Socialization - Blog Two

In this blog, we will be talking about what it means to socialize your dog, the differences oin human-type socialization and dog-type socialization, and how the common perception of socialization may not be healthy or acceptable for dogs.

We first need to define socialization for dogs; general society regards dog socialization as a dog being comfortable with everyone and their uncle, both human and dog alike, coming up to them and interacting in some way. In reality, dog-type socialization is the ability to continue on in daily activity without confronting, meeting, or interacting with other packs that are around, and instead just smelling their pee and carrying on with their separate lives. Dogs, being descendents from wolves, don't have the traditional all-dog pack they are driven to need. Their pack consists of their humans; meaning the ones who live with them. A human pack is very different from a dog pack, and we do fulfill that pack need, but dogs are wired to pay more attention – not healthy attention – to other dogs. Dogs that are allowed to become excited about strange dogs and people instead of ignoring them are not having their needs fulfilled; instead, it is expecting them to be something they are not. Wolves in the wild do not interact with wolves outside of their pack unless it comes to two alpha males who fight and the loser breaks off to form their own pack, or terretorial disputes. We as humans have passed on our need and desire to socialize with others, which is healthy for a human, onto our dogs; it is normal for us to talk and interact with strangers, but this mindset can lead to undue stress, reactive behaviour from our dogs, and is not a healthy habit to let your dog get in to. It can also cause your dog to be more excited about everyone else than yourself and your pack, and this is the opposite of the goal. This is where problems like not listening and excited behavior pop in. If your dog is more excited about everything else, how can he be expected to listen?

We at Ideal Companions believe that expecting your dog to be comfortable with this level of non-pack socialization is not healthy. For dogs, the idea of being social with other dogs is stressful, as they are programmed to think “fight or flight”, and they present behaviour that tells us they are not comfortable with the situation. We need to pay attention to these signs in puppies and not expect them to be human-type social. Most often this is by barking, or growling, as another dog approaches, or looking away, lowering down, and moving away. This behaviour is easy to fix, but our advice if your dog is exhibiting this behaviour is to not force outside pack socialization on your dog and to phone us to help you train your dog to act in a less unacceptable manner, and to move forward with teaching your dog to ignore others, rather than greeting.

Training a puppy to be dog-type social can happen the day he comes home. We believe it is less stressful to train your puppy to focus and be engaged with you, and to ignore everything else going on around them. This means, in the initial stages of learning and training, it is more work, but in the long run you end up with a much more responsive, and usually a less reactive dog. If your dog cares more about you than the things around him, he will listen every time, without fail, even if there is a steak being waved around. Puppies rely on their owners to protect them. They are not born with the ability to be human-type social, and rely on the older pack members to keep strange packs away from them. Whether they act happy or not, they are aware their humans are not keeping strange packs away and they're not ignoring them, so they have to learn an entirely new and unusual set of skills that are not natural to a dog. After time, this can lead to a dog becoming confused on who is safe and who is not, being suspicious of everyone around them, or thinking that their humans will not keep their pack safe, so it is their job. This is why it is important to teach your dog that you will protect them, by ignoring other packs. Now that being said, it doesn't mean you can't have your dog interact with close friends. These people are part of his “extended pack”; people that are not around every day, but are accepted into the pack when they come. These people are “safe”. These “safe” people should not encompass everyone you meet on the street.

To train a puppy to be dog-type social, you must expose him to as many different scenes, scenarios, and situations as possible, while maintaining their focus on you. Start small, and work your way up to things like crowds, or great noise. Every day should bring something new, or two new things. Adult dogs are a little different; since they already have established behaviors, you must train them that the rules have changed. It is the same basic concept, only adult dogs can take longer.

The simple fact of the matter is, in this day and age, it is safer to train your dog to ignore others, random food on the ground, situations, and focus on you. If your dog is interested in another dog across the street, it would be far easier to say “no” and have him listen than to bolt over and get hit by a car,or get into a fight. The perfect example of the benefits of dog-type socialization is, recently in local news, there was someone hiding sausages laced with drugs that are deadly to dogs, left for dogs to eat - or a story from Vancouver where a dog that was allowed to be off leash, and it got into a fatal fight with a larger dog on the other dog's property. If these dogs were not interested in other dogs or things around them, this kind of thing would never have happened.

In closing, your dog being social is important; but we need to respect the level of outside pack socialization our dogs are comfortable with, what is normal for a dog, and what is never acceptable. Unless you are going to visit with the people or dog on a routine or regular basis, it is better to leave well enough alone, and teach your dog to ignore them.