By Heidi Clayton
The word “socialization” gets thrown around a great deal in the dog training world. Broadly applied, yes, your 6-month-old puppy is technically “socializing” when you take them out to meet other dogs, but in the scientific sense when applied to the raising of puppies, socialization ends at the end of week 12 of their life. This period of the first 12 weeks of life is called the critical socialization period.
Socialization only occurs in any puppy’s life from roughly 3 weeks of age and ends at 12 weeks of age. This means that every emotional response your puppy has to sounds, objects, people, and life in general is shaped in that 12 weeks and under.
After 12 weeks, the training process is entirely different. The brain chemistry of a 12-week-old and under puppy allows for easy shaping of emotional responses to such things as fear, excitement, human or dog-on-dog interactions.
Once the brain chemistry begins to change at the start of week 13, things that they are exposed to become a novelty, and this is when fear of such things develops.
While you can still train a puppy over 13 weeks to do and like things, the process is different and there are varying degrees to your success. Under 12 weeks of age, you have a much easier road to travel shaping emotional responses that result in stable attitudes, and behaviors.
Many of the rescue and puppy mill puppies that I train are timid, shy and struggle to adapt to their new lives. While I will not hold my breath that puppy mill operators would ever care about that, there is a program to help puppies develop emotional intelligence, learn how to communicate with people, other dogs, and handle and recover from fear. Called Puppy Culture, the program is a series of protocols that can help you positively shape your puppy’s emotional stability, responses to scary things, cope with fear, and offer behaviors in the presence of humans.
Rescue groups that foster pregnant mothers or their litters could benefit from using this program and positively influence a puppy’s life before 8 weeks, when most are placed. They would do well to read up on the critical socialization period or checking out what Puppy Culture is all about.
Society expects more from dogs than ever before. If you bring a puppy home at 8 weeks, remember that true socialization skills can only be instilled prior to the end of 12 weeks. Learning how to socialize them correctly will help them adjust to the high expectations that we have placed on dogs.
You can learn more about Puppy Culture on their webpage or at MadCapUniversity.com.
If you have a scared puppy and have questions on how to help them, feel free to email: heidi@fouronthefloor.dog.
Heidi Clayton started Four on the Floor Dog Training as a result of her own struggle to find a positive and reward-based dog trainer in South Jersey. She breeds, trains, and shows her own bull terriers under the SoraBully’s Kennel name.
Heidi Clayton is a retired 25 year veteran of the Atlantic City Police Department. She started Four on the Floor Dog Training a result of her own struggle to find a positive & reward based dog trainer in the South Jersey area. She is passionate about giving every dog, even the difficult ones, a voice and the skills they need to thrive in life. She breeds, trains, and shows her own Bull Terriers under the SoraBullys’s Kennel Name.
