Socializing a young pup
The best genetic predispositions are useless if the puppies are not sufficiently socialized. Constant contact with various people, animals and environmental situations are an absolute necessity. Be very selective with the situations you put your puppy in. Don’t allow your puppy to play with dominant dogs or dogs you don’t know, an eight weeks old puppy will be intimidated by and adults or young adult dogs running towards him. The one that were less dominant in their litter can be extremely intimidated and will either snap to protect themselves of screech in loud voice (like he is getting “slashed”), Yes and even if the other dog doesn’t mean malice it can be intimidating. So please no communal dog parks for an eight week old pup. You can absolutely take him around the neighbouthood – after he got all his mandatory vaccines – and let others touch him under his chin and pet him gently, or let only gentle dogs play with it. The first few months are very impressionable on very young puppies and can determine their future behavior later on.
The main goal is to instill confidence, with humans and other element like loud noises, crowds etc. dogs were not exposed the right way may develop shyness or aggression.
A good breeder will make sure that the pups are daily touched and handled and have good exposure to different sounds (I will elaborate in a separate post).
Please go to the video page to view some example on socialization we do with our kids – shameless plug but good example how kids should handle pups.
