You hear trainers talk about socialization all the time. You scroll through Facebook and see “who wants to meet for a playdate? My dog needs to socialize!” But do we really know what socialization is? Let’s take a slippery slide into the world of socialization!
In the dog world, socialization is often mistaken for meeting every human and dog that your dog sees, but it really means being confident around a whole bunch of different things. Just like people have five senses, socialization does too!
First up, sounds. Playing different sounds in your home, especially when you’re doing a training session with your pup, will make a huge difference when it comes to actually hearing the noise in real life. You can Youtube puppy socialization and come up with playlist upon playlist of random sounds and noises. The benefit of having a playlist of noises is that if your pup shows any anxiety, you can just turn the volume down! Here are some examples of what we have played for our pack.
- Thunder - Dog Barking - Cat Meowing - Birds - Doorbells - Door Knocking - Coughing - Babies Crying - Motorcycles - Transfer Trucks - Construction Sites - Alarm Clocks - Vacuum - Gun Fire - Fireworks - Smoke Alarms - Car Alarms - Airplanes - Farm Animals - Wildlife Animals -
Secondly, textures! Yes, you read that correctly. Ever see a dog that doesn’t like concrete? Or prefers to live life on rugs and mats instead of flooring? Introducing your puppy to all sorts of textures will help prevent this. You don’t even need to leave your house for this one! Take different textures from around the house, and build an obstacle course. Feed your puppy through the obstacle course, and watch them learn new textures!
- Laminate - Plastic - Bubble Wrap - Glass - Metal - Wood - Sand - Rocks - BathTub - Mats - Rugs - Paper - Parchment Paper - Tin Foil - Cardboard - Books - Towels - Backpacks -
Now it’s time for sightseeing. Taking your puppy to new environments and letting them watch the world go by is going to be so beneficial to them. Going to a park or playground, letting them sniff and explore, and hearing the other people/kids, maybe even dogs, but not directly interacting with them. Take your pup into a pet friendly store, put them in a shopping cart (with a towel under them so their paws don’t get stuck). There’s so many places that you can take your puppy before they’re fully vaccinated as long as you’re smart about it and don’t let other dogs interact with them.
- Parks - Playgrounds - Pet Stores - Vet Clinics - Dog Friendly Patios - Outside of Dog Parks - Beaches - Farms - Horse Race Track - Drive Ins - Car - Front Yard - Neighborhoods -
Second to last, but equally as important as the others: touch! Touch your puppy everywhere. Touch their eyes, ears, belly, tail, paws, mouth and yup, even their butthole. Wear a glove, don’t be a weirdo. When Roo was small, we used to take 5 minutes before bedtime, every single night, to cradle her like a baby, touch all the things mentioned above and feed her when she was calm. If she squirmed any, we would slightly tighten our grip until she relaxed, and then we relaxed our grip too. This teaches her how to “turn off” the pressure. It also transfers into her adult life now! Whenever we go to bear hug her, she melts into our arms like it’s her only job in the world which makes it much easier for us to check her for ticks, scrapes and bumps, or anything else that we might need to look at.
Lastly, humans and other animals. Don’t get ahead of yourself, socialization to humans and animals is not your typical “let’s have a playdate!”. No one wants to have a playdate with a wasp or porcupine! You do want your pup to experience all different kinds of humans and animals, but you want to do it in a safe and fun way. While you’re working through the list of socialization above, if you happen to meet a human or dog who wants to meet your pup, here’s what to do.
Explain that you’re training, so you want to set your puppy up for success first. Ask them to keep a distance from you then ask your puppy to sit and focus on you. Feed your puppy, then release them to go see the human/animal - IF they’re calm. Try to not have any tension on your leash while your puppy meets them, wait 3 seconds, and then call your puppy back to you and feed them again. Thank the person, and continue on with your training.
I’ve mentioned puppies a lot in this blog, but really, it goes for any age of dog. We adopted Max and Snow when they were two and a half years old, and we went through this list with them too. Socialization is important for every canine, and it can be a great bonding experience. Keep showing your dog new things, and teaching them that new things are not scary. As always, remember: Progress, not Perfection!
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