How To Socialise YOUR DOG Perfectly!

So today we are out with Zelda again and we are doing some focus on socialization today and I wanted to dedicate this video to helping you understand exactly what socialization is, what socialization isn't, while we're going through the process. So we brought her into town and we're going to go on a few different stops today and work on a few different environmental stimuli because that's essentially what socialization is. Is we want to show her as many different environmental stimuli as possible but do so in a constructive way where we make sure that her arousal level doesn't go through the roof for any kind of stimuli which essentially gets us to a point where she can go anywhere, be doing anything and stay nice and relaxed. And we're starting here at a nice local park, there's loads of dogs, there's loads of people and it's much busier than where I'm based right out in the middle of the countryside but it's a nice happy middle ground. From here we're going to do a little bit in town centres, we're going to stop off, grab a coffee, show her some coffee shop stuff, then we'll probably take her to pets at home and have a mooch around a shop and we're going to expect to see so many different things as we go. Which right now we're about to get an opportunity to do one because we're about to walk past a pushchair which these are all just little things that are going to happen day to day that are hard to plan for but if you just keep coming out and keep providing these opportunities for socialisation, she's going to be able to get that kind of different exposure. Now you can't plan for absolutely everything and I'm not being super militant and disciplined on all the loose lead walking we've been doing. I'm definitely not going to allow her to be pulling like a lunatic, if she wants to have a little sniff I'm going to let her but when I'm kind of ready, yeah good girl, we're going to keep moving. So she pulls too much here, we've just been starting to feather in little bits of lead pressure just to make sure that we keep our expectations decent but she's still very young so as long as I'm getting a general loose lead walk that's my main focus and as long as she's staying calm, relaxed and kind of just like a nice neutral, I don't want to be intimidated or fearful but I don't want to let her go over aroused and get crazy either. So that is essentially what socialisation is, is playing that balancing act of keeping her neutral no matter what's going on around her. It isn't just letting her go and do whatever she wants when she wants and nor is it hiding her away from everything that might stress her out. Now this is a perfect example, it's very hard to practice socialising your dog to a skateboarder in kind of real life situations but with everything we've seen today, all the different people, all the different dogs, all the different push chairs, skateboarder is kind of setting her off a little bit. So we're just going to work through this by kind of staying in this moment a little bit, kind of letting her be like this where she's a bit unsure but I'm not going to let that build and I'm going to keep, there beautiful, good girl, any time she makes that good decision to bring herself back to me, that's where I'm going to mark it, good girl, yes, let her know, put the occasional treat in, I don't want to swamp her with treats, I want her just to become this accustomed to kind of following my loving leadership when anything happens that makes her feel a little bit unsure but that is her principle and as you can see she's absolutely taking it in her stride, I'm not letting it build one way or the other so I have a major fear, if she did start to become very fearful, bring that attention back to me and we'd calmly disengage but we wouldn't make a thing out of it, we wouldn't allow it to spiral into something it doesn't need to be and like earlier when those dogs might have ran over to her, I don't want her to become accustomed that every dog she meets means that she can play and run and get excitable, like no, we're moving so you need to move with me and stay in this moment with me and there'll be a time and a place for that but this isn't all the time and the place, I need you to stay neutral and engaged. After we warmed Zelda up we got the legend of Uncle Sully out and took them both for a coffee at a lovely coffee shop, this is a time where you want to be confident as there is no chance on earth that you can take a cute puppy into a coffee shop and not have everyone want to come and say hello and if you're not ready for this and for you to take charge of this situation you can create problems however in some circumstances this is absolutely perfect as your dog will get to meet and have hopefully positive interactions with tons of people but it can be counterproductive especially if you're working on your obedience as that will make your puppy want to get up all the time so my general rule of thumb is I use sit and stay when it's just us and we're hanging out so that the puppy can learn to hang out, learn to be chill in all environments but as soon as I see someone coming over I give the puppy the break command to let them know it's okay to say hello and go and get some fuss. Now when they're older and my obedience is doing better I then transition that over and like with Uncle Sully it does not matter if there is a volcano erupting near him if we say sit and stay or down and stay that's exactly what you must do and you don't break that unless we tell you to do so. Now after a fun coffee trip I use Uncle Sully to my advantage yet again and I start to push the puppy out of her comfort zone in small steps and we build up to busier and busier roads and busier and busier towns, busier and busier shops and busier and busier environments. Now Uncle Sully helps set the standard and expectation of behaviour and gives the puppy a role model to copy, look up to and follow alongside following my guidance and direction that I'm delivering but simultaneously the puppy is observing Uncle Sully following my guidance and direction exclusively so that flow of leadership always comes back to me And by now Zelda is fully cooked absolutely knackered so it is time for a nice snooze in her crate and to celebrate a job well done for everyone on a super successful socialisation trip. Now raising perfect puppies isn't rocket science it just requires calm consistent loving leadership and if you want to learn more I have a free course on raising perfect puppies there is a link in the description box below.