socialising puppy Archives - Brisbane Dog Training & Pet Behavioural Specialist

Puppy Fear Impact Periods | Dog School Brisbane

Puppy Fear Impact Periods – bringing home a new puppy or teenage dog

It’s exciting bringing home a new puppy. Most people who bring home a new puppy get themselves prepared for all of the fun and challenges of puppy hood. However many new puppy parents don’t know about the puppy fear impact periods. To help your puppy feel supported and safe as they develop, it is important to know what to do when they are experiencing their puppy fear periods.

What is the puppy fear impact period?

Our puppies go through several fear impact periods. This is where your pup may suddenly appear fearful of new things or things they have been comfortable with in the past. For example, your pup may have previously been comfortable with different people coming to the house. During a fear impact period they may now appear fearful or even aggressive towards visitors.

Fear impact periods for puppies usually coincide with different stages of their development. The main hypothesis for these fear periods is that each of these life stages is when puppy develops greater levels of independence. When our puppies become more independent, they need to have an increase in their fear response to any change in the environment.

When do these fear periods happen?

Puppies usually have their first fear period at around 5 weeks of age. This is when they are with their mum and siblings, so most puppy parents won’t see this stage.

The second puppy fear period occurs during the 8-12 weeks of age period. So, if you bring your puppy home at this age range, they are most likely going through a fear period. This second puppy fear period coincides with the end of our pup’s socialisation period. This socialisation period is between 3 weeks of age and finishes anywhere from 12-16 weeks of age depending on the breed of dog.

The third puppy fear period occurs at some point between 5-14 months. This coincides with further developmental changes and sexual maturation of the pup.

During these fear impact periods, try to ensure your pup is not exposed to anything particularly scary or stressful. If this does happen, it can impact on our puppy’s ability to cope with changes in the environment and to cope with stress for their adult life. For example, if a puppy has a bad experience with kids during a fear impact period, they can develop a long term fear of children.

My dog Henry, in the photo above, was in a council pound for his first two fear impact periods. It is an unfortunate reality that these kennel style environments are scary for most animals. This experience in the first four months of his life meant that Henry’s ability to cope with any change in the environment had been significantly compromised when he first came to live with us.

As Dr Ian Dunbar notes, these fear impact periods for our puppies do not start and finish at exact times. These periods are rough guidelines only and vary greatly depending on the breed and individual dog.

What to do during a fear impact period

If you see your puppy being fearful of something, the biggest thing to do is to try not be worried or upset. We want our voice and body language to be relaxed. This means our puppy sees that we are relaxed and not worried about the thing they think is scary. Try and add a light happy tone to your voice and talk to your puppy. For example, “what’s that silly thing over there, what a clever puppy you are!”
Give your puppy the choice to move further away or go closer to the thing they are scared of. We never want to force our puppy to interact with something they are scared of. Similarly, we don’t want to lure them closer to the scary thing using food or a toy. If we do this our pup will follow the lure and then realise how close they are to the scary thing and become even more scared of it.
Pair a tasty treat with your puppy seeing the scary thing. Over time your puppy will build a new association that when they see the scary thing, good things happen. If your puppy is not taking treats in this situation then it is likely that they are too scared. In this case you need to get your puppy much further away from the scary thing straight away. Always work at a distance where your puppy is not so scared that they don’t want to eat.
Avoid any big changes where possible. If you think your puppy is going through a fear impact period, try and avoid doing things such as invasive vet procedures, long distance travel or changes in the household.

Is it a puppy fear period or something else?

We offer one on one consults and both puppy and adolescent classes to help support you during your puppy’s development. Please get in touch if you would like some extra support.

In particular, if the level of fear that you puppy is experiencing towards something is not changing or is getting worse over time, please get in touch so we can help reduce your puppy’s fear.

Socialisation: Puppy Training Tips

What are the Most Important Puppy Training Tips?

More often than not, when people first bring a puppy to puppy class, they have already introduced the cues of ‘sit’ and attention to their name. They might be coming to class for some puppy training tips on biting, toilet training and some other skills such as loose lead walking and recall. While these behaviours are important, if you ask us for our most important puppy training tip, it would be summarised in one word:

Socialisation

Best Puppy Training Tip: Socialisation is the foundation to a mentally well adjusted dog

Socialisation is not just teaching the dog to be comfortable and friendly around other dogs. Socialisation is about teaching the puppy that the world they live in is safe. Puppies have a critical window of socialisation where most things they encounter are classified as ‘safe’. So, during this period it is crucial to give our puppies as many safe encounters with their world as possible. For most breeds of dogs, this socialisation window starts rapidly closing at 12 weeks of age, and is mostly closed by 16 weeks of age.

What do I socialise my puppy to?

So I’ve mentioned the world, which is pretty broad. To figure out what to socialise your puppy to, sit down with all the people living with the dog and make a list of all of the different things you want to be able to do throughout the course of your puppy’s life.

Things that may be on your list could be to:

go camping
go to the beach
have friends visit the house
have renovations
visit the vet
feel comfortable in the presence of other dogs
go to the groomers
go to a cafe
use a blender at home
use the vacuum
have children
throw a party

The list above is just an example of some of the things that may be on your list. You may have also noticed that the list above includes things that the puppy may be directly involved in such as going to the vet, versus experiences that puppy may just be around, such as using the blender.

Don’t worry if you don’t get to all of the things on your list. However, if you are able to socialise your puppy to a wide range of sights, sounds, smells, surfaces and experiences, they are more likely to be resilient to encountering new experiences in the world.

How to socialise

Always give your puppy choice to approach or move further away from the object.
Pair the new item with something your puppy likes. For example, when the puppy sees the new item, they get a tasty treat.
Deconstruct the new item so each part of the new item can be introduced individually. For example, socialising the puppy to the blender may involve firstly introducing the sight of the blender in one session, then the sound in another session, and then lastly once puppy has encountered both of these separate aspects and is comfortable, we can introduce the sight and sound combined. Remember, distance is always helpful when introducing a new component.
Keep calm and relaxed if puppy gets a fright. Your puppy may refer to our body language and tone of voice if they are worried. So, if we look worried or scared in a situation, they may take this as confirmation that the new item is definitely scary because we also look scared.

Need some more puppy training tips?

We run classes specifically for puppies where we focus on socialisation and other basic behaviours. For more information about this course, click here.

Biting and Mouthing | How To Stop Your Puppy Biting

Biting and mouthing by puppies are common and normal behaviours. Like babies, puppies use their mouths to explore the world. Everything goes in your puppy’s mouth including human hands, feet, fingers and toes.

Puppies are also used to rough-and-tumble play with their brothers and sisters with lots of biting and mouthing. A puppy’s bite will start to hurt as their canine teeth come through and they grow and become stronger.

Below are some tips for teaching your puppy the rules when it comes to interacting, getting your attention and playing.

Be consistent and help your puppy to make better choices

Your puppy needs to learn how to behave properly including how to play politely. Bite inhibition is the ability for your puppy to use their teeth without causing distress or hurting other people or dogs.

Teaching “bite inhibition” will help your puppy have fun, and to be safe, with other people and other dogs.

Below are two suggested methods for teaching your puppy bite inhibition – (1) using toys and (2) meeting your puppy’s needs.

Direct to a calming activity

Chewing, licking and sniffing is naturally calming to dogs and helps to meet their needs from a biting and chewing point of view.

When your puppy goes to use their teeth, direct them to either a long lasting chew, kong or lickimat. They need to do this calmer activity for minimum 10 minutes so you may have to be creativity with what you use or what you have prepared or on hand. Make sure all energetic or exciting games are mixed up with a calming activity, for example scent games or puzzles. Swap between the two types of play ensuring your puppy does not get overstimulated. Teach your puppy to self-regulate their excitement. An overstimulated puppy will bite.

Meeting your puppy’s needs

Although, biting and mouthing is a natural behaviour, it is often worse when we are not meeting your puppy’s needs.

Make sure you are getting the balance right with the following:

Getting enough sleep or rest. An overtired puppy will be a biting monster. Make sure you teach your puppy to rest every hour.
Meeting their exercise needs. Pent up energy means they will struggle to make good choices and control their impulses.
Meeting their mental stimulation needs. This is the one that will make the MOST difference. When your puppy starts to bite re-direct them onto a puzzle or do some training that engages their ability to problem solve. When a puppy is thinking they are calm and less likely to bite.
Give them six new things to do with their mouth everyday. Feed their meals out of enrichment toys, give them rubbish to destroy and chew (always supervise at first to make sure they don’t swallow anything). Give them natural long lasting chews and ice blocks or meals frozen in a toy is a great way to sooth teething.

What doesn’t work

Always use positive reinforcement techniques when training your puppy.

Never punish them or yell at them. It will only make your puppy anxious and scared of you and create other behavioural issues that you don’t want. Dogs that are physically or verbally punished are more likely to retaliate with aggression. And it’s cruel.

We have also found for some puppies yelping or making a loud noise can overstimulate them and make the behaviour worse or frighten your puppy. So we no longer recommend this strategy.

Lots of praise

Remember to reward your puppy when they play well and politely. Give them their favourite treat or toy. This will show them that good things happen when they play nicely.

Supervise play between puppies and children

Children can’t use these training techniques on their own and will need adult help. And children often do things to get puppies excited, for example squeal and run around. Children must be supervised with puppies at all times.

Final thoughts

It’s important that everyone in the family or household practices these training tips. Everyone who interacts or plays with your puppy needs to be consistent.

If your puppy continues to be too rough, then seek help from a professional dog trainer that uses positive training techniques.

At Fur Get Me Not, our qualified canine coaches can support you in using positive training techniques to teach your puppy bite inhibition and other critical skills. We’re passionate about puppies and their humans forming strong bonds. Get started today by clicking here.

Socialising your puppy with dogs

Keep it safe

Don’t introduce to any unknown dogs that you meet on a walk. If you don’t know the dog owner, you don’t know that it is safe. The dog could be aggressive or not vaccinated. Or they may not be tolerant of puppies. You also only want to make sure to only expose your puppy to adult dogs that are good role models.

Keep it positive

Don’t push your puppy. Let them choose to interact in their own time. Keep an eye on their body language and make sure they are having a good time. Use their favourite treats to create a positive association.

Keep it controlled

Take it slow. If your pup moves away, turns its head, licks its lips or retreats to you then they are not having a good time. You will need to go slower with the interaction. Overwhelming experiences while the pup is in the critical development periods are enough to create a fearful dog.

Avoid

Please do not go to the dog parks as you can not guarantee it is safe, positive or controlled. Dogs are injured and die in dog parks far too regularly. At the very least, your puppy will learn inappropriate play skills. We can always tell a dog that has been socialised at a dog park as they don’t have an “off” switch and don’t know how to listen to other dogs.

Quality rather than quantity

The message out there is to do as much socialisation as possible and this is true, but only if you can maintain it being safe, positive and controlled. Quality interactions that ensure your pup is having a good time is absolutely essential, negative interactions will undo the good work you have done. Look for puppy schools that have small classes and playgroups. Otherwise, it will be difficult to maintain safe, positive and controlled.

Start Early

Don’t wait till your puppy has finished their vaccination schedule. Most puppies that wait till the end of vaccinations have missed the key socialisation window and are at risk of developing fears and phobias. Enrol in a puppy school and playgroup as soon as you lock in a date to bring your puppy home. Make sure it is run by only experienced and certified positive trainers and they run their classes and playgroups in a safe, positive and controlled way.

Check out Fur Get Me Not’s Puppy School and play groups here