Raising sociable, balanced puppies — Part 2

By Stephan Mairesse · 2015-12-23

D. From three weeks to three months: the period of socialization and imprinting

A future adult's balance is shaped mainly, if not exclusively, during this phase of development. This period serves as a frame of reference for the rest of the dog's life, conditioning its future reactions. The imprinting period is a key learning period during which the dog must learn to communicate with its own species, discover other species (including ours), and learn to adapt and react to novelty. There are three distinct kinds of learning during this period: sensory imprinting, intra-specific socialization, and inter-specific socialization.

1. Sensory imprinting

Hearing is arguably the most important sense to develop. Without listing every noise a puppy should be exposed to, the breeder should work with the litter as though every puppy were going to live in a city center. Besides slamming doors, pots falling, vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, and music of all kinds played at high volume, city noises in general are very important — there are sound recordings made for this purpose. To keep puppies from being terrified by fireworks, thunder, and firecrackers, it's important to get them used to loud detonations; firecrackers of different sizes let you vary the intensity.

Although dogs rely on sight almost exclusively to detect movement, the effects of leaving this sense understimulated shouldn't be overlooked: an adult dog may be terrified at the sight of a trash can left in an unusual spot on the sidewalk, or an umbrella suddenly opening in front of him. It's very good for puppies to be exposed to varied visual scenes — they can be shut in a room while the breeder completely rearranges their usual setting, placing trash cans, a bicycle, or a stroller in their living space, for example. It's worthwhile to repeat these setups, varying the placement of the objects each time.

For touch, puppies need to get used to different types of surfaces — for example, grates or metal plates that they can be made to walk on.

Smell is a highly developed sense in dogs. Odor-related phobias are fairly rare in dogs and are usually tied to a specific event, but it's still worth getting puppies used to the stronger smells found in a home: perfumes, cleaning products, and so on.

2. Intra-specific socialization

Behaviorally speaking, puppies aren't born dogs — they learn to be dogs. Communication between dogs isn't innate, it's acquired, and it's acquired very quickly: by 6 weeks of age, puppies will already have learned 80% of their species' behavioral repertoire. This is also when puppies learn hierarchy. From around one month on, they begin learning that adopting a submissive posture — lying down, rolling onto their back, or running away — stops aggression from their mother or a sibling. The eruption of baby teeth makes nursing painful and causes the mother to push her puppies away; as a result, she'll start submitting them more often and more forcefully, and may also begin guarding her bowl and various objects. It's essential that the puppies stay with their mother throughout this period — above all, don't remove the mother from her puppies to spare her, or out of fear of bites. The limits she sets are part of how the puppies learn submission, and also mark the beginning of detachment.

Puppies will also learn the inhibited bite during this time — the ability to control the pressure of their jaw, a critical skill. They learn to modulate that pressure through their mother's and littermates' reactions to their biting: when a puppy bites a sibling too hard, he'll be bitten back in return, or disciplined by the mother. Puppies will also learn what different body postures and facial expressions mean, and come to associate them with specific messages. From around 6 weeks of age, it's advisable to bring puppies into contact with adult dogs other than their mother — ideally dogs with a range of different temperaments, reactions, and tolerance thresholds, so the puppies get used to adults who respond in different ways.

3. Inter-specific socialization

Puppies should be brought into contact with people of different ages and builds, including young children if possible. If puppies only ever see the breeder, they won't be socialized to the human species in general, but only to that one specific person — and may later fear people whose build, demeanor, or tone of voice differs from what they're used to.

Stephan MairesseProfessional dog trainer & canine behaviorist, 30 years of experience across 16 countries. Certificat de capacité N°750108. Read his full background →