PAWTENTIAL DOG TRAINING
And Behaviour Consultation
(ABN: 14 965 042 976)
Lyn Witts
Cert IV Behavioural Instructor
Cert IV Veterinary Nurse
www.pawtential.com.au
Introducing Your Puppy to the world
When to start
Ideally your new pup is at least 8wks age when picked up. Many valuable lessons are learned from interactions with mum and siblings.
Pups may experience a fear period approximately 5 – 8 weeks of age and need a stable, familiar environment during this time. Fear periods can last for several weeks and it is very important during this time that there are no negative experiences. The second fear period will appear anywhere from 7 months of age to 14 months of age and will also last approximately 3 weeks. You will notice, during a fear period, your puppy acting wary of situations or objects that they previously handled with confidence.
Allow a week for your pup to adjust to their new home, family, sounds, smells, environment and routines. This can be an overwhelming time for your pup so best to keep the pup at home during this time.
There is a period during brain development where puppies learn more than they do in a lifetime. This is called the imprinting, or critical learning, period. The experiences your puppy has during this time will have a huge impact on their behaviour as adult dogs, and how they react to situations in life. This imprinting period can finish as early as 10 weeks!
Therefore, it is important your puppy forms positive connections with everything they are exposed to during this period.
Puppy Classes
Puppy classes can do more harm than good if badly run. Investigate any puppy class thoroughly, and ask to sit in on a class, before attending.
Any interaction between puppies in a puppy class needs to be managed closely.
There is a misconception about ‘socialisation’. Socialisation is about looking for opportunities to expose your pup to all they will come into contact with in their world but in a safe, positive way. A class environment provides an opportunity for your puppy to practice feeling relaxed, calm and comfortable in the presence of other dogs, people and children.
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Pawtential Dog Training
Introducing Your Puppy to the World
Nervy pups chased, jumped upon or forced to interact with other pups can develop a fear of other dogs resulting in a reactive adult dog that is difficult to take on outings. Pups that practice ‘bullying’ behaviours can continue interacting this way with other dogs into adulthood, again, making for a dog unsuitable to take on family outings.
Our understanding of dogs, how they view the world, how they process information and why they do the things they do is constantly evolving. We do know that making it a priority to keep your puppy feeling safe, relaxed and happy will most likely result in a more emotionally stable adult dog.
What to do if your puppy is frightened
Learn to read your puppy’s body language. This is how they communicate their needs to you. If your puppy has tail down, ears down, is whimpering or backing up trying to get away, your puppy is not comfortable.
Remove your puppy from situations where he isn’t coping. Take time to replace negative feelings with positive feelings in each situation your puppy isn’t comfortable. This can be done by connecting all your pup enjoys in life with the situation of concern e.g. feeding, playing, touching while sitting at whatever distance the pup needs from the ‘scary thing’ in order to be able to play and eat. A pup that won’t play or eat is quite possibly too anxious in which case move the puppy further away.
Take care how you react
Your puppy will quickly form a bond with you and rely on you to provide and protect.
They will be very sensitive to your body language and the hormones of stress or pleasure you emit. When you are tense, you are communicating to your puppy something is wrong.
Take care to remain calm, gentle and quiet when your puppy is demonstrating fearful behaviour. Let your puppy know you aren’t concerned by the ‘scary’ situation and there is nothing to be worried about. Reassuring a puppy is quite ok to do and has been proven to reduce anxiety.
Allow your puppy to investigate the world in their own time. Provide plenty of opportunities to explore new environments, people, animals, objects, smells, sounds etc. Exploration and problem solving activities create the neural pathways required for developing an emotionally stable adult dog.
When your puppy is doing something you prefer he didn’t, simply distract and redirect quietly and calmly. Nagging and scolding your puppy continually can make for a puppy on edge and worried in his world unsure of how to behave. We want to build a pups confidence and keep them emotionally safe not just physically safe.
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Pawtential Dog Training
Introducing Your Puppy to the World
What about growling, snarling, barking?
We definitely worry when seeing such behaviour in a young puppy. It is generally an indication of a genetic predisposition to fearfulness as opposed to having been exposed to negative experiences during their upbringing.
However, the advice remains the same.
1. Removing the puppy from the situation causing the reaction
2. Formulate a plan where negative feelings are replaced with positive. We call this ‘desensitisation and counterconditioning’.
3. Get help from a qualified, experienced behavioural trainer. Those trained by the Delta Society are amongst those most qualified to advise on behavioural issues and have connections to professionals carrying out ‘best practice’ in the industry. www.deltainstitute.com.au and http://ppgaustralia.net.au/
4. Avoid aversive, harsh treatment that will only add to your pup’s anxiety and fear.
Growling, snarling, barking is a dog’s way of communicating their fear and discomfort. They are warning whatever is worrying them, to keep away. Dog’s prefer to take ‘flight’ than ‘fight’ and will first communicate a warning only resorting to defending themselves as a last resort. Never try to suppress these warning behaviours as they give you a head’s up that your dog is uncomfortable and give you time to help your dog move away before pushed to a point of feeling the need to defend.
Introducing your puppy to people
Puppies are cute no doubt and everyone will want to pick up and cuddle your puppy! However, for some pups, all this attention is overwhelming and can create negative associations to people with the result of having a pup that prefers to avoid people and can even display warning signs to be left alone.
Allow puppies to approach people in their own time rather than have interaction forced upon them. In the world of dogs, direct eye contact is intimidating, not friendly, the same for a direct approach in greeting. Therefore, ask people to keep eyes and body averted while waiting for your puppy to approach.
For nervy pups, it is particularly important to create opportunities for positive experiences with people and children. Children and puppies require %100 supervision. Suggest children sit on the floor and call puppies to them rather than be chasing puppies constantly picking them up.
Observe your puppies behaviour for signs of stress. Use food, play, touch when interacting with people and children in order to form positive associations.
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Pawtential Dog Training
Introducing Your Puppy to the World
Introducing your puppy to other dogs
A nervy puppy is likely to run when approached by another puppy or dog. This movement away will trigger a dog to chase which can result in traumatizing your puppy. Use barriers between your puppy and other dogs with plenty of space on each side of the barrier for pups to move away to a comforting distance if need be.
Only remove the barriers when you see confident, outgoing, friendly behaviour in your puppy i.e. your puppy will be bouncing back and forth towards the other pup, tail up, ears forward, tail wagging and quite possibly a play-bow (front end down, rear end up) which is an invitation to play.
Stop interaction immediately any dog shows signs of not enjoying the interaction. Also, stop interaction regularly to lower arousal levels. As arousal levels increase, there will be more chance of conflict being triggered.
Introducing your puppy to new environments
This is a controversial issue. On the one hand you may be told to wait until your puppy has completed their vaccination program. On the other hand you will find those working in the world of training and behaviour very supportive of providing adequate early socialization recommending taking advantage of the early imprinting period.
No one can guarantee your puppy safe from disease when out and about. It is a risk that is taken. Statistics do show, however, that we lose a significantly larger number of young dogs due to behavioural issues arising from inadequate socialization than we lose puppies from disease.
Your goal
is to achieve a relaxed, happy adult dog by developing positive associations with everything your puppy is likely to come into contact with during their lifetime. Avoid triggering negative reactions as any seeds of fear or anxiety planted during a puppy’s critical learning period, can surface during their life in the form of behavioural issues.
So gentle, kind, reassuring interaction with your puppy needs to be the focus. Seek out reward based training classes where you will learn how to develop a relationship with your puppy based on trust, kindness and respect.
© Pawtential Dog Training