Social Skills

Before now and the next Practice lesson, we will cover the following topics:

• People
• Other Dogs
• Other species
• Play, conflict resolution, and social consequences
• BAT leash skills
• Training: Touch (nose to hand)
• Training: Name

Socialization is a critical part of raising a puppy. Be sure to read my short post, A Note on Socialization, in the lectures. Let’s extend that information by focusing on typical trouble-spots for adult dogs. If your dog hasn’t had a neutral to good experience with something as a young puppy (under 12-16 weeks), he’s likely to have issues if he encounters it for the first time when he’s older.

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PEOPLE

I have people listed first because issues with people have the biggest impact on dogs. People visit our homes, we take our dogs to people for grooming and health checks, and we go on vacations and may want to have people take care of our dogs while we are away. If a dog bites a person, it’s often a much bigger penalty to the dog and the owner than for a bite to another dog. Socialization helps dogs cope and thrive in a world full of people.

 

Good socialization helps puppies know that seeing humans of all shapes and sizes is normal and that (most) humans are even fun to be around. Things like vet care are tolerable and short-lived and your human will help you out of it eventually.

Think of every difference that a dog could perceive in human beings and help your dog get your dog used to all of the many aspects of our species: age, height, weight, ethnicity, gender, posture, mobility, pitch of voice, accent, odor (including cigarettes), amount of eye contact, mannerisms, clothing, even levels of intoxication. What we see as a small difference may terrify an under-socialized dog. If you think about it, dogs are not the only ones with this problem: without proper socialization, people tend to have irrational biases about differences, too.

Extend your dog’s social group and expand her ‘database’ of what is normal. Visit the country. Visit the city. Go to an outdoor shopping mall, ride the bus with your puppy, walk near an assisted living facility, walk by an elementary school during pick-up time, and visit a pet store in another neighborhood. If your puppy is nervous, don’t ride the bus; just wait with the passengers at bus stop and let your puppy meet people. That way, your puppy can meet a lot of new people, but can also move away from the strangers as needed. If you don’t have access to children, at least get your puppy used to the sound of them by playing sound desensitization CDs or audio tracks, starting at low volume during meal time.

Puppy Parties: Have visitors to your home, at many different times, just to help the puppy. Set up situations that teach your puppy that the arrival of guests is a signal to calmly go to a dog bed instead of barking and flipping out with excitement. Put a note at the door asking for patience, so you get the puppy ready. Prepare food puzzles in advance and so that when your friends arrive, you can get the puppy settled with a puzzle. Have a dog bed and the close enough to the door that your puppy can see the door from the bed. Have the food puzzles out of puppy range, but nearby for easy access.

When your friends knock at the door or ring the bell, take your time answering, rather than suddenly standing up and running to the door. Open the door a crack and greet your friendly calmly. This lets some odor in and allows your puppy to learn that someone has arrived. Tell the person, “just a minute” and shut the door (using that same phrase each time will eventually teach your dog to run to the bed when she hears it).

Call your puppy over to the dog bed and give her the food puzzle. Once she’s interested in it, casually go back to the door. If your puppy is still chewing her puzzle, open the door and have your friend come in. If not, just be boring and wait until your puppy goes back to the puzzle before opening the door (you may need better treats in the toy). Try to make it No Big Deal that your friend is there.

This bed is your puppy’s “safe zone” and should not be violated. Do not let anyone, especially children, pet the puppy when he is in his bed. If you see your puppy asking for attention on the bed, go ahead. But generally, the bed is a safe spot and the puppy should be able to go there to avoid anyone if she wants.

Ask your friends to stay relaxed, ‘act normal,’ and let the puppy sniff them when she is ready. If she jumps up, have them turn sideways so she doesn’t get attention for jumping. Any petting should be calm and follow the 5-second rule. Puppies who need distance should be allowed to move away. Explaining the plan and the 5-second rule to your friends in advance will help this all go more smoothly.

If you have another dog that barks when someone knocks at the door, do this exercise with your older dog out for a walk with a friend, in the car, in a bedroom with a Kong, etc. or have them meet the person outside first and come back in with them. You’ll need to also train your older dog not to bark, but it’s faster to work on your puppy now, before a problem begins. You only get one puppyhood. Here’s a video about that from Emily Larlham (Kikopup on YouTube). NOTE: You may need to click the video and then click again to play it directly on YouTube.

Out in public. Introduce your puppy to small crowds of people, but remember that your puppy is the top priority. Make sure your puppy is not surrounded: she should always have a clear escape path that is visible from dog height. Avoid events like firework displays or parades where your puppy meets too many people and all that your puppy sees is a sea of feet to step on her.

You are your puppy’s protector. Interactions with people aren’t always pleasant, because not all people understand things like the 5-second rule or can read when a puppy is nervous. It is your responsibility to help the puppy exit if the person is being inappropriate or is reinforcing behavior you don’t want (like jumping up). When you see cut-off signals or signs of stress (head turns away, multiple lip licks, backing away, tail tucked, etc.) either move the person away from your dog or your dog away from the person. Here are some ideas:

• Educate in advance about the 5-second rule (or 3- or even 1-second rule)
• Ask for a specific behavior from the person that is incompatible with the behavior you want to stop (feed a treat, ask your dog to sit, toss a toy, look at puppy’s feet, put your hands on your hips, take one step back, etc.)
• Call your puppy away
• Toss treats for your puppy to eat (I call that “Hazard Pay” for putting up with the person)
• Pick up your puppy
• Say “Stop” (then leave or explain what to do)

Given how unaware most people are about dog behavior, you are likely to have something rude happen to your puppy from time to time. That’s an opportunity to help your dog learn to move away or to give your dog a treat for putting up with it. If nobody is ever rude to your puppy, you might have to do some of it yourself, just so they know that it’s not the end of the world. Pat instead of petting sometimes, then toss a treat for your puppy to go grab from the floor. Lift the puppy up, treat, and then set her down. Lift up an ear, toss a treat. Again, there are usually plenty of opportunities in your everyday life, so just be ready to help your puppy learn to handle it.

Petting. I hope that your puppy will enjoy physical contact. Free massages are part of the perks of being a dog that lives with humans. Your dog may not enjoy that at first, especially with people from outside of her family.

This is an ideal version of the 5-second rule, with a dog who clearly enjoys a lot of physical affection from his dad (thanks to Benjamin Bonhomme, CBATI for the video):

But not all dogs really want 5 seconds, especially puppies. You have to observe for signs that you are petting for too long. For the 5-second rule, it’s *at most* 5 seconds, so you may need to use the 1-second rule if your puppy does not yet tolerate scritching. Here are two alternate versions of the 1-second rule:

A. Pet for up to 1 second, then back away entirely and pet for another second when she comes up to you.

B. Pay her for putting up with petting. For example:

1. She initiates contact
2. 1 second of petting
3. Calmly treat while still petting (at, say, 3/4 second)
4. Stop petting, move your hand away and/or take a few steps away
5. Wait for her to reinitiate contact and repeat

The video below has several safety issues. We will discuss that in the forum. For now, watch this and think about the advice from above. You may have to turn off the sound to focus on the dogs. It’s pretty long so you can pick and choose. Do take a look at the very fearful dog at 1:53. You can play it in slow motion if you toggle the settings on the bottom right of the video.

Quality over quantity. I listed a lot of different characteristics to get your puppy used to with people, but I also want to make an important point.

Having 200 acquaintances is not as valuable as having 20 very good friends. While we do want your puppy to meet lots of people, if you are short on time and have to choose between meeting a lot of people and meeting a smaller number and really getting to know them, go for the second option.

Let’s say that you travel to the country of Xamabica for a year in one of two ways. Compare:

1. You go to Xamabica in a large group from your country. You have been to many different restaurants, hotels, and taxis, so you have interacted with a 200 Xamabicans in the service industry from different parts of the country.
2. You go to Xamabica with a friend who introduces you to a few friends in a small village. They introduce you to their families and you know about 20 people total from several generations.

In which scenario are you likely to:

• have a good feeling about the people from Xamabica?
• be interested in meeting more people from Xamabica?
• understand personal interactions in Xamabica?
• be able to communicate in Xamabican?

It’s clearly better for generalization to have both many deep friendships and lots of interactions with a variety of people. But time is short, so that may not be possible. If our dogs only have a tiny number of friends and many acquaintances, I think they end up with worse social skills than the other way around. So don’t get so busy checking off items on your list with acquaintances that you forget to make your dog some friends.

The take-home message is:

For social skills and a positive feeling toward humans, help your dog build friendships with a wide variety of people outside of your family. Meeting a variety of acquaintances along the way will help generalize this knowledge.

 

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