Get Those Puppies Out There
Puppies!!!! Oh the cuteness overload, the puppy breath, the snuggles, and the desire to just protect that little ball of cute fuzziness with everything in your soul!!! Am I right? Of course I’m right! Unless your a heartless asshole and then this post isn’t for you.
We all love our puppies and want to protect them. We want to keep them away from parvo, stray dogs, scary people, and spooky things in the environment, and I’m here to tell you to stop. I know, but hear me out! I love clients that want nothing more than to protect and have the very best for their dogs because I only accept the most dedicated dog owners as my clients in the first place. However, I’m telling you that you’re probably being over protective. One of the worst things we can possibly do is bring a dog into our home and never properly socialize it. Another major mistake is to take it out to places and when it does experience something scary justify that fear by emotionally reacting with your pup. I mean feeling sorry for it, showing concern over it’s state of mind, empathy, picking it up, cuddling or coddling it in those times… STOP IT!! You’re the leader and dogs don’t communicate like we do. If your puppy is scared and looks at you as the leader and you’re also having an emotional reaction the pup thinks, “OH MY GOD, this is bad!”. When you just ignore it and keep moving you are signaling to the pup that it is incorrect in having those feelings.
Allowing puppies to explore
The world is a dangerous place. We can die driving to work, be severely maimed while out on that morning run, or shot by a lunatic while grabbing that morning donut. I know more about this than most. See, I was severely burned as an 8-year-old child. As a 40-year-old man today my body is still covered in scares. Both my legs from the tops of where my shoes were all the way up to the tops of my thighs where the fire burned under my shorts to the line of my underwear (tighty whities back then if you’re curious lol) are still scarred today. Not to mention the sides of my hips and my whole back where donor skin was taken for skin grafts. Yes it was excruciating, I had to learn to walk all over again at 8-years-old, tons of physical therapy, not to mention the emotional and psychological damage it did for years, but guess what … I’m Okay!
Seriously, I’m good. Recovered, survivor, and I love nothing more than to pull from that experience during hardships in my current life. When things get tough I can always look back and think, “hell I’ve been through that, so this isn’t shit!”. We need adversity in life, we need struggle and hard times. It’s what makes life worth living. Yeah, okay Chase we got it, but how does this apply to my cute little puppy?
I’m glad you asked! DO NOT light your puppy on fire! LOL Seriously, I felt I should throw that in there as a disclaimer. DO allow your puppy to struggle a bit through some challenges and DO challenge your puppy. Behavioral science tells us that it’s completely natural to avoid stressful situations and to seek out the more comfortable routes in life. It’s survival instinct, escape and avoidance at it’s finest. There is a mechanism in your brain that says, “This is hard, let’s avoid it completely and find a simpler, less aversive, way to go about it.” But, overcoming challenges and obstacles in our lives is how we gain our self confidence. If everything is always hand delivered and as comfortable as possible, then how would you react the first time something is a tiniest bit difficult?
Playing with the puppy in the park Lubbock Tx while major distractions are all around.
Allow your puppies to gain self-confidence by overcoming tough situations. Start with simple things like climbing steps or loading into the car. People are too quick to say, “My puppy can’t do it themselves so I have to pick them up.” Okay, maybe they are small, but they’re not always going to be. Do you want the 25lbs to 80lbs dog waiting for you to pick them up and put them into your Toyota Corolla? Because in the dogs mind they simply cannot get in that car and the only proper way to get in is to be lifted in… Trust me, this happens! It’s a behavior that’s been reinforced continuously throughout the dogs most critical learning period, and the dog now accepts this completely and fully. Yet we blame the dog for being lazy or just a “bad dog” when we, the dog-owners, conditioned the behavior into them. Lift the puppy, but not all he way up. Let the puppy jump a bit and then help boost it a bit to get in. Let the puppy only make the top of the step or door frame and hang there a bit by it’s front paws giving it just enough pressure and support from you to struggle, but win! Then the puppy is in the car or at the top of the steps and feels like, “MAN, that was tough, but I did it. I’m a beast!!”
Puppy jumping into kiddie pool filled with empty water bottles
Now, I’m not saying you should make every single day a test of complete domination “American-Ninja-Warrior” style for your puppy. There are very simple things you can do to help your puppy deal with the big scary world around them, and you can actually set your puppy up for success right out of the box. Setting your puppy up for success is the key for their mental and emotional growth in first place. Creating engagement in your dog at home through training, then slowly moving that into the world, desensitizing your pup to distractions or scary environments is vital. Proper socialization of your dog looks like this, there are other strange dogs/people/noises/distractions/competing motivators around, but your dog doesn’t care or concern themselves with those things. Those things mean nothing to your dog and they only stay focused on you, the leader, and the task at hand whatever that may be.
Here’s where the Veterinarians, Vet Techs, etc. will want to kill me. Ready… I don’t care that your puppy doesn’t have all of it’s shots, GET IT OUT THERE! I don’t blame Vet’s for telling you to keep your dog home until all shots are complete. All they deal with on a daily basis is treating dogs that have contracted diseases. What they don’t see are the effects of the behavioral issues I deal with due to lack of exposure. Now, you can be smart and strategic about this. Don’t take your pup to parks, especially dog parks! Don’t take your pup to places where stray dogs can roam. I don’t even take my pups to PetSmart… At least not right away. There’s to many dogs, and most have behavioral issues! Go to garden centers, home improvement stores, any place like that where they are dog friendly. Hey ladies, did you know that Hobby Lobby is pet friendly? You’re welcome! LOL These places mop there floors constantly, especially in a COVID-19 world. Allow your pup to experience these places and build a since of being emotionally and psychologically stable in new environments.
Most of the behavioral issues I see, especially in dogs over 6 months, is related to just lack of poor and/or improper socialization. You have from 8-weeks to 16-weeks-old to properly socialize your dog, FOR LIFE. There are techniques that can be used to help dogs overcome some issues, and good training can take a dog a long way that wasn’t properly socialized as a puppy, but that dog will never reach the full potential of what it could have been if proper socialization was done during that crucial time frame.
Puppy building confidence running through a tunnel.
So, find yourself a good dog trainer that understands proper socialization and has the skills to do it properly. In my board and train programs with puppies the majority of my time and techniques are focused on challenging the pup and developing good strong dogs that are socially and environmentally sound. A confident, socialized, emotionally and environmentally stable dog is a good dog. They aren’t worried about anything, reacting to everything, or going crazy for no reason.
