Dog Blog Post #128: And now we turn our attention to Socialization...I personally believe that proper Socialization is at least as important as learning Skills - especially for a puppy.
Round #1: I knew this with Beau, and really did try, but ultimately screwed up the implementation. That is, he was incredibly well socialized - but pretty much only outside the local grocery store. That created a dog who was very well behaved - but pretty much only outside the local grocery store.
Elsewhere, he exhibited his Obsessive Compulsive Friendliness Disorder for all the world to see.
( I believe this is a classic example of dogs "not generalizing well". )
Round #2: Determined to do better, I took Zachary many different places and ultimately did a much better job - although how much of that was due to my hard work and how much due to his "being Zachary" is impossible to say.
Of course, we can always do better. Looking over my posts from CGC Class shows places where things were a lot harder than they should have been. Things like: meeting a friendly stranger (ok, he's a golden, I get that, but still...), meeting a dog (again, too friendly), and his Achilles Heel - Supervised Separation (whimper whimper whimper....)
Round #3: I have recently been pointed to Margaret Huges' The Puppy's Rule of Twelve. If you have a puppy, a young dog, or are thinking about getting either, then I would strongly recommend taking a look at it. She basically outlines Thirteen (yes, I counted twice!) different types of experiences (surfaces, objects, people...) that should be done Twelve different ways (or, in some cases, Twelve ways each week or Twelve times in Twelve different ways).( As I don't want to get into copyright issues, I won't reproduce it here. You can click the link for a pdf I found it on-line, although I don't believe that's the original source. If someone knows it, let me know and I'll change the link! )
Scattered in this post are two pages I whipped up last night to help me track all those Twelves. (Click to see larger) I don't think I can get into copyright trouble for that!
Coming soon (I hope) will be a list of ideas for "filling in the blanks."
... of course, if anybody out there has any other ideas, feel free to share!
2 comments:
hi kathleen, my favorite thing about the internet is you making all my charts for me! LOL Really though having this exchange of ideas is great.
So here are some random ones that I came up with that Maizey missed:
playing in sprinklers/hose (obviously be careful with little puppy)
elevators, escalators, moving walkways
airports or bus terminal, trains (important for different sounds not heard around my place)
public bathrooms (our part time charley is NOT fond of those loud flushing toilets, but camping that's all we had.:P)
camp fires
I include as I said the strange ones that may not be as vital as dogs, people etc are.
My question is how all this gets done by the time puppy in the famed critical socialization period?? :)
Ah - public toilets. Forgot about that one. Beau was fine always fine with them, but Zachary was unimpressed with the more vigorous ones. (adding that to my growing list)
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