Socializing your puppy

One of the most important things you can do for your puppy is socialization. The first 12 weeks of the puppy's life will leave permanent imprint for the rest of your dogs life. It is of great importance to ensure that puppy have only positive experiences during this critical period. While dogs of all age groups can benefit from enriched environment, young puppies are like sponges in the first 12 weeks, developing and learning rapidly and we have incredible opportunity to shape emotional responses of our puppies, teach them to recover quickly from scary experiences and in general, to build emotionally stable and confident dogs.

We take a lot of effort to socialize your puppy in the first 8 weeks. Your puppy will have met lots of different kinds of people by the time it goes to it’s new home. It will have been around lots of different dogs, farm animals, a cat and exposed to noises such as tractors, sirens, lawn mowers, vacuums, force blowers, clipper nose, dremel noise and vibration, trucks, dogs barking and the list goes on.

Puppies will grow in enriched environment, will have at least one new toy or object to explore every day, walk on different texture surfaces including wobbly and unsteady areas resembling floating bridges. We use children’s toys that sing and talk with kids voices to prepare puppies for children’s screams and laughs.

Puppies will start basic training for leash waking, to come when called, to sit politely when want something (manding puppies), to take treats with soft and gentle mouth and potty training.

Puppies will be introduced to problem solving challenges to improve coping skills with frustration and with the reward at the end for solving the problem. Each puppy will be evaluated individually to ensure the success at the end. Nothing to complicated but enough to cause slight frustration and improve thinking.

You will now have to continue with this very important aspect of raising a puppy. Arrange for your puppy to meet new people, lots of children and other dogs. Be very conscious that the puppy feels safe and you are helping your puppy to accept new things in a positive way. Lots of car rides, if you planning to go camping or on a long road trip and able to take a puppy, that would be a great experience. If you have a boat, don’t delay and wait until puppy a bit older, the sooner the better. If you kayak, get puppy used to it in the very beginning. You do not want to overprotect the puppy from the start but you also do not want to just let the puppy in potentially dangerous or very scary situations. Very quickly a bad imprint can happen, from a person or dog that is to rough or a child that is too loud, or machinery that is very scary. Have treats with you so you can make positive imprints in difficult situations or for that matter in all new situations.

If you have questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me, I am always happy to help.