⚠️ Avoid These Puppy Socialization Mistakes!

1️⃣ By the time your puppy`s vaccine rounds are complete, you will have missed your window of opportunity for socialization. The official AVSAB position is that socialization should not be delayed due to vaccines. Plus, there are many ways to keep your puppy safe from disease during socialization activities.

2️⃣ Socialization is best done when you`re not trying to accomplish other tasks and when you can be intentional about what things your puppy will be experiencing. Also, it`s important to get your puppy used to independent play and spending time home alone. This prepares them for what a typical day will be like.

3️⃣ While utilizing a dog park or dog daycare may be unavoidable for certain situations, these environments are not where you want your puppy to be formulating their expectations of dog-dog interactions. The ideal option is to supervise a playdate with a known dog that will get along with a puppy.

4️⃣ Being held by kids (or anyone) is not a necessary part of socialization. Kids may not have a steady hold or gentle grip, leading your puppy to believe that being held is scary. In fact, your puppy`s opinion of children will be improved by having the choice to come and go during the interaction.

5️⃣ When in public, many people will want to love on your adorable puppy. I recommend only letting people interact with your puppy about 25% of the time. Otherwise, your puppy may learn that most people will approach and this can yield an adolescent dog who struggles with reactivity. Instead, you want to teach your puppy that most of the people they see are just "background" characters to be ignored.

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🤫 How To Respond To Excessive Alert Barking

💬 TIP #1: Instead of barking back, start up a fun conversation.

Our first dog Artemis was the neighborhood watch and her barking at windows drove me CRAZY. When I started replacing my annoyed "Shut UP!" with a cheerful "What did you find?", the effect was immediate! She would stop barking and turn to me with her ears perked and butt wiggling. You could see in her body language that she finally felt valued for her important job. This repaired her feelings about my voice, which made subsequent training more successful.

🔇 TIP #2: Minimize your dog`s exposure to things that trigger alert barking.

Our current dog, Ace, is a German Shepherd (so good luck fighting genetics) AND he is noise sensitive. We use white noise and music to drown out sounds, and we have a decorative film on our front windows that lets in light but obscures what`s outside. We`ve also noticed he`ll just bark into the void whenever he`s bored 😂, which is usually solved by an enrichment activity. All of these things have helped tremendously!

🤝 TIP #3: Teach your dog the "OK Thank You!" game.

Start by just saying the phrase cheerfully, then immediately feeding your dog a tasty treat. Your dog doesn`t have to do anything to earn the treat: you are simply charging that phrase with happy feelings and teaching that a treat always follows. Repeat this 10 times daily for at least a few days.

Then you can start using it in real life! When your dog barks at something, say your phrase after 1-2 barks and go give them a treat. With repetition, your dog will start coming to you for their reward instead! Check out @kiki.yablon for more details on this training protocol.

👇Did you catch that cool moment of body language towards the end? Comment below with your guess and I`ll share my analysis!

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