Socialisation – More Than Just Saying Hello

Hello, dog peeps. Jack here. Just a quick one before we get into this episode. You may or may not be aware that when I'm not talking dog stuff with Max, I in fact interview people who are incarcerated in prisons across the United States on a show called One Minute Remaining: Stories from the Inmates. And that show has been nominated for an award in America. And I would love your support if you've got 60 seconds to click the link in the show notes of this episode and just vote for my show. That would be amazing if you could. Thank you very much indeed. Oh, and don't forget to verify your email address. Otherwise, the vote does not count. Thank you.

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It's the Dog People Podcast with your host Jack Lawrence.

Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things. Yeah. Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then I get one like, oh my God, what the fuck I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet And I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. And I go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, giving you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never

have to shout, it's okay, he's friendly. I had my first one the other day. I was quite excited by that. Lady with 6 dogs, 2 on lead, 3 off lead. And one of them charged Kira and I, and she's, it's okay, he's friendly, he's just noisy.

6 is a lot, isn't it?

6 is too many if you cannot control the dogs. It's all very well and good if you can control the dogs. I mean, like, old mate, have you seen the Cherry guy on Instagram? This guy, he walks with like 25 dogs. He's a UK guy. Um, but anyway, uh, that was interesting. So I was just like, I just smiled and walked away. I don't tend to— I know people sort of love to get into arguments and stuff, but I just, I would just

walk You get the phone out and have a bit of an argument and—

Yeah, yeah. Phil Amb is like, look at this. I'm like, no, I'm not getting involved in that. But anyway, speaking of trying not to end up like that, her dog could be like that because of poor socialisation.

Absolutely. So, we gave you a bit of a nutshell overview of what socialisation is last episode. But for those that didn't listen to it, socialisation is really exposing and forming proper associations with everything in our dog's environment. So it's not just dog-to-dog interactions, it's dog-to-human, dog-to-dog, dog-to-noise, dog-to-place, dog-to-context, dog to virtually anything and everything. And we really want to do that ideally as much as possible before the 16-week-of-age mark.

Don't mean to interrupt you.

Oh, go for

it. What about my dog not having all these shots, Max?

Well, exactly. So the tricky part is, is we're going to tell you to do one thing today, your vet is going to tell you to do another. Again, here on the Dog People Podcast, we like to give you an unbiased view. So we'll talk about our opinion, we'll talk about the vet's opinion. It's ultimately up to you to make up your mind about where you sit, but we'll help you navigate all that today. So generally when we get a dog at the 8-week mark, they're already halfway through what we call their critical period of development. So the critical period of development starts at about 3 weeks of age. Our dogs suddenly open their nose, eyes, and ears and can really hear and see and smell the world. And from that moment in time, they start making up their mind on how they feel about things. So, when we get them at 8 weeks of age, they've already done quite a bit of this. So, if you've got a good breeder that you've bought your dog from, hope they've already done some sort of exposure. So, for example, when I got my Rottweiler last year, Nelson, prior to me getting him at 8 weeks, the breeder had already exposed him to various things like gunshots, children, turkeys and birds randomly, just also cats, all sorts of different things and machinery and noises. But when you get your dog, you're halfway through. And it's your job in that period from that 8 to 16 week mark to expose them to a wide variety of things, especially things that they're likely to encounter later on in life. So, if you plan on eventually taking your dog to a building site, it's worth introducing them to a building site in small exposures. Your dog is definitely going to be going to the vet at some point. It's worth taking them to the vet. Your dog is definitely going to go to the beach if you live on the coastline in Australia. So, it's worth taking them to the beach. But the tricky part thing about this is, is you'll have people like myself and other trainers telling you to do this. And then the other side of things you'll have is a lot of vets telling you to do the exact opposite of this. So, let's break down their argument for a second. Your dog probably won't get their final vaccination because they need, you know, 3 to 4 lots of their C3 or C5, whichever you opt for. Your dog probably won't get their final vaccination till about the 15, 16 week mark. And now vets will say. not to take your dog out and expose them to things because of risk like kennel cough and parvo and HPV and all these different things. And that's definitely true. But I'm here to say you can absolutely safely socialise your dog while really minimising the risk. So, for example, the day I got Nelson last year, the day we got Nelson, we were straight away to the beach. We went to a cafe that afternoon and then we went out for dinner with him. But I can tell you, he didn't touch the ground once. So, we went to the beach, we walked past dogs. People, surfboards. He heard, you know, loudspeakers from the lifeguards. He saw waving flags and wind and all this sort of stuff. But we just carried him along. He's a heavy little black brick, but we did it.

See, and that's the thing. I think when it comes to when people think socialisation, again, as we mentioned in a previous episode, it's not socialisation how we see it about sitting down with friends and chatting and being involved with people. Socialisation for the dogs, it's just seeing these things and being around them. And as you said, you know, being neutral to those things. So, Socialisation with dog-on-dog socialisation is not going to a dog park, throwing the dog in and saying, well, have at it, you know, enjoy. As you said, you carried Nelson around. He saw these things. He saw the beach, he saw flags, he saw dogs walking past. You know, that is the socialisation for a young puppy.

Exactly. And that's actually quite how you want to shape it, is it doesn't need to be these direct interactions. And in fact, it's actually more beneficial in most circumstances to not do too much of that. If I set up my dog and show them for the first 16 weeks of their life, hey, You're a puppy. Everyone wants to pat you. I'm going to let that happen. My dog is going to grow up expecting that. And then one day when they're, in Nelson's case, a big scary looking Rottweiler that no one wants to pat, that would be very distressing for him. He's like, hang on, I grew up with this. I'm not getting that. And that would be improper socialisation. So, quite often you don't need to give your dog direct interaction to the things. It's because what you're actually really aiming for is neutrality. Okay. When we socialise a dog, no matter whether that's dogs to dogs, people, places, etc., is what our aim should always be is to neutralise our dogs towards those things. Basically, I don't want my dog saying, oh, another dog, or I don't want my dog going, oh my God, another dog. It's just, meh, there's a dog. It's being very neutral and just not really having much of a response to that thing or that place or that context, etc. And when we're socialising a dog, we've got that in mind that we don't want to overexpose or underexpose that dog. So, underexposure looks like not enough experience. You know, you don't get your dog out before that 16-week-of-age mark and you suddenly go, hey, here's the world. That critical period of development, that window has started to close and it's a lot tougher to try and then socialise your dog when for the most part they've made up their mind on how they feel about that thing. And if they've never seen that thing, it's likely that they'll always feel like a bit of a fish out of water in that circumstance. And it can kind of sit with them wrong and they can always feel a bit uncomfortable.

As they say, prevention is better than cure. And as someone who has gone through the process of trying to cure a dog of a number of these things, because when we got Kira as a foster, she was a foster. And the foster people said to me, you are not to take that dog off your property because it hasn't had all its shots. And I was like, I don't agree with this, but okay, it's not my dog. It's your dog. If anything happens, you have to pay for it. And then I— my biggest regret, because obviously we eventually ended up keeping her and then we had the issues arising from that, you know, after that. And it's just taken so much work and everything like that to— Overcome those things that, that she's got. And we still work on it every single day.

Absolutely. Improper socialisation is probably one of the biggest predictors of behaviour problems down the line.

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Hello, legends. Just a quick reminder before we jump back into the episode that we have got a Facebook group, which is open to you right now. Just search the Dog People Podcast on Facebook. Join us for the discussion around dogs, everything to do with dogs and dog training. We want to be your source of help because we know this world of dog training can be a minefield to work your way through. So join us right now. Let's get back into the episode.

Ask any trainer and go, you know, what do you see the most of at the moment? They'd say COVID dogs.

Yeah, totally.

Around 3 to 4 years of old now. I guess COVID was a while ago, maybe even 4 to 5, um, who early on in life due to lockdowns and things, everyone went and bought a dog, but everyone— no one left the house. And all these COVID dogs have very classic symptoms. They hate being away from their owner because they weren't socialised to being alone while they're young. They generally get really freaked out and overwhelmed by the outside world because they didn't see Leave the house a whole lot. And as well as that, they— whenever they see dogs and people, because, you know, people weren't having friends and family around, people weren't going out and seeing other dogs on walks and stopping to. Quite often our dogs had a lot of underexposure during that time. Mm-hmm. So, you want to be very aware of underexposure. So, while yes, these risks exist, you can absolutely mitigate them for the most part just by being responsible. If you take your dog to a café, sit him on your lap. If you go for a walk down the beach, just carry him. If you go to a park, take them somewhere where the dogs don't really frequent, give their paws a bit of a wipe after, you can absolutely play this safely. But what you don't want to do is overexpose your dog. So, you can overexpose your dog in a positive or a negative sense. So, let's give an example of overexposure at a typical puppy school that just lets your dog— It's basically a free-for-all playgroup. Let's say in that group that we have a 16-week-old German Shepherd and a 9-week-old Maltese. Okay. Okay. Obviously, a very big size disparity. Now, most puppy schools will just let those dogs in and have them a bit of a free-for-all, let them mingle, let them figure it out and socialise in that way. The problem is for both dogs in that moment, they're going to experience overexposure, but in very different forms. The Maltese is going to experience more of a negative form of overexposure. They're going to get overexposed to that dog because that one dog's obviously a lot bigger and stronger than them at wrestling. And that dog is going to sit on them, squash them, nibble them, bite them, and they're going to go, whoa, that was a lot. I was really overexposed to that. And I didn't like it. That's how all of a sudden we get these little white yappy dogs, because quite often they've just been overexposed and they've just learned that every dog is out to bully me. And we get to that 16-week mark, puppy school finishes, and your dog's just had the crap beat out of them by other puppies for the last 5 weeks. Socialisation window closes and your dog makes up their mind. They go, cool, that's how I feel about dogs. And that's a negative form of overexposure. The other side of the exposure, now let's look at the German Shepherd. That German Shepherd might absolutely love dogs, but it loves to beat on dogs, bite dogs, nibble on dogs, sit on dogs, wrestle dogs, dominate dogs. If you were to ask that dog, hey, how was puppy school? He'd go, mate, I loved it. This— I want to do this every day. And all of a sudden, when you're now puppy school's over, our dog's had their jab, let's go out and walk. And we're going, why is my dog trying to get to every other dog? Because you've overexposed them and your dog is now addicted to that bullying behaviour. So, we don't want to overexpose. We don't want to underexpose. We just want to develop nice neutrality. And you do have a bit of a deadline on this. It's a lot easier, as Jack said, to prevent this from being a problem down the line rather than trying to treat it, because it can take weeks, months, sometimes years to reform a dog's associations and socialisation.

For someone listening to this, this may sound quite overwhelming because we're saying, look, you need to socialise, but don't over-socialise. So you've got your dog and say over the course of a week, Monday to Sunday, what am I doing in terms of socialisation? How much is enough socialisation and how often and all the rest of it?

So, to help make this easy for you, we're actually going to show you our socialisation checklist to give you some guidance on this. But I would be trying to give your dog 1 or 2 new social experiences every day. And what we're doing is exposing them to those things and just letting them just be around it without a great deal happening. So, if I was to get a dog Monday, I might say, hey, let's just go call past the vet. You don't need a treatment, but let's just go sit in there. You can just come in with me. I'll hold you. Let the vet nurses give you a little scratch on the head. The vet might come out, give you a treat. And we go home. Not a great deal happened. On the way home, we might call into Bunnings. I'll stick you in the trolley. We walk around. You might hear some power tools, shouting, music, whatever else. And that's a social experience of the day. The next day, Tuesday, we might get up and go for a walk down the beach. You're going to see dogs, people, lifeguards, cars, but I'm going to carry the whole time. The next day, maybe we go for coffee in the afternoon. We sit on my lap and so on and so forth. The next day, maybe you go to a dog park. We don't— certainly don't go in. You might just sit 30 metres away. And let your dog watch everything that takes place.

And that is how your dog should experience dog parks for the rest of its life, in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely.

Never go inside them. But that's a topic for another day.

Yeah. We'll do probably a series on dog parks.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Go. And why not to like them. But it's just letting your dog be around that thing without a great deal happening. I think hopefully you get the gist. We'll send you that socialisation checklist. You can reach out to us. How will they reach out to us? The Facebook page?

Yeah. Just search the Dog People Podcast on Facebook. We'll put the sheet on there. It'll be top. I'll pin it to the top of the page and you can get your hands on that. And again, If you've got any questions on this topic, chuck them in the Facebook group and we will come back. We'll probably do some Q&A episodes down the track once we've got enough people with questions. So, just jump on the Facebook page. But socialisation, it's a big one. It's a super important one when it comes to new dogs.

Absolutely. When you get your dog, obedience can be taught at any age. Socialisation is definitely paramount. When I got my dog last year, we didn't teach him sit until he was about 16 weeks. Because we can teach obedience at any age. For those first 8 weeks we had him from 8 to 16 weeks, it was all socialisation. That should be a priority.

You say that about the sit thing. I mean, you see most of the time you see, you know, new puppies online, people are straight away with the sits and trying to get them to do downs and the rollovers because, oh, it's cute. Look at all the tricks you can do. As you said, that can be taught at any stage. I looked after an assistance dog that was like a year and a half. Knew no downs or anything like that. And within, you know, space of 4 weeks, we had him a place command, a down, sit, and all that sort of stuff. So, you can teach it at any age. As you said, socialisation, you have a window to get it right.

Yeah. It should be your utmost priority if you're getting a dog. And if you've missed that window, it's all good. It's never too late. It's just going to take a little longer. So, you definitely shouldn't neglect it. Just bear in mind that it won't maybe not go as smoothly and as quickly as a puppy, and it's just going to take some time and commitment.

And if you're in a situation where you've already got a dog that's missed that window and you are having issues, don't worry. I'm sure we will cover the topic at some point. And if you want us to address a certain behavioral issue, again, jump in the Facebook group and we will put it on the list of things to talk about. The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill, edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC.

With my Sapphire Preferred card, we took a trip to

a desert oasis,

earning 5 times the points on Chase travel, 2 times the points on all other Travel plus $100 hotel credit.

Chase Sapphire Preferred, a card that's preferred for a reason.

Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA member FDIC, subject to credit approval terms applying.

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