Socialization

Proper puppy socialization is very important. Being raised in a family environment goes a long way towards helping with puppy socialization, but it's definitely not everything. In addition to being handled a lot (something family raising certainly provides!), they also need to be introduced to unfamiliar dogs and other animals, have plenty of meetings with strangers (of the human variety), and make strides towards learning proper dog manners (obedience, bite inhibition, etc).

With our first two litters I wasn't as aware of the requirements in all the areas, or of the need to undertake some of this training/socialization during the very impressionable 5-10 week period. Now, however, I have done more reading about puppy socialization (in particular the book The Breeder's Guide to Raising Superstar Dogs by Jerry Hope, a certified dog behaviour consultant) and am implementing some of the exercises the author recommends with our current litter.

Hope notes that for a puppy to get used to being around strangers and not react in fear to the presence or approach of strangers (which would include their new owners initially), it is recommended to introduce the puppy to at least 100 strangers by the time they are 10 weeks old. So far, our puppies have:

(a) visited two school classrooms, where they met about 30 kids and another 10 or so adults;

(b) gone to the vet's for a "well puppy visit" (before they go there for their check-up and vaccinations) where they met 5 adults;

(c) visited Garnet's guardian family, both at our home and at Garnet's, where they met about 6 children (including a couple of friends of the family) and 2 adults; and

(d) been introduced to some of the people in our neighbourhood (roughly 4-6 people).

With this goal in mind, along with that of meeting strange dogs and going to new places, we took the puppies on Saturday to PetSmart. We kept them inside the shopping cart lined with one of our puppy blankets, to help prevent exposure to germs from potentially sick or unvaccinated dogs, and they didn't actually have contact with more than one or two other dogs, but did get to see lots of other dogs walking around the store and playing in the PetSmart PetsHotel and Doggy Day Care rooms. They also had a chance to see various other animals, from cats to birds to fish and small rodents. But quite a few human strangers stopped to pet them and say hello. During this visit Galena in particular displayed a lot of curiosity, standing up so as to see over the edge of the cart. looking around at everything. Malachite Teddy may have been a bit tired, as he joined Galena at the cart edge but shortly just curled up in the basket and went to sleep.