Socializing Your Dog

Bailey's now a pretty confident puppy around the house.  She's been socialized with vacuum cleaners, carpet cleaners, lawn mowers and pretty much turns her nose up at them as nothing to be afraid of (fell asleep with the vac running the other day).

I'd wanted to document what I did to socialize her, because many dog magazines, training books and websites all tell you to do this, but many don't actually tell you what exactly "socialize" means.

In a nutshell, socialization is associating something neutral to nice happening to the puppy with a particular event (eg. a vacuum cleaner turning on), preferably with the first experience the puppy has of the event, in order to cement in their minds that when the event repeats itself, it's not a bad or scary thing.  The main time to do this is between the fear periods from 8 to 12/14 weeks of age but bear in mind that dogs learn all the time, even when they are adult dogs.

Think Happy Thoughts

Think about the things you remember when you were a child, say around 5-6 years of age.  Were they of school holidays, a particular favourite uncle, of certain foods, smells, sounds?  The memories you form in childhood would most likely be impressions, short of being a genius, few people are likely to remember lottery numbers from 1984, unless they'd won something then.  Impressions are most cemented in memories when they are associated with emotions, happy or sad.  This is exactly how it is for a dog and especially a puppy, memories and associations are formed from emotional responses to stimulus.

So the formula therefore is simple - happy = good; scared/sad = bad.  This knowledge is a powerful thing, as you can use this pretty much to condition your dog to respond in a particular way to pretty much anything.  The scary thing is that you'll have to remember that you don't turn on your dog's memories whenever you want to press "record", it happens all the time, whether you're conscious of it or not.

So something as ordinary as a vacuum cleaner can be a horrible experience for Beanie who could have been accidentally kicked when she was a puppy approaching a vacuum, to an OK to even good experience for Bailey who was cuddled in her bed and dropped random treats when the vacuum cleaner was turned on.

Reprogramming is Possible

Also remember that intense emotions experienced during an event can "over-write" less intense emotions experienced for the same event.  That is, with adequate exposure and given time, even adult dogs can be reconditioned to look at an event they previously thought was negative in a positive to OK way.

I was taken aback by how quickly dogs readjust in that way when taking Beanie for a long 5 hour car ride a few years ago.  Prior to the road trip, Beanie had only taken short 30 minute car trips to the vet or the park.  She wasn't hugely not in favour of car rides, but the jostling and movements frequently upset her stomach and balance, and made her uncomfortable, to the point of loads of whining, crying and vomiting on some rides.  So when I first started the long 5 hour trip, the first 30 minutes contained the usual whining and crying.

But a few preparation items were different for the long trip.  I'd prepped a spray of doggy calming pheremone in the car, as well as comfy cushions and beds for the long haul.  I'd also made sure of an empty stomach (so no vomiting) prior to the start of the trip, and fed small snacks along the way.  The joy of the small treats, coupled with the creature comforts and pheremones led to a very settled dog after 30 minutes.  She even fell asleep along the way, and for the rest of the journey and thereafter, all car rides were accepted with a floppy lie-down, as Beanie learnt from that one long trip, that car rides are just another excuse to take a long nap.

Associate, not Distract

One of the things I did wrong with my first dog was to distract my dog with plenty of nice stuff (treats and bones usually) when something possibly unpleasant was happening (eg. getting their nails cut).  This was the result of having read and misinterpreted the less than clear instructions of socializing your dog by giving them something pleasant with something possibly unpleasant.

Timing is everything here, but you'd want to reward the behaviour of being calm or at minimum nonplussed about the event (remember - focus on what the dog is feeling during the event) rather than distracting your dog to the point that they don't remember what's happening to them except that they were getting a treat.  This is what happened with my dog when her nails were cut.  In desperation, while I was cutting her nails, I had to enlist the help of an ally who was dangling bones and stuffing treats into Beanie's jaws to keep her happy and quiet.  The result, Beanie didn't know or remember that her nails were cut, only that being on the table (when she was groomed) resulted in the consumption of many nice things.  To this day, she loves going on the grooming table, less so what happens to her after she gets on it.

The result, a lot of reconditioning after that rewarding Beanie for standing there quietly while her nails are being handled and held in a specific way to allow for them to be cut, by giving her the treat after they are cut, and not during.

I did this with my new puppy by sneaking in snips from the nail scissors when I was cuddling her, in the most uneventful way - just a few nails a day.  She now doesn't mind this one bit and thinks it's normal cuddling behaviour from me, and I don't even need to treat or trick her into accepting anything until the full paw is done with a cuddle and a small bite.

Create New Associations to replace the Old Ones you Don't Want

If something has an association that you don't want (eg. dog barking = mad panic!!) - create a fresh association that the dog hasn't seen before which has a positive response and link the two.

Example: Neighbour's Dog Barks > your dog's response is to bark and run around frantically. You make a small sound (eg. duck quacking or whistle blowing) when you hear the neighbour's dog bark and give your dog a treat. Gradually, your dog comes to associate the sound of the neighbour's dog barking with the neutral quacking sound, and from there, a treat.

Beanie for example already had a really bad relationship with the vacuum cleaner.  Whenever the cleaners came to vacuum around her, she would go stir crazy, even if in her crate, and bark and try to get at the vacuum from the safety of her crate.  She did however have a very fond love of Pedigree Dentastix chews, which was stronger in her like-list than her dislike of vacuums (so I learnt).

So one day I gave her the chew in her crate, while proceeding to vacuum all around her.  The result from that one experience was that now when she sees the vacuum cleaner, she runs to her crate and wants for a Dentastix.

So overall tips from me:

1. Treat, not trick.  Make your dog conscious of what you're rewarding before rewarding the behaviour.
2. Behave as if the things which should matter (nail cutting, grooming, vacuum cleaners) actually really doesn't.  Remember your dog isn't born with a list of things which should matter to him and which should not, they are learned behaviours in early puppyhood.
3. Be conscious that your dog is learning 24/7 and use this to good effect by modifying behaviour bit by bit.
4. Link associations you don't like to a newly created positive association.