Socialization is a fancy word for making your puppy feel safe and confident in the world. Sounds like a tall order? It kinda is! Let me explain.

Your puppy has a finite number of weeks where they are open to making positive or negative associations with the things they encounter around them. This will ultimately effect them for the rest of their lives. That’s not hyperbole. That’s a fact.

By 16 weeks, the socialization windows for most puppies has just about closed. Since most owners don’t get their puppies until they are 8 weeks old, that’s a lot of pressure. Doing puppy socialization right can mean a lot of very good things for your dog:

• builds social skills with people and dogs
• builds confidence (I’ll go into this more in a sec!)
• makes them more resilient, so they are able to recover faster from scary or surprising events
• helps prevent fears and anxiety
• helps prevent future behavior problems, like aggression
• creates a stronger bond with their handler (that’s you!)
• makes visits to the groomer and vet easier

The key to doing puppy socialization right is to not doing too many things on any particular day and always keeping the interactions positive. Introducing your puppy to a huge variety of new people, places and objects can be overwhelming – exactly the type of emotion we don’t want to be creating.

Pick 2 or 3 things you’re going to introduce your puppy to each day and pair them with a tasty, bite-sized treat. Make sure you are relaxed and maybe even a little excited about the interactions you’ve picked out – your dog can pick up on your emotions and read your body language like a book.

This builds their confidence because now with each new experience they are spending time with their favorite person (you!), and getting treats (wow!), and associating, for example, walking across gravel for the first time, as a really positive experience.

The next time they encounter gravel, chances are pretty high they won’t even give it a second to process. They’re just going to confidently continue walking next to you towards wherever it was you were going. Gravel? Meh. Been there, done that.

Need some inspiration on socialization activities to do with your puppy? I’ve created a 4-page puppy socialization checklist. You can download your copy here.

***Before participating in puppy socialization activities, consult your veterinarian about the safest options for your puppy based on their age, vaccination status, local disease risks, and your vet’s recommended vaccine protocol.***