Wag the tail to the world; Dog socialization
"Take your dogs to many places, let them meet all kinds of people and dogs, and try expose to as many things as possible from young puppyhood, and make them positive experiences and fun. Those experiences will influence on the puppy's social life. Even after puppyhood, keep them introduced to many people,places,objects throughout their life."
That is what we were told by dog trainer when we enrolled into puppy training class with Palette. I learned later that at 4 months, most important foundation period to learn good/scary (socialization period) ends, and those positive experiences would help dogs build their confidence.
Well socialized dogs can learn to react in acceptable way by being exposed to many people,objects, other animals. Under socialized dogs can become fearful/shy/timid dog and when they encounter fear, they tend to respond with growling,barking at other dogs or people or any other objects they feel fear for.
So,what is socialization?
According to paw-rescue article, from 8weeks to 12 weeks of age, puppy goes through fear imprinting stage, and during the stage, exposing the puppy to as many stimuli as possible every day with positive experience is important for their life. Introducing and familiarizing dogs to new experiences such as people,places,objects,other animals is called socialization.
The article explains that socialization should be in the way that help your dogs to learn to respond and interact with experiences without fear. Dogs still can learn how to respond without fear even after socialization period, but like the article explain, letting dogs to learn not to fear is more difficult than letting them to learn how to respond without fear at early socialization period.
You can read full article here .
How can you socialize your dogs?
#1 At house
- I think that house is very good socialization starter place. Dogs get to play with family member: man, woman, small kids, possibly you may have babies around and, also they can experience many house objects such as baby stroller, vacuum cleaner etc inside the house.
- You also could invite friends to your house.That way, your dogs can meet all kinds of new people
- Our neighbor has Rottie/chow mix. Very big dog and Palette (Corgi) looked real dwarf next to her. Rottie/chow mix dog is probably easily over 120lb and Palette as a puppy was about 10lb,15lb etc. Since we knew this Rottie/chow mix dog was very mellow nice dog, we let her meet this big Rottie/chow mix and let them play from early puppyhood. They are still good furriends.
#2 On walk
- I think taking Palette daily for walk helped/helping her meet many new people and dogs and experience all kinds of environment including objects with noise such as trash truck noise or lawn mower noise etc. She gets to see kids, adult lady,adult man with or without beard, lady with stroller, kids on bikes, kids playing balls, kids on skateboard, other dogs, geese, cars, trucks, trash truck, school bus.. Since we have 3 different routes for walk, we tend to see more new people,dogs etc.
We do not have kids, but luckily,when she wasa puppy, she got to meet small kids, baby in stroller when we go to inlaw parents house other than her daily walks and she became to love kids. When we go for walk, nowand then, we see small group of kids playing outside and when especiallysmall kids see Palette, they think she is a puppy because she is shortand Palette tend to get extra attention from kids and she always enjoybeing pet by kids on walk. And occasionally, we passes by baby instroller on our walk but she tends to head down butt wagging up in theair and she loves to go greet the lady with stroller. She seems notseeing the stroller scary stuff maybe because she has seen it during thesocialization period?
# Other places
- training class, vet office, groomer's place (she just go for trimming the fur between the paws,not being bathed, but she can meet different groomers there along with different kinds of canine customers)
I think enrolling to puppy training class was good choice for Palette because she got to meet not just big dog she knows from neighborhood but also get to meet small dogs,which she had not seen often on her walk plus she gets to see all kinds of dogs. Our puppy training class had Poodles, Miniature schnauzer, Yorkshire terrier, Golden Retriever,Beagles...all kinds of breed..
I think that foundation maybe at early age but, we still try to take her to many places. Palette is now 4 years old, and we try to take her to places such as Petsmart where she can meet all kinds of people and dogs. At Petsmart,all dogs are on leash and we do not have to worry about unleashed dogs. So, we like to go there.
Sometimes, she gets her fur between the paw trimmed there but even if we had nothing to do there, we take her there to experience the fun. She loves Petsmart and as soon as she gets out from car, she trots to automatic door, looking back at us with tongue hanging out. One time she bang her head with the oops station's wet caution sign because she was too busy to look back at us.
Her favorite ail? That is cat food ail and kitty adoption area. She always go back there and see the kitty in the area. We do not have kitty in the house but the house with Rottie/chow mix has one.
Palette loves car ride. Maybe because she does not get to ride just for vet office or grooming place but she gets to go to many more other fun places. She literally pass through me very fast as soon as I open the car door and she puts her paws on car and move her left stumpy leg up and down and look back at me because she knows I help her hop into the car.
- Doggy day care place
When we go see my side of family who live 14 hrs flight time away, Palette stays at doggy day care place. She sees other dogs at petsmart,vet office, grooming place etc but,I think she gets to meet and play with many more dogs under staff's supervision. Since dogs are socialized under supervision, I think, doggy day care place is another good place to visit.
Lastly, I came across the article adapted from Dr Ian Dunbar on dog socialization. According to the article, as a rule of thumbs, it is best to expose to at least 100 new people within first 3 months of puppyhood. To read full article, please click here.
That is a lot of number of new people and I do not think we have achieved that number of new people in Palette's first 3 months.Partly because vet said to keep puppy safe at home until fully immune to disease. I knew socialization is important but because of fear of picking up the disease during exposing to many dogs or people or places, we were a little shy on taking Palette to many places as much as we should have done in short time although she had more experience with people by meeting in law family or people visit our house etc within the first 3 months. If I could back to Palette's puppyhood time, we could have done carrying Palette in our arms and show the outside world from much early age.
I have seen a lady with dog at entrance of Petsmart before. Lady was seating on bench, dog was sitting next to her. Whenever dog passes by, lady said "dog" and when she/he looked at the dog, she clicked and dog got the yummy treats. I thought it is a good way to make positive experience with presence of other dog. Since Petsmart probably would not bring same dog, same people as customer every single day and, the dog who was getting yummy treats from the lady could have met many new dogs there.
I like going places with Palette. I like sharing our world with Palette. I love to see her head low, butt wagging up in the air, approaching to new people she meets. I like seeing Palette show interests in other dogs and greet nose to nose or nose to rear.
How do you share your world with your dogs?
That is what we were told by dog trainer when we enrolled into puppy training class with Palette. I learned later that at 4 months, most important foundation period to learn good/scary (socialization period) ends, and those positive experiences would help dogs build their confidence.
Well socialized dogs can learn to react in acceptable way by being exposed to many people,objects, other animals. Under socialized dogs can become fearful/shy/timid dog and when they encounter fear, they tend to respond with growling,barking at other dogs or people or any other objects they feel fear for.
So,what is socialization?
According to paw-rescue article, from 8weeks to 12 weeks of age, puppy goes through fear imprinting stage, and during the stage, exposing the puppy to as many stimuli as possible every day with positive experience is important for their life. Introducing and familiarizing dogs to new experiences such as people,places,objects,other animals is called socialization.
The article explains that socialization should be in the way that help your dogs to learn to respond and interact with experiences without fear. Dogs still can learn how to respond without fear even after socialization period, but like the article explain, letting dogs to learn not to fear is more difficult than letting them to learn how to respond without fear at early socialization period.
You can read full article here .
How can you socialize your dogs?
#1 At house
- I think that house is very good socialization starter place. Dogs get to play with family member: man, woman, small kids, possibly you may have babies around and, also they can experience many house objects such as baby stroller, vacuum cleaner etc inside the house.
- You also could invite friends to your house.That way, your dogs can meet all kinds of new people
- Our neighbor has Rottie/chow mix. Very big dog and Palette (Corgi) looked real dwarf next to her. Rottie/chow mix dog is probably easily over 120lb and Palette as a puppy was about 10lb,15lb etc. Since we knew this Rottie/chow mix dog was very mellow nice dog, we let her meet this big Rottie/chow mix and let them play from early puppyhood. They are still good furriends.
#2 On walk
- I think taking Palette daily for walk helped/helping her meet many new people and dogs and experience all kinds of environment including objects with noise such as trash truck noise or lawn mower noise etc. She gets to see kids, adult lady,adult man with or without beard, lady with stroller, kids on bikes, kids playing balls, kids on skateboard, other dogs, geese, cars, trucks, trash truck, school bus.. Since we have 3 different routes for walk, we tend to see more new people,dogs etc.
We do not have kids, but luckily,when she wasa puppy, she got to meet small kids, baby in stroller when we go to inlaw parents house other than her daily walks and she became to love kids. When we go for walk, nowand then, we see small group of kids playing outside and when especiallysmall kids see Palette, they think she is a puppy because she is shortand Palette tend to get extra attention from kids and she always enjoybeing pet by kids on walk. And occasionally, we passes by baby instroller on our walk but she tends to head down butt wagging up in theair and she loves to go greet the lady with stroller. She seems notseeing the stroller scary stuff maybe because she has seen it during thesocialization period?
# Other places
- training class, vet office, groomer's place (she just go for trimming the fur between the paws,not being bathed, but she can meet different groomers there along with different kinds of canine customers)
I think enrolling to puppy training class was good choice for Palette because she got to meet not just big dog she knows from neighborhood but also get to meet small dogs,which she had not seen often on her walk plus she gets to see all kinds of dogs. Our puppy training class had Poodles, Miniature schnauzer, Yorkshire terrier, Golden Retriever,Beagles...all kinds of breed..
I think that foundation maybe at early age but, we still try to take her to many places. Palette is now 4 years old, and we try to take her to places such as Petsmart where she can meet all kinds of people and dogs. At Petsmart,all dogs are on leash and we do not have to worry about unleashed dogs. So, we like to go there.
Sometimes, she gets her fur between the paw trimmed there but even if we had nothing to do there, we take her there to experience the fun. She loves Petsmart and as soon as she gets out from car, she trots to automatic door, looking back at us with tongue hanging out. One time she bang her head with the oops station's wet caution sign because she was too busy to look back at us.
Her favorite ail? That is cat food ail and kitty adoption area. She always go back there and see the kitty in the area. We do not have kitty in the house but the house with Rottie/chow mix has one.
Palette loves car ride. Maybe because she does not get to ride just for vet office or grooming place but she gets to go to many more other fun places. She literally pass through me very fast as soon as I open the car door and she puts her paws on car and move her left stumpy leg up and down and look back at me because she knows I help her hop into the car.
- Doggy day care place
When we go see my side of family who live 14 hrs flight time away, Palette stays at doggy day care place. She sees other dogs at petsmart,vet office, grooming place etc but,I think she gets to meet and play with many more dogs under staff's supervision. Since dogs are socialized under supervision, I think, doggy day care place is another good place to visit.
Lastly, I came across the article adapted from Dr Ian Dunbar on dog socialization. According to the article, as a rule of thumbs, it is best to expose to at least 100 new people within first 3 months of puppyhood. To read full article, please click here.
That is a lot of number of new people and I do not think we have achieved that number of new people in Palette's first 3 months.Partly because vet said to keep puppy safe at home until fully immune to disease. I knew socialization is important but because of fear of picking up the disease during exposing to many dogs or people or places, we were a little shy on taking Palette to many places as much as we should have done in short time although she had more experience with people by meeting in law family or people visit our house etc within the first 3 months. If I could back to Palette's puppyhood time, we could have done carrying Palette in our arms and show the outside world from much early age.
I have seen a lady with dog at entrance of Petsmart before. Lady was seating on bench, dog was sitting next to her. Whenever dog passes by, lady said "dog" and when she/he looked at the dog, she clicked and dog got the yummy treats. I thought it is a good way to make positive experience with presence of other dog. Since Petsmart probably would not bring same dog, same people as customer every single day and, the dog who was getting yummy treats from the lady could have met many new dogs there.
I like going places with Palette. I like sharing our world with Palette. I love to see her head low, butt wagging up in the air, approaching to new people she meets. I like seeing Palette show interests in other dogs and greet nose to nose or nose to rear.
How do you share your world with your dogs?
We also had the same type of problem... wanting to wait until our pups were vaccinated but also try to get them socialized as soon as they were. My sister and her friend have a dog rescue, and she usually had several different dogs that they got to meet, but we had to be careful to have them meet the other dogs while NOT in the company of our older dogs who we made the mistake of NOT socializing very well while they were young. Actually, OC wasn't properly socialized and her daughter, Dott learned to act the way she did from watching her mom. BG was given to one of my sons and lived with them from the time he was 8 weeks old until he was 6 months old and they had to move and he couldn't go with them, so he came back here to live. They had lots of dogs and friends, and he loves EVERYONE! He is VERY well socialized. We have noticed that corgis are so smart that they learn a lot by watching others, so we've tried to take BG with us when taking the pups somewhere to work on this area.
We try to take them to parks and PetCo or PetSmart, etc. too.
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