can even go as far as to save their life one day. improper socialisation can lead to behaviour problems later in life. Behaviour issues, not infectious diseases, are the number one cause of death for dogs under three years of age.” Start by taking your dog out to public places once your veterinarian says it is safe, and they will learn how to behave in a variety of situations and to enjoy interacting with different people.
As mentioned earlier, your breeder will start the socialisation process. When the puppy comes home with you, your job is to keep the process going. Here are basic steps to follow:
Introduce the puppy to new sights, sounds, and smells: To a puppy, the whole world is new, strange, and unusual, so think of everything they encounter as an opportunity to make a new, positive association. Try to produce as many different types of people, places, noises, and textures as you can and expose your puppy to them. That means, for instance, having them walk on carpet, hardwood, tile, and linoleum floors, meet a young and old person, someone in a wheelchair or using a cane, a person with a beard, wearing sunglasses or a hood, and using an umbrella.
Make it positive: Most importantly, when introducing all these new experiences to your puppy, make sure they are getting an appropriate number of treats and praise. As a result, the pet will associate what they are being exposed to with the feeling of seeing something new being a fun experience. Break treats into small pieces that will be easy for your puppy to digest. Also, try to remain calm — dogs can read our emotions. So, if you are nervous when introducing your puppy to an older dog, for example, your pet will be nervous, too, and may become fearful of other dogs in the future.
Involve the family: By having different people take part in the socialisation process, you continuously move the puppy out of their comfort zone. That lets the dog know that they might experience something new, no matter who they are with. Make it a fun game for kids by having them write down a list of everything new the puppy experienced that day while with them, such as “someone in a baseball cap” or “a emergency vehicle siren.”
Take baby steps: Try to avoid doing too much, too fast. For instance, if you want your puppy to get accustomed to being handled by multiple people they do not know, start with a few family members and slowly integrate one stranger, then two, and so on. Starting this process by taking your puppy to a huge party or a very busy public place can be overwhelming and result in a fearful response to groups of strangers in the future.
Take it public: Once your puppy is used to a small number of stimuli, move outside of their comfort zone and expand the number of new experiences he’ll have. Take them to the pet store (after they have their vaccinations), over to a friend’s house for a playdate, around different streets , dog parks etc
Go to puppy classes: Once your puppy has started vaccinations, they can also attend puppy classes. These classes not only help your pet begin to understand basic commands, but they also expose them to other canines and people. Skilled trainers will mediate the meetings so that all dogs and people are safe and happy during the process. You can find puppy classes through local training clubs and dog training facilities
