How To Socialize A Dog

Dog socialization is a way of introducing your puppy to the world that helps them to be confident and not afraid of people, places, other animals, and sounds.

There is a window of time to be considered critical to complete the dog socialization, although you can continue to work on socialization indefinitely but it is more difficult with an adult dog.

The best results for dog socialization occur in the puppy stage between the age 3 weeks and 14 weeks, and a smaller amount by 5 months.

Care should be taken for puppies that are not fully vaccinated. They should not have close contact to unvaccinated animals.

Here is a checklist to help simplify actions you can take to help socialize your puppy. Have some small treats handy to give the puppy, to make it an even more positive experience for them.

If your puppy seems frightened and won’t take a treat, hold off on the activity and try again at another time.

Touch

Getting your puppy used to being touched is one way of socialization and will also help for those veterinarian visits, when they will be touched and examined all over.

• Touch the ears, the outside, the inside gently, pretend you are looking in them
• Touch their mouth, teeth and gums, look inside their mouth
• Touch the face, cheeks, nose, around the eyes, tummy and back
• Touch their feet and toenails, touch each paw pad and each individual toenail
• Gently hug the puppy
• Hold the puppy in your arms with the puppy on its back

People

Helping your puppy to be introduced to all different kinds of people of different genders, different sizes, and voices will help your puppy to not be afraid of new people later on.

• Give your puppy opportunities to be around different people, this can be accomplished by taking them to different stores (pet store, hardware store, restaurant areas that allow dogs). You can put a blanket down in a shopping cart and take them around the store to see the sights and hear the sounds

Various Noises

Help expose your new puppy to all sorts of different noises, so that when they hear them as an adult, they are not fearful. You can expose them to noises such as:

• Car noises
• Doorbells
• Pots/pans drop on the floor
• Busy street noise
• Kids playing noise
• Horns
• Lawn mower noise
• Thunderstorms/fireworks

Places

Bring your puppy to different places that you will need to take them to in the future .

• The veterinarian office. Ask if you can just bring your puppy in for a “happy visit” that is not a real appointment but just a visit that your puppy can enter the building, see the layout and meet the people
• Doggy daycare. Again, bring your puppy there solely for an introduction so they can get used to the place before you have them dropped off for daycare.
• Pet store
• Dog training building
• Parks
• Any other location you would like them to associate a positive experience with

Objects

Getting your puppy used to different objects, and materials will help them to not be afraid.

• Have them walk on different surfaces, carpet, hard flooring, concrete, grass, dirt
• Vacuum cleaners being close to them
• Balloons
• Hairdryers
• Dog nail clippers, before you actually use them on your dog have them sniff the tool and touch it a few times

Giving your puppy opportunities to be around other animals will help them to be confident and calm around animals in the future.

• Expose them (in a safe way) to other dogs of different gender, ages, breed
• Expose them to different animals when possible, cats, birds, other small animals