Do not socialise your puppy!
Especially if you do it the way a human thinks it should be done.
Humans are very good at thinking from a humans perspective. Humans are also very ignorant and really struggle to relate to the world of animals. We are also arrogant and extremely selfish. If you do make the decision to get a puppy, please do so with the intentions of giving it a happy life first and foremost.
You are responsible for the dogs entire life. It's not just about you and your absolute need for attention on the streets, in the parks or at the popular cafe. Remember, all intelligent people find puppies cute, so people that get excited to see your puppy have ZERO interest in you. You are just another generic human, your puppy is the important one to those coming over for a pat and cuddle. They don't cuddle or pat you do they? Nope. By the way all unintelligent people like cats. Cats are evil.
So how do we socialise a puppy to make sure we set them up for a great life?
Here are some of my thoughts to consider -
Lets skip the cute early puppy stage and think of our dog at 8 months of age. What DON'T we want?
We don't want a dog that has no recall.
We don't want a dog that gets over stimulated on a walk when it sees another dog or people and becomes uncontrollable on the lead.
We don't want a dog that jumps on and barks at all of our guests when the arrive at our home.
We don't want a dog that is absolutely over stimulated and none responsive when we take them to cafes, beaches, parks or simply on a walk around the block.
We don't want to start wondering if they are ever going to grow out of this (they won't)
We don't want to keep on using the excuse "They're still a puppy" as though this is a magical spell that instantly stops annoying behaviours.
We don't want to still be apologising to family, friends and everyone in public for our dogs antisocial behaviours.
We don't want to consider paying a dog trainer big bucks to help get rid of these behaviours.
So what are we going to do to make sure these annoying behaviours happen at this 8 months of age? We are going to socialise our puppies from a humans perspective from the very beginning and train them to be this way!
How do we train these bad behaviours - The second they get their 12 week injections we are going to
Take them everywhere and let every person pat and cuddle your pup and use high pitched tones saying "AAAWWWW she's/he's beautiful, hello cutie!!! Ohhhh you're adorable" as they are crouched down letting the puppy jump all over them, licking faces and getting over stimulated.
Take them to puppy schools that encourage out of control play with other puppies, by running wild in ball pits, jumping on all sorts of things, be told to use exciting tones and lost of big and exciting markers like "YES" and high pitched "good girl/boy" with loads of exciting high value treats.
Take them to dog parks and let them run freely with any dog for long periods of time to get them "socialised" with other dogs.
Take them to parks, playgrounds, beaches and cheer on the zoomies and giggle while struggling to change your phone from photo to video as this behaviour is going to get so much attention on the dogs personal Instagram page.
We are going to get home, walk through the door every day, drop our stuff and get down low and excitedly say hello to our cute little puppy, which is going to be squirming uncontrollably, licking out of control, jumping in and out of our laps and at our faces, nipping at our hands (but that's just standard puppy behaviour) and probably be backing or whining uncontrollably as its simply over stimulated.
We're going to rev this puppy up and get it excited for a walk, to a point that it's going to be hard to get the lead even close to the over-stimulated squirming pup
Plus many more instances when we are going to "socialise" this puppy to get the "used to everything"
Guess what we have just done... can you guess what we might have done to our puppy? Is there a chance we have possibly trained our cute widdle social media accessory to get over stimulated by lots of things it's going to come across in our world?
Have we maybe taught this dog that all kinds of engagement are fun and exciting? That the way we engage with other people and dogs is that you can simply lose your mind when you are around them and do your dog things flat out?
What happens is we teach and train our dogs that the world is an exciting place and how we interact with it is we get over stimulated and go nuts. Because that's what they have done from day one. That's what we have allowed our pup to do.
What does an over stimulated toddler do? They interact in an antisocial way because they are over stimulated.
What does an over stimulated dog do? They do antisocial things like bark, jump, bite, lunge on leads, don't listen, don't recall, dig, chew and fight.
I'm pretty sure I have said this 1 trillion times - "stop using the excuse of they're still a puppy" to excuse your dogs bad behaviours and start training your dog to be calmer in all situations. A calm dog is a much more focused dog, and a focused dog is easy to train. This starts the moment you get the pup.
"A SOCIALISED DOG CAN GO INTO VARIOUS SITUATIONS AND STAY CALM AND UNDER THE OWNERS CONTROL"
Here are some super dooper easy little things to do to help you have an actual socialised dog -
Stop letting every stranger and child pat your puppy all the time, ESPECIALLY if the puppy is over stimulated. Allow this pup time to calm down first before it receives the attention. Take the attention away if your pup starts to get over stimulated and move on. They cannot be getting cuddles and pats and high pitched tones while they are over stimulated and doing the things we don't want them to be doing in 6 months time!
Before letting your dog run wild with other dogs, keep them on the lead for a few moments, reward them with CALM TONES and with a treat (if you use them) as they themselves begin to relax. Then let them engage in the play once they have calmed down.
Before ALL engagements, give your puppy time to calm down even if its just for a moment or two! These engagements are - When visitors arrive, before you leave your property for a walk, before you walk up to others on the street with dogs or children. If your dog is over stimulated, it is not focused on you and it will not listen to you.
BE CALM! Shut up with your jibber jabber, stop rambling and STOP with the high pitched excited praise when your dog does something as simple as sit for you. The higher pitched and excited the tones from you - expect your dog to replicate this with it's behaviour.
A calm dog is a focused dog, a focused dog is a trainable dog, a trainable dog becomes a trained dog, a trained dog is a socialised dog.
Take your dog on a relaxed little outing. Don't waste time by walking your dog there, but drive your dog to a park or public area where you can sit at a distance and watch the world go by with no interaction with the world. Keep the dog on a lead with you, have your travel coffee, sit in silence and simply praise and reward your dog when they are calming down. when they are finally sitting down or laying down relaxed... get up and go home immediately without interacting with the world.. It doesn't matter if it's 5 minutes or 20 mins. Allow your dog to see the world, calm down and realise they don't always have to interact with it... because they already have you. You should be more important to be around than the stranger or dog across the road.
Or ignore all this and stick to your immediate dopamine spike addiction from the attention you think you are getting from having your cute puppy. Remember as I said at the beginning?
Anyways,
All of these words are not gospel, just noticeable common things I see every day. I just know that when I start any private training with new clients, the first thing we work on is teaching this dog to regulate and not get over stimulated by the world. Over stimulated dogs are hard to train.
Give your dog a pat for me!
Cheers, Scott
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