Tag Archives: socialisation

03/15/12

Puppy Classes (Dunbar)

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Dunbar-style puppy classes aim to teach puppies bite inhibition, allow one (of many) venues for human socialisation, and teach owners to control their dog off leash.  They should be conducted offleash, inside on hard (sanitisable) floors, and with big and little dogs in the one class.

 

Dobermann puppies playing together offleash

These dobermanns are playing offleash – an important learning experience for them and their owners.

Bite inhibition

By puppies playing with one another, they are learning rules for dog-dog interactions and also the appropriate force of bite while playing.

 

Socialisation

Puppy classes only form part of the socialisation picture.  While socialisation happens in puppy classes, it is too little too late.  There is a lot of work the owner needs to do before puppy class, and puppy class won’t make up for undersocialisation.

 

Control Offleash

Often the lead can become a ‘crutch’ for dog owners, and they cannot get the behaviours they want without this level of control. By training off leash from the outset, the puppy and owner learns to work with distractions and use them to their advantage. Our control needs to be independent of a collar and lead.

 

Dunbar is often credited as the father of puppy classes, but he has become concerned about how puppy classes are currently run.  Particularly, most puppy classes are on lead, and most puppy classes use too much food and never phase the lure.  To Dunbar, 10 minutes of offleash play is simply not good enough for a puppy class.  Puppies need to learn to remove themselves from play, and humans need to learn how to engage in dog play and make dog-dog play a valuable reinforcer.

Of course, we use food to train puppies, but the food should be faded immediately.  Furthermore, off leash behaviour will allow an experience trainer to note puppies with problems and start to address them sooner-rather-than-later.

Dunbar stressed that puppy classes are only part of the socialisation picture. The next post will talk about what puppy buyers should be doing immediately on bringing a puppy home.

03/11/12

Puppyhood: The time to rescue shelter dogs

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Welcome to the first post in my Ian Dunbar seminar series. This, as well as many other posts, will be updated as I make more posts. So let’s start!

Ian Dunbar very seriously believes that puppyhood is one of the most vital periods of a puppy’s life. He believes that appropriate training and socialisation will mean that common behaviour problems can be prevented and, ultimately, the dog will not end up in a shelter facility. (In the handout, he called common and precitable behaviour problems “the #1 terminal illness for adolescent/adult dogs.”)

Labrador puppy

Photo © Ruthless Photos

With puppies, training should focus on:
• Stopping behaviour problems from occurring,
• Teaching bite inhibition,
• Socialising puppies to people and therefore reducing the likelihood of bites (from fear or aggression).

In terms of behaviour problems that should be prevented in puppyhood, this includes:
• House soiling,
• Inappropriate chewing,
• Biting,
• Barking,
• “Temperament problems”
These behaviours are easily predictable, and easily preventable during puppyhood.

Dunbar made some pretty firm statements. He says that puppies with insufficient socialisation suffer “massive permanent damage”. He thinks that puppies are pretty much ‘made’ by 3 months of age, though socialisation does continue. It is only at 2-3 years that you can finished your puppy a finished product – you can relax and enjoy your dog and not worry about further socialisation.

Making the most of puppyhood is a dual effort between breeders and puppy buyers. Breeders have duties, as do puppy buyers. One of puppy buyers duties is puppy classes, and we’ll look at puppy classes in our next post.

02/6/12

Environmental Enrichment and Stress

Just read an absolutely fascinating study called “Enriched environment experience overcomes learning deficits and depressive-like behaviour induced by juvenile stress“, that Dr Sophia Yin made reference to recently on Facebook. It’s an absolutely fascinating read, especially after writing about the over-emphasis of socialisation just days ago. I almost have to eat my words… Almost…

Rat Yawning - Do rats yawn in stress like dogs?

Dogs yawn when they’re stressed – I don’t know if rats do, too, but this study used biochemistry to measure rat-stress.

 

Basics of the Study

This study used rats to investigate the role of stress on adult behaviour (particularly surrounding anxiety and depression).  Two groups of rats were stress during their juvenile period (27-29 days) through ‘forced swimming’, elevation, and restraint. (A third group of rats was used as a control.)  One group of the ‘stressed’ rats was given environmental enrichment, by enhancing their cage environments with toys, shapes, colours, and allowing them activities outside of their cage.  The other groups did not receive environmental enrichment.

The Findings

In short: Environmental enrichment seemed to ‘neutralise’ the anxiety experienced by the stressed rats, and sometimes reduced their anxiety further than rats with no stressful incidents and no environmental enrichment.

In long: Continue reading →

01/30/12

Socialisation: Not Everything

For so long, the message has been “socialise, socialise, socialise“. The idea has been that, regardless of the puppy you select, you should be able to socialise it into a happy, normal, well adjusted pup.

Markable Curly Coated Retriever puppies, socialising with some cows.

Markable Curly Coated Retriever puppies, socialising with some cows.

The more I learn about dogs, the more I am inclined to disagree.  I think we have hugely overlooked the role of genetics in determining many behaviours. While I will always advocate socialisation to get the best out of a dog, I think some dogs are genetically wired to be confident despite their socialisation experiences.

I have some anecdotal evidence to share with you.

I used to work in boarding kennels.  We had a pretty extensive questionnaire we’d ask new clients and, sometimes, owners would admit: “We didn’t really socialise her.”  Considering these admissions, most of these dogs were actually quite okay.  I can recall very few cases when these dogs were outwardly aggressive to people, and most were okay with dogs, too.  What kind of explanation supports this evidence?  To me, it suggests that these dogs were either genetically ‘good’ dogs, solid and confident, or genetically ‘mostly good’ dogs, which needed minimal socialisation to complete an adequate behaviour code.

Another example with my own girl, Winona.  Winona came into my household at a difficult time and got relatively little socialisation compared to other puppies that have come through my house.  However, she is a very confident dog.  She is tolerant of all handling, she likes all people, and though she is sometimes ‘overwhelmed’ by large dogs when she first meets them, she recovers well and interacts appropriately.  It’s clear that Winona is supposed to be a confident, happy, non-aggressive dog. Socialisation had, at most, very little to do with her as an adult dog.  Considering the confident, non-aggressive dispositions of her parents, I am not surprised.  Winona is genetically confident.

Mooch the Norwegian Elkhound

Mooch the Norwegian Elkhound – with us for 2 months due to her severe fear issues.

And then let’s consider Mooch.  Mooch was a foster dog we had last year for 2 months.  She was an incredibly fearful dog.  It took two weeks before my partner could touch her.  Once she was on my lap when a stranger approach, and she expelled her anal glands in terror (I didn’t even know this was possible).  From her history, it seems she was (almost) kept exclusively in a house for 2 years, being tended by immediate family, with few visitors and few outings.

It took very little effort to bring Mooch around to a near-normal dog.  She will never be perfect, but she didn’t take huge efforts or time to get her to be a decent dog. I took her out to tracking training with me a few times, and this is a very busy house – you need to get used to seeing a lot of people fairly quick!  You would think, from her history, Mooch would be impossible to restore to confidence.  I think Mooch was never meant to be a fearful dog –  I met Mooch’s parents and I have met few dogs as beautifully confident and contented.  I think Mooch was a genetically confident dog, with a hugely neglected socialisation period, that meant she displayed fearful behaviours.

Now, again, I believe  the environments and the genetics work together to produce the dog. I’d like to emphasise that I think socialisation is important, but not the ‘be-and-end-all’ of dog behaviour.  To me, the message of “socialise, socialise, socialise” is outdated.

I vote for a new slogan: “select, select, select”. I’ll explain in my next post.

 

12/27/10

Puppy Socialisation Checklist

Socialisation is one of the most important roles of a new puppy owner. Puppies’ brains develop considerably from 6 weeks-16 weeks of age.  During this time, the puppy learns a lot about their world.  It is a unique window of time that will impact the puppy for life. Socialisation is the process by which your puppy is exposed to as many facets of life as possible.

Puppies that are well socialised are more secure adults, and more adaptable adults.  If nothing else is done, the most important thing a puppy owner can do is expose the puppy to as many things as possible.  To be beneficial, these exposures must be positive.

Puppies should be exposed, in a positive or neutral way, to as many things as possible.  Negative experiences that occur during the socialisation window can affect a puppy for life. Some recent research suggests that puppies need to be exposed to things several times over the socialisation period.

The below list is also available as a PDF: Puppy Socialisation Checklist Continue reading →