Socialization

This week marked a turning point in our socialization efforts with the puppies. Now that they are completely mobile and becoming more active we started to bring them out as a group to watch TV with us. The puppy room is adjacent to the room in which we have a television and sitting area. This area was designed like this on purpose so the pups would get used to normal household sounds while they were growing up. They hear the TV, telephone, vacuum cleaner, etc., and become accustomed to these sounds.

The first few times we open the puppy room door to let the pups come into the other room they often hesitate when they get to the tile floor. This is very common. The pups are naturally cautious each time they are put onto a new flooring surface. All it takes is a bit of coaxing to get them to come out into the room. Before they leave us we’ll also take them upstairs and let them explore the kitchen.

The first time we brought the pups out we noticed that Sierra was a bit timid and not joining the group.  When we’ve had puppies since birth they usually swarm all over us when we sit on the floor with them. They are used to being handled because of their twice-daily weighing and other maintenance like nail trimming. She didn’t mind being handled, she just wasn’t sure about the new environment. Whenever this happens we make a special effort to integrate the puppy with our activities to help it overcome its hesitation.

Over the next two evenings we made a special effort to hold Sierra on the chair, snuggle with her on the couch, and lay on the floor with her. We gave her a lot of contact time and made it as stress-free and pleasurable for her as possible. Our reward for a couple of nights of special attention was last night when she ran out with the group and swarmed over me while I was laying on the floor. She stayed with us the entire evening and finally fell asleep with her head on my hand.

We have a very small window of time in which to socialize the puppies to pleasurable human contact. If the puppies are not properly socialized within the first 8 to 12 weeks of their lives they can never recover. Last littler I wrote a post about our dog, Bella, and what happens when a puppy is not socialized. It’s simple to do proper socialization, but we have to be attuned to how the puppies react to new situations and people.

Over the next few weeks the puppies will have a lot of visitors. We like the pups to meet people of all types and ages. The puppies benefit greatly from these interactions. Our goal is to make them comfortable meeting new people so when they go back to the Shelter for adoption they will not be afraid to meet potential adopters and will be comfortable in their new homes meeting relatives and friends of their new families.