Puppy Socialization Checklist

Socialization has always been the most talked about topic in the dog lovers communities across the globe. While many dog owners are adequately experienced in socializing their puppies, others may have many questions, the most common of which are: why socializing my puppy is a necessity? How to socialize my puppy? What should my puppy be socialized to?


When you bring your puppy home the first couple things that need to be kept in the forefront of your mind are... a healthy and hygienic environment for your puppy and yourself and a scientific bring up strategy. Now what does this scientific bring up strategy stands for? Well, by this I meant to indicate a bring up method for your puppy so as to give him/her a balanced life, with proper health and right behavior.


Teaching "right behavior" doesn't only mean teaching your puppy not to greet his loved ones by jumping on them, or to act as you desire on commands. The idea is a little more broad than what you may think of. A dog will be considered to have a "Balanced" and "Right" behavior if he/she is taught to consider certain situations as harmless and non-challenging, and when shows calm and relaxed behavior. This is something that cannot be achieved in a fortnight. Throughout your bringing up process your puppy should be socialized to as many adversities (situations, sights and sounds) as possible. Socializing you puppy is essentially an integral part of an organized bringing up process and should be started out at a very early stage - preferably at an age of 4 to 12 weeks.


Your goal in socializing your puppy


As the basic puppy care tips I would wish to say The goal that you need to set is to give your dog a perfectly balanced life through making him understand that certain situations, sights and sounds are harmful and/or challenging. This can be done through properly exposing your puppy or dog to those factors (situations, sights and sounds). The goal should be to help your puppy or dog to get conditioned to those factors by helping him or her to gain experiences, thereby learning to consider those factors as harmless.


Debunking a few common myths about socializing your dogs

As the goal is to share your life with safer, more relaxed, enjoyable and truly dependable canine companion, it may sound a little hard, and too technical for common dog owners to understand the methods. The fact unleashed: socializing is a very natural process where, as a leader of the pack, your primary role is to plan on what you want your dog to be socialized to. Secondarily, you need to introduce your dogs to those situations continuously and consistently until he/she start considering those situations as friendly.

However all you need to remember that the situations, which your dog is put to, must not be overwhelming for him/her. Remember, puppies have comparatively lower stress bearing limit than their adult counterpart. Canine senior citizens also have comparatively lower stress bearing limit. The introductory process needs to be very natural, calm and SHOULD NEVER BE FORCEFUL. Force will only worsen up the situation for your puppy and you cannot socialize him/her. Each time your puppy is exposed to something, he should not be overwhelmingly stressed.

Say, if you want to socialize your puppy to a group of children and noise created by them, then he/she may cower back in the corner. Do not apply force to take him near the kids. Remember, you need to be a very good observer, and you must keep a constant and close eye on your puppy’s behavior towards a specific situation. Some situations or sounds may prove to be overtly stressful for your puppy, while others may be quite smooth for him/her. If you find your puppy getting excessively stressed out, you should calm him/her by toning down the stress factor.

Although at the very early stage (3 to 12 weeks old) a puppy tends to be quite inquisitive about gathering new experiences - especially smells and situations, this may something turn out to be quite scary for them too. If you notice your puppy getting timid, and showing shyness and lack of confidence to certain new experience(s), start introducing him/her in a very gradual way and progressively. A sudden exposure to a frightening experiences should be avoided, as it will only worsen up his/her experience and he/she will never learn to consider it as harmless. 


What type of situations should your puppy be socialized  to?

There could be innumerable experiences that a owner may like to socialize to. However, some of the most come experiences.

Humans:

People of disability, and/or in wheelchairs and crutches
Older people  - senior citizens who cannot walk normally
Crowd, group of kids or adults, playing and making noise
Men with unusual  mustache and/ or beards
Person carrying certain things, like umbrellas, helmets, masks, hats, sunglasses, strollers, wagons, parcels, sack etc.
People: Bikers - Bikers, cyclists, skateboarders
People in usual garments


Non-Humans
Vehicle horns
Thunder claps
Fireworks and crackers
Loud sound
Running vehicles
Darkness
Separation for few hours
Other animals and pets
Conditioning to grooming sessions


Puppy socialization classes in your location may be safe and organized means of socializing puppies. However, try to get as much information as possible before you enroll your puppy's name in any socializing classes. Canine behaviorists have associated many dog attack incidences with lack of socialization. Understanding dog attacks is hence important for any dog owner.

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Conditioning Your Dog To Grooming Sessions

If you are a pet lover and have minimum idea of how to take care of your dog, you probably know that grooming tops the list of dog care tips. If u have a dog and if it is well groomed then it represents your excellence of having a pet. Everyday care keeps your dog in good health, with healthy habits that gives a significant sign of elegance. Grooming is as significant for your dog as it is for your kids, which is why dog owners are expected to consider grooming their dogs for reason just beyond beautification.

It is necessary to maintain to a regular routine for grooming your dog, that should include brushing his teeth, bathing him, shaping his nails, cleaning wax in his ears, and brushing his coat to remove dead follicles and undo mattes and tangles.

It is not worthy enough to talk about the importance of grooming here, because it is expected that you already know why dog grooming is so important. We already know that dogs used to serve as companions of kings and queens in their castles as far back as over 4000 B.C. Documentations have proved that those royal people used to keep their 4-legged companions clean and well groomed. Further documentations have been discovered that establishes the fact that in France sometimes around 17th century a female Poodle was crowned with the honor of being official dog of Louis XV's court. She had been awarded the title "French Poodle" and used to be adorned by trimming coat, and clipping the coat with continental and English saddle clips, which still most poodle owners use even today. This proves that importance of grooming had been understood long back.

The question is what is expected from your dog while grooming? Is he expected to stay quite and still when the groomer – a stranger to him approaches with instruments and apparatus making weird sounds? If he is expected to do that, there’s nothing wrong in it. But does he behave according to what he is expected to behave like? Nopes! Problem is he is not seasoned to such situation where he is expected to quite even when he is approached with sharp instruments. He should be made to believe that there is not threat from the instruments or from the groomer. This is another kind of dog socialization that most dog owners overlook. Socializing your dog with different situations includes not only smells, sounds, strangers, rushing cars, other animals, but also to situations like grooming, which is most important. This can only be done successfully if he is trained since his puppy hood to control his cool during situations like when he is given vaccine shots and grooming.

There’s nothing like putting your dog to the serious obedience training session, and carrying out constant and consistent obedience training. This is again another grooming – that can be considered as behavioral grooming that teaches the dog how to behave what is expected.

What if you are thinking of grooming your dog by yourself? There’s nothing wrong in it… probably the best thing you can do with your dog is DIY grooming. This will actually keeps your dog at least less worried than dropping by a professional groomer with him. Trick is to keep cool yourself and make him believe that grooming is basically a fun session. Maintaining a light mood and easy-going attitude is preferred most. Creating a serious environment is going to make mess of things on the spot, because it will only aggravate your dog’s anxiety and increase his stress level, thereby degrading his threshold limit (ability to tolerate situations that he doesn’t like).

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