We all have heard about canine socialization, but we might not know what the term means exactly.
Socialisation is the procedure through with we get a puppy used to all those triggers he might be encountering in his or her life. The goal of this process is to get our dog used to all those circumstances, so that the dog will not be concerned with them in the future.
How to get the dog used to the environment.
In order to do this, we need to make sure all those things do not bother our dog the first time they encounter them. For example, it is possible to play audio recordings of noises like traffic noises, fireworks, other animals, infant voices etc. at very low volume for a few days. With time, we should increase the volume very slowly, making sure our pappy does not show any sign of distress. Should this happen we should reduce the volume and try again.
What is it important for the dog to get used to?
Many times, we do not only want our dog to ignore the stimuli we socialise them to, but we rather want them to like them. For example, we would want our puppy to like dogs and other animals, people with different appearance (older people, children, etc.) or car drives. In all these cases we need to create controlled circumstances to ensure the puppy’s first experience is positive.
It is better to be organised and list all the things that we want our dog to be familiar with. These might be different for any dog and closely depend on our life. This is our list, how is yours?
- Traffic noise
- Car travel
- Bus travel
- Riders
- Cats
- Infants
- People on a wheelchair
- People walking with a cane
- Hoover
- Fireworks
- Thunderstorms
Federica Pirrone, Mariangela Albertini, Patrizia Piotti researchers at UNIMI Veterinaria