What Is "effective Socialisation"?

[Kitteh]

Staranais, how did you make sure that your dog didn't have a high value for those things?

[Cosmolo]

I didn't say it was imperative for dogs to find other dogs highly valuable and rewarding and i certainly do NOT have dogs that 'want it all the time' and thats not what i aim for in training- my dogs or clients dogs. But as this is being considered OT, i won't keep on about it.

[huski]

I didn't say it was imperative for dogs to find other dogs highly valuable and rewarding and i certainly do NOT have dogs that 'want it all the time' and thats not what i aim for in training- my dogs or clients dogs. But as this is being considered OT, i won't keep on about it.

Sorry Cos I didn't mean to imply that was what you are saying (I think even though we may have different ways of saying it we share similar views on the subject anyway) - I was talking generally

[corvus]

My dogs run together, play together, are a pack together and i LOVE it- if i didn't like this i would not have 5 dogs. I do understand why people like seeing happy dogs interacting together. I love the body language, i love the subtleties, i love the variation between dogs, from play session to play session and play combination to play combination. I love watching them learn from each other- acceptable behaviour, unacceptable behaviour, care giving behaviour, care seeking behaviour. There is nothing quite like it.

Awww, we are so on the same page. I get all ;) when I watch my dogs just being dogs together.

My boys are BFFs and they play a lot. It really is just so much fun to watch them. As far as I'm concerned, they can play as much or as little as they like. :D That's who they are. I learn stacks from watching them and the way they change their behaviour for each dog they play with. I used to think Erik would grow into a horrible obnoxious dog because Kivi let him do just about whatever he liked to him. But he's not silly. He would be the model puppy the moment a new dog came onto the scene. It's quite interesting that they learn what behaviours are broadly acceptable and which ones are acceptable to just some dogs and who will like it when they charge up to them and so on.

Grisha Stewart has a very good dvd on organic socialising of puppies. She supervises and sets up situations where puppies can learn that they can disengage whenever they want just by turning their heads aside. Their owners are taught to 'honour the dog' and always move their puppies on whenever they turn their head aside. I like the idea of taking a more operative and deliberate approach to socialising. It doesn't have to be just exposure. You can in the process teach the puppies quiet and inoffensive ways to say they've had enough and owners learn to look for subtle signs their dogs have had enough and then a lot of troubles can be avoided.

[Pudel]

I have read this discussion with great interest.

My question is how to best introduce a puppy to a home with a grown dog? We will do the puppy preschool, and obedience. Our house has cats, kids and lizards. Our current dog seems to be quite sound with children, cats and dogs she meets on her walks. She also coped really well when we had my sisters puppy stay for a weekend. Just want to make the transition from a one dog to a two dog household as well as possible.

[JoeK]

People here I noticing very much loving the Steve the K9 pro and he done a section on the socialise is similar on the nutralise as I speak in the discussing and is here:

http://www.dolforums.com.au/topic/150837-puppy-socialisation/

Joe

[Staranais]

Staranais, how did you make sure that your dog didn't have a high value for those things?

Basically, with dogs, I exposed her to lots of other dogs but tried to only let her play with rather boring dogs that would pretty much ignore her. If she looked like she was having much fun with another dog, I tried to lure her away with a toy & show her how much more fun I was. Pretty easy with a little dog that lived to chase and bite things.

With stock & wildlife, never allowed her to chase, physically stopped her & gave her a verbal warning if she tried (and then again offered her a chance to earn a prey reward from me).

You can never control entirely how a dog will turn out, a dog's final personality has a lot to do with their genetics, their very early socialisation, as well as incidents you can't control during their upbrining. But I'm pretty happy with how my girl turned out. She is good with other dogs, is pretty good with not touching stock or wildlife (not perfect though!) and has a great work ethic. I'd do pretty much the same with my next pup, I think.

[alpha bet]

I have read this discussion with great interest.

My question is how to best introduce a puppy to a home with a grown dog? We will do the puppy preschool, and obedience. Our house has cats, kids and lizards. Our current dog seems to be quite sound with children, cats and dogs she meets on her walks. She also coped really well when we had my sisters puppy stay for a weekend. Just want to make the transition from a one dog to a two dog household as well as possible.

This is one of the big issues for families along with points like : getting along with friends dogs, taking their puppy camping or down to the park . Unfortunately most of the 'puppy schools' don't address this as they are deal with pups of 8-16 weeks (especially at vet clinics).

You can talk about issues like 'neutralising' but to the general public this just makes things sound too complicated. Instead classes need to be focused on practical, commonsense information that people can relate to. They need to understand issues about how there may be some conflicts shown between existing and new dogs but that often these are normal. People need to be taught when to step in and when to leave alone.

Puppy classes don't take it far enough however the clinics are happy to hand out their little 'Graduation Certificates" which in effect are really just because you attended the 6 weeks but have left the classes with little knowledge to take into the real world. Even going to obedience club will often not help as they do not teach you or your dog any skill on social issues.

Its not until the pups are 10-15 months old that problems may have become such an issue that families can get rid of the dog because they don't know how to fit in.

[Pudel]

We really dont want to get to that stage. I consider myself a dog person, as opposed to a puppy person. Puppies are cute and cuddly. They also require lots of work. It was only reading poodlefans original post that made me even question the implications of going from a one to two dog family. So thank you poodlefan, this thread really made this soon to be puppy owner think, and hopefully do a better job because of it.

[BorderBo]

I think the very notion that a dog can have too high a value for its own species is ludicrous. You wouldn't say your kid likes other kids too much.

Well excluding the fact that dog's aren't children and you really cannot compare them...

When the dog's value for other dogs exceeds the value the dog has for the handler, that is when it's too high. When a dog will pull it's owner off their feet to get to another dog, the dog's value for other dogs is too high. When a dog can't focus around other dogs, gets over aroused at the sight of other dogs and ignores the handler completely, that is when the value is too high.

As one who has a dog like this, I couldn't agree more. Like everything in life, it's about balance.

I don't know Huski, you have more than one dog (you lucky thing!), so Daisy is constantly able to interact with them if she chooses. I think it is beneficial for dogs to interact with their own species on a regular basis. They are after all, a pack species. I personally get a lot of enjoyment from seeing my dog playing happily with another dog and other dogs give my dog the type of exercise and play I could never give her. I intend to add another dog to my house in the future.

I often find dogs from multi-dog households are much more relaxed with other dogs and do not have a high value for them, probably from living with another dog all the time.

Just because someone has multiple dogs does not mean they are run together 24/7. My dogs rarely play together, they get along well in that we don't have any fights or misbehaviour and I don't think they dislike each other by any means but they all enjoy time on their own and would be happy in a single dog household. When I get my new puppy she won't be run with my adult dogs either.

I will never understand the "dogs are pack animals" argument for taking your dog to the dog park or having them play with others all the time. The dogs at the dog park, random dogs on the street etc are NOT part of their pack, so why is considered natural that a dog plays with dozens and dozens of dogs outside of their pack?

The average pet owner may want something different from their dog but I don't understand why it's so important that your dog plays with other dogs day in day out. We have far more fun and exciting things to do

Goodness gracious, have you never seen two dogs having a really good rumble? It is the most blissfully joyful experience, and it puts a smile on my face every time. The creativity my dogs display when they play with each other is not replicated anywhere else in their lives, including when I'm shaping them! They learn all sorts of things in play, and there is nothing on this earth I can do with them that is more fun to them than wrestling with each other. Except maybe playing with the flirt pole for Erik. He's nuts about that thing. I wouldn't have it any other way. Seeing that pure joy, laughing when they do something unexpected or outrageously obnoxious to each other, being incredulous when they use a behaviour they learnt in training to evade a pursuer, and just enjoying watching them in full flight... Why WOULDN'T you want that?? It's my greatest joy in owning two dogs. I don't know what I'd ever do if I had dogs that didn't love to rumble. It would be boring.

Well I have a dog who has very little interest in playing with other dogs and I can assure you it is not boring. I find watching a dog working excitedly with their owner far more joyful than watching dogs play with each other. My dog will 99% of the time choose herself to track scents instead of play with other dogs, so yes, I really fail to see what is so important or exciting about dogs playing with each other.

This is something a breeder raised with me recently when I went out to meet her dogs, she wanted to make it clear to me that genetically her dogs will have little interest in playing with other dogs because it's simply impractical to have a working dog out in the field that wants to run off and play with other dogs. That's not even something the dogs have to be socialised or taught to do - they just naturally have a low value for other dogs because that is how they were bred. Which is ideal from my perspective.

[Olivebaby]

I have a question regarding this subject. I have a 5 month old lab that is full of beans and loves to play. I was just at my mums who has two king Charles cocker spaniels. They are small and farely timid, particularly the female. Olive runs up and wants to play, they growl or yap but she will not back down and wants to keep playing. They get quite stressed out and it always ends up in Olive sitting outside while mum and I catch up. She is like this with my dads two labs as well but they are bigger and dont care quite as much. They let her lick and sniff with an occassional back off growl. I am not sure whether i should physical restrain or just seprate them altogether. I know this is my fault and I should be doing something different so would welcome and suggestions on how to teach her to leave the dogs alone when they have told her to. Thanks in advance :-)

[**Super_Dogs**]

I have a question regarding this subject. I have a 5 month old lab that is full of beans and loves to play. I was just at my mums who has two king Charles cocker spaniels. They are small and farely timid, particularly the female. Olive runs up and wants to play, they growl or yap but she will not back down and wants to keep playing. They get quite stressed out and it always ends up in Olive sitting outside while mum and I catch up. She is like this with my dads two labs as well but they are bigger and dont care quite as much. They let her lick and sniff with an occassional back off growl. I am not sure whether i should physical restrain or just seprate them altogether. I know this is my fault and I should be doing something different so would welcome and suggestions on how to teach her to leave the dogs alone when they have told her to. Thanks in advance :-)

Interesting.....I was at my brothers a few weeks ago, with my lab puppy who at the time was 4 months, and they have a cav. The cav was pretty grumpy with her and my puppy was bahaving pretty well - she has pretty good manners. I thought it may because their dog was not socialised much - but maybe it is a cav thing? Nothing against Cav's - I love them. Maybe a cav owner may know?

To answer your question though - sometimes you do have to 'time-out' a puppy as they can get over excited.

[Olivebaby]

I know my mums dogs are not well socialized. When poppy was a pup my mums husband was terrified she would be eaten by a dog or taken by a hawk lol! As a result she never really left the house and scampers away anytime olive goes near her. In saying that if I was her size and my big black oaf of a dog came running at me I would be scared to! I think time out might be a good idea. Although I don't think these dogs will ever be best mates, but it would be nice to take her there without all the stress!

[becks]

I'd put your dog on a lead so you can control the enthusiasm of her meetings with the cavs, only allow her to approach when she is calmer.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned earlier in this thread is that you can use a dogs want to go play with another dog as a reward for focus/training, just as you might with a toy or a treat.

[BC Crazy]

The average pet owner may want something different from their dog but I don't understand why it's so important that your dog plays with other dogs day in day out. We have far more fun and exciting things to do

Goodness gracious, have you never seen two dogs having a really good rumble? It is the most blissfully joyful experience, and it puts a smile on my face every time. The creativity my dogs display when they play with each other is not replicated anywhere else in their lives, including when I'm shaping them! They learn all sorts of things in play, and there is nothing on this earth I can do with them that is more fun to them than wrestling with each other. Except maybe playing with the flirt pole for Erik. He's nuts about that thing. I wouldn't have it any other way. Seeing that pure joy, laughing when they do something unexpected or outrageously obnoxious to each other, being incredulous when they use a behaviour they learnt in training to evade a pursuer, and just enjoying watching them in full flight... Why WOULDN'T you want that?? It's my greatest joy in owning two dogs. I don't know what I'd ever do if I had dogs that didn't love to rumble. It would be boring.

Yes, I would have to totally agree with you Corvus. The high light of each & everyday for me is to watch my dogs playing together

Makes me smile with heart felt warmth.

Very dull world if we can't have a little bit of play !!

Edited July 2, 2011 by BC Crazy

[Dxenion]

For me, effective socialisation really depends on the following points:

Firstly, how do you want your future adult dog to behave around other dogs/ people/ animals?

Are there any psychological traits that may affect the pup's reaction in certain situations (eg nervy, dominant, shy, fearless...) as these will need to be considered when planing how you conduct the socialisation.

From there you can plan a socialisation schedule with the focus on the desired behaviour ie if you want your future adult dog to be able to meet and play appropriately with other dogs, then as a pup you would gear socialisation with that goal in mind. On the flip side, if you want your adult dog to be neutral, then you set up a training strategy to that end. There are plenty of posts on DOL an how to do either.

Personally, I need my future adult dog to be neutral around any other distractions when he is working so I am training now that when he sees another dog/ person/ animal, they are about as interesting to him as a painting of the Mona Lisa. I also have to be careful not to develop any resource guarding tendancies (ie over me) as he cannot show any aggressive behaviours toward people or animals. I use equipment association and shaping/ rewarding appropriate behaviours.

My pup lives with three adult dogs and has unrestricted access to them. He romps with them but his play is supervised so that he doesn't get too excited. By doing this, we are also reinforcing appropriate play behaviour to maintain the pack harmony (he can get a bit boisterous with the other dogs and he sometimes ignores their avoidance behaviour indicators in his heightened state). When not in his equipment, he is allowed some supervised greetings with strange stable dogs but we don't allow him to play with other dogs so that he doesn't form that association.

When your dog displays behaviour you desire around other dogs/ people/ animals, that is effective socialisation. I believe that socialisation shouldn't stop when the dog reaches adulthood - it should continue it's whole life.

[Oskar & Zsa Zsa]

The average pet owner may want something different from their dog but I don't understand why it's so important that your dog plays with other dogs day in day out. We have far more fun and exciting things to do

Goodness gracious, have you never seen two dogs having a really good rumble? It is the most blissfully joyful experience, and it puts a smile on my face every time. The creativity my dogs display when they play with each other is not replicated anywhere else in their lives, including when I'm shaping them! They learn all sorts of things in play, and there is nothing on this earth I can do with them that is more fun to them than wrestling with each other. Except maybe playing with the flirt pole for Erik. He's nuts about that thing. I wouldn't have it any other way. Seeing that pure joy, laughing when they do something unexpected or outrageously obnoxious to each other, being incredulous when they use a behaviour they learnt in training to evade a pursuer, and just enjoying watching them in full flight... Why WOULDN'T you want that?? It's my greatest joy in owning two dogs. I don't know what I'd ever do if I had dogs that didn't love to rumble. It would be boring.

Yes, I would have to totally agree with you Corvus. The high light of each & everyday for me is to watch my dogs playing together

Makes me smile with heart felt warmth.

Very dull world if we can't have a little bit of play !!

I'm with you two. Watching my two together makes me smile sometimes, but mostly has me pissing myself laughing!! The sheer joy they get when playing with each other is obvious. When they are not together, I take Zsa Zsa to the puppy park where she just absolutely goes nuts playing with whoever is up for it.

[jacqui835]

What I don't do is EVER put my pups in a situation where the reactions of dogs or people are unknown or where a bad experience is hard to prevent. That rules out public offlead dog parks TOTALLY.

Although PF and I disagree on aspects of socialisation, it is at least on my part very respectfully.

In my mind, I try to be realistic about what my dogs are likely to encounter in their lives and socialise my dogs to those things, places, and situations. I live in suburbia. There are a limited number of places I can take my dogs for an off leash run. Sooner or later they are going to have to get used to dog park/dog beach madness, dogs that don't know how to talk dog, and dogs that have no idea how to behave. It would be lovely if I could choose to only expose my dogs to other dogs that are polite, considerate, predictable members of the canine population, but it just doesn't work like that. But that doesn't mean I have to avoid all the places I'd like to go with my dogs. My dogs learnt how to deal with the playground bullies, social retards, and all the rest along with the model canine citizens. I consider it an important part of their socialisation because if I want to take them to the river or the beach and have fun with them outside the yard, they WILL meet these types so I may as well make sure they'll be as comfortable as possible with them. I have to say it makes my heart swell with pride when they deftly turn a bully aside, gently coax a timid dog to play, avoid a dog that starts fights, and defuse tense situations with an easy "I'm no threat" signal. They are nearly always comfortable and confident no matter what is going on around them. I can take them anywhere and even if it's packed with dogs they are completely fine.

Having said that, it didn't just happen. I took a lot of care to gently introduce them as puppies and have always closely monitored their behaviour so I could move them before they got overly anxious or otherwise distressed. I do a lot of training with them when they are off leash in dog parks, and they didn't earn the right to make their own decisions about dogs until they got better than me at reading them. I ever so carefully let them make mistakes when I believed they were safe mistakes and guided them towards better decisions and rewarded them whenever they chose non-aggressive coping strategies. Well, I did with Erik. Kivi hasn't realised there are aggressive coping strategies yet. I listened to them and never forced them into interactions and got them out when they were saying they wanted to quit but the other dog wasn't paying attention.

I see puppies in dog parks and routinely cringe about it because they are kind of tossed in on a Saturday afternoon and the owners are so dismayed that the puppy is screaming and trying to run away that they never go back again. I figure, if you want to use dog parks, there's no real reason why you shouldn't, but there are some good rules of thumb to follow. I don't want to hijack PF's thread, and she'll probably disagree with some of my rules! Suffice to say dog parks are dynamic places and every situation is different. If you are not confident reading the situations you will probably not enjoy being there.

I'm in exactly the same situation - ie living in suburbia and wanting to take my dog everywhere with me, and I have done the same things as Corvus and had very good results. My dog is quite large, and so once he reached about 7-8 months, he lost all fear of other dogs and was quite happy to take them on if they tried to start something. We had to work quite hard to make him realise that we would never tolerate that, and that we (humans) had the power to intervene and control the situation. It was hard work though, and sometimes scary, because his main rival (at the time) was a slightly older GSD. Fortunately though, the GSD understood the word no and had no HA. If this particular dog saw him, it would charge from the other side of the park right at him, so we had to be very vigilant.

We visit dog parks at least once a week now, and it's true, especially when you own an entire male you will often find a dog who takes offense to his presence - whose owner naturally is nowhere to be found - or thinks their dog is just trying to play...

My dog will just ignore them, without letting them dominate him or anything - he just goes about his business, ignoring them and sometimes even playing with a different dog, but when he senses that they're likely to take action, hackles have gone up, stare is too direct etc, he comes and stands at my side and I know this is my cue from him to intervene. I think his arrogance sometimes annoys the other dog even more, because it's not like he comes over and hides behind me. Tail and head are right up, he almost acts like he's bored by the other dog, and so sometimes other owners get annoyed when I tell their dogs to bugger off, because they don't realise that this is my dog saying I don't want to fight this dog but this dog dislikes me and is about to attack me.

This was a hard and perhaps more risky approach than what some people here might have been comfortable with, but the result has been that we now have a bomb proof dog. I can imagine for people with smaller dogs, where one bite could be all it took, this would not be a viable option.

[dark angel]

I am not liking this puppy classes and my opinion is in the real world is achieving more problem than fixing. Is fun maybe for puppy owner with the cute pups around but what I see on the puppy class is exctracting of trait in the dominant pup to causing submission in the less dominant and causing foundation for fear reaction or conditioning dominant pup to act in social aggression towards other dogs as he growing up. Is also causing dogs to having value for other dogs is what makes training more difficult along the pathway for handler focus in the distraction of other dogs.

In the neutral socialise, what happens is dog has no value for dogs or other people, so seeing a dog or other person on the walking, the dog doesnt care is not interested and the dog or persons is as exciting on the dog as a passive object. When the trained in neutralising, you can take him through crowd of people, expose him to plenty dogs, his focusing on the handler is the same as if he in the backyard with no one around, doesnt matter what is around, the dog primary for the handler and surroundings dont matter.

Joe

Thoroughly agree with you Joek.Other dogs should be of no consequence to your dog.He shouldnt be interested in dogs or people.He will accept them but not be distracted by them.We get quite a few people who are upset because we dont let our dogs "play"with each other in class or for that matter anywhere.Two puppies playing involves the same interactions as two dogs with one exerting their dominance.As puppies people think its fun ..when they are a bit older well ......

[JoeK]

I am not liking this puppy classes and my opinion is in the real world is achieving more problem than fixing. Is fun maybe for puppy owner with the cute pups around but what I see on the puppy class is exctracting of trait in the dominant pup to causing submission in the less dominant and causing foundation for fear reaction or conditioning dominant pup to act in social aggression towards other dogs as he growing up. Is also causing dogs to having value for other dogs is what makes training more difficult along the pathway for handler focus in the distraction of other dogs.

In the neutral socialise, what happens is dog has no value for dogs or other people, so seeing a dog or other person on the walking, the dog doesnt care is not interested and the dog or persons is as exciting on the dog as a passive object. When the trained in neutralising, you can take him through crowd of people, expose him to plenty dogs, his focusing on the handler is the same as if he in the backyard with no one around, doesnt matter what is around, the dog primary for the handler and surroundings dont matter.

Joe

Thoroughly agree with you Joek.Other dogs should be of no consequence to your dog.He shouldnt be interested in dogs or people.He will accept them but not be distracted by them.We get quite a few people who are upset because we dont let our dogs "play"with each other in class or for that matter anywhere.Two puppies playing involves the same interactions as two dogs with one exerting their dominance.As puppies people think its fun ..when they are a bit older well ......

Yes, this is my belief, I remember writing on this before, thank you for finding my writing.

The worse dogs I ever seeing on poor behavior with no owner control is the socialised dog who learn from the doggy free for all which is what some people thinking the socialisation is, like letting the dog go in the dog park and play. Some on this system with good owner is ok, but most is terrible on the behavior and most learn the dog is high value or low value for the submissive dog who can be scared and flee or become aggressive from bad experience with other dogs. My wife Labrador is only pet, but we raise him same as working Shepherd on the neutral and hes never played with other dog and has no value on them. I can walk him in the dog park through 20 dogs and he look to me and doesnt care and he work the same on focus if is just him and me on the field or the back yard with nobody around.

The truth of the matter for my opinion is taking particular type of dog and handler for ability to have control over playing dogs and takes much work to do this and most cant be achieving this easily, so if you wanting good control on the dog and good behavior and the dog do as he told for good reliable companion, is much more easy to achieve on the neutral socialse dog. Same for the strangers, dog seeing value in strange people is no good either and much of the socialisation you seeing from the dog clubs and the puppy school is only teaching foundation for bad behavior on the adult dog and once the bad behavior is locked on the dog, is making good behavior harder to train and sometimes nearly impossible for average owner to fix the bad behavior when he has higher value for things than the owner give him.

Joe