Part 1 - Early Stages of Socialization with Michael Ellis

socialization is providing your young dog puppy with positive experiences in a variety of new environments around people other dogs new locations etc and we have some basic guidelines we try to follow when setting up a socialization plan for our working puppies it is especially important to have a good socialization regime for a working puppy working puppies are often exposed to variable in different environments somewhat difficult sometimes so proper socialization is accentual in dog training there are many guidelines and not a lot of rules it's so we have ways that we tend to trend but different dogs are gonna be different and especially when it comes to socialization regimes right these are things that you can have very polar opposite approaches that can work with a given dog so these guidelines are things just to keep in the back of your mind when you're structuring the socialization experiences for any given dog socialization is an ongoing process it's happening whether you want it to or not right and this is one of the things that we tend to I think when we get puppies we tend to compartmentalize our training time like okay now I'm focused on dog training and now my dogs just being the dog and I'm not paying attention that kind of stuff with puppies they're learning stuff that whole time dogs always are but especially with puppies they're learning things so you need to make sure that one we pay special attention to it in the early stages but that you maintain it as your dog gets older as well because it is not uncommon that somebody socialized a puppy very well when they were young and then they stopped and they don't take it anywhere and then you take that dog back out again later on and the dog has issues with certain things that they're not used to so it's an ongoing process that doesn't stop a puppy hood but we want to pay a special attention to the early stages of it the other thing is make sure that you space special attention to the environments in which you expect your dog to perform right so if you're having a herding dog you better get it out on farms around livestock and things like that otherwise you're gonna have issues if you're gonna have a service dog that's gonna go work in New York City then you better get it used to traffic and sidewalks and the crazy noises you get of city and so try to map out a plan based on what you intend to do with the dog right a really important part of it is that remember functional we people have a tendency I think to think of socialization as letting my dog say hi to somebody or letting my dog play with somebody else's dog that is a form of socialization it's one piece but not all socialization has to be direct at interaction functional socialization can just be having your dog have good experiences around novelty around something new so I can socialize my dog with another dog by just having my dog see another dog there and feeding my dog for hanging out around a new dog they don't ever have to have a direct interaction necessarily and frequently when I can't control the situations like I don't know the people I don't know the other dogs I don't know how that's gonna go I do that type of socialization kind of protected socialization where you work around the things instead of having your dog directly interact with them so keep that in the back of your mind you're still socializing your dog even if your dog doesn't say hi to that dog or that person doesn't pet your dog just having them around them and having them a good experience is frequently the best kind of socialization especially for nervous dogs the dogs that are nervous get overwhelmed quickly so they go to meet a new dog or a new person it's fine initially and then the new dog or the the dog or person gets to forward and then they have a bad experience whereas if you just had them hang around that whatever it was get rewards from you they come that was there it looks a little scary but it's not as scary as I thought nothing bad happened only good things happened and then you're on your way and you had a productive experience for the dog take care with fearful dogs and the use of aversives in socialization this is a classic one a lot of bad behavior in dog training is rooted in insecurity dogs behave badly because they're nervous dogs bark at things because they're nervous they aggress towards things lots of behavior can be rooted in the fact that the dog is uncomfortable aversives are correcting your dog for that bad behavior is not going to make the underlying trigger better if my dog is afraid of other dogs and then the other dogs approaching and my dog barks and I yank on my dog's leash or correct my dog then that may stop my dog from lunging at the other dog but it is not going to make their underlying fear of other dogs better it's gonna make it worse right you can't correct away fear and so be cautious sometimes you don't have a choice you have to stop a dog from doing something but pretty typically I want to avoid the use of strong aversives when if I perceive my puppy as being afraid of something I want to work on their confidence first and foremost and frequently by just raising their confidence making them not afraid of that thing by giving them good experiences the bad behavior goes away as we go along so be careful [Music]

Channel: Leerburg

Views: 19,944

Keywords: Dog Training, Dog Trainer, Michael Ellis, Puppy Training, Puppy Obedience, Dog Obedience, Dogs, Dog Behavior, Agility, Dog Sports, Working Dog, Puppy Videos, California, Menomonie Wisconsin, California Dog Trainer, Socialization

Id: 9OxOq6PKFzU

Length: 5min 21sec (321 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 06 2019