It doesn’t matter
when you start socializing your dog. You
can start at 8 weeks, 8 months or 8 years.
The process is the same.
Week one
1. Teach
your dog to play with you. You can play
with a toy, chasing food, or with just you in a nice dance or chase the hands.
No fetch or any other games that involve the dog needing to move away from you
for more than 5 feet. You’ll be using
these games on walks.
2. Play
the What’s That game in one room of your house every day.
3. Invite
one human friend to come over for tea.
No interacting with the dog.
4. Put
low pillows near you when you are sitting down.
You could be working on your computer, reading a book, or eating
dinner. The dog should choose to lay on
the pillow when you are busy.
5. Invite
a different human friend over for a play date with their dog. Make sure the age and energy level of the two
dogs are similar and that the dog coming for the play date is dog friendly.
6. Take
a short walk without your dog. Gather
some leaves, rocks and other material in a box and bring it home for your dog
to interact with.
7. Go
to the bank and bring back things with the smells of the bank. You can take rags with you and rub them on
furniture and floors as necessary. Make
sure you let the bank people know that you are training your service dog and
that these smells will help him not be frightened of the bank.
Week Two
1.
If your dog has no issues with wearing a leash
and collar, then take your dog to the bank with you, or someplace just as quiet
and not crowded. Bring the pillow you used
in week one. Sit in the lobby, make sure
you let the bank people know you are training and not loitering.
2.
If your dog has issues with the leash, smear the
leash with gravy, freeze it, dry it out and wipe off as much of the gravy as
possible. Put the leash next to the
pillow you are using from week one.
3.
Continue playing the What’s That Game in the
house every day. Be thorough. Make sure you are asking “What’s that” for
every part of furniture and walls and doors. You never know when a trauma
happened on one corner of a piece of furniture if you don’t ask for interaction
with all four corners.
4.
Continue using the pillow for your dog to chill
out on when you are busy. This is one of
the most important exercises you can do with a service dog who will be going in
public places with you. Being chill at
your feet means that the environment you are in is safe in your dog’s viewpoint.
5.
Play new games with your dog. Make these games a
type that you could play in public that don’t involve big movements and sound.
6.
Have three playdates with the same dog from week
one this week.
7.
Set up three stations in your house for
enrichment. One with smells, one with
things to shred (cardboard is good), and one with sounds and tastes. Do this on
three days this week.
Week Three
1.
If your dog has no issue with leash and collar
and doesn’t pull on the leash, take three walks around the block this
week. Make sure you let him sniff all
the places you gathered things for him to interact with in the box from last
week. If anything causes a reaction from
your dog – move away at least 10 feet and then play hard with your dog. Then head home immediately after play.
2.
If your dog has an issue with walking on leash
and collar, play the reach and withdraw game with both for 3 days. Then 3 more days playing the Get Dressed
game. Then put the leash and collar on
your dog and go sit on the porch with him.
Make sure you bring your pillow.
3.
Go back out for a walk on the same route you
just took with your dog. Gather new
material in the discovery box, especially things that were near where the dog
became upset. Those are the smells that
might trigger a future reaction. If
there was no reaction, just gather new smelly things.
4.
Do the three enrichment stations with new items
this week. Do this on three days.
5.
Have a playdate with a new dog this week, and a
new human.
6.
Have three play dates with the dog from weeks 1
and 2.
7.
Do the What’s That game outside in a safe
space. If you have a fenced area, don’t
use the leash. Otherwise put the leash
and collar on the dog.
InInformation
This is a brief
three-week schedule of socialization that could be followed. You’ll need more than three weeks to
socialize your dog thoroughly to all that he will be encountering doing public
access with you over the course of his working life. To extend this to more weeks, incorporate the
following into each week in some manner:
a.
Introduce the smells from an environment first
before taking the dog to that environment.
b.
Introduce the smells of people first before
asking the dog to meet them.
c.
Introduce the smells of dogs first before asking
your dog to meet them.
d.
Play the What’s That game everywhere. Especially if there was a traumatic
experience due to a situation out of your control.
e.
DO NOT got to dog parks ever or near them for at
least 6 months, but you can set up play dates with vetted dogs at least 3 times
a week in a safe space.
f.
Introduce new people in a space the dog already
feels safe in. Make sure these people
understand that they are NOT to initiate any interaction with the dog. The dog should initiate. Eventually you will be teaching the dog to
wait for your cue to initiate and not do it on his own.
g.
Do lots of enrichment activities. Make sure that enrichment covers sounds,
smells, moving things, still things, and a wee bit of food enrichment puzzle
solving.
h.
Go on at least 4 walks a week, making sure you
always gather new discovery smells.
i.
Go out to stores, banks, offices, appointments, etc.
with your dog and his pillow at least twice a week.
j.
Use the Discover, People and Dog boxes as often
as you can. Dogs navigate the world
through their noses. Help facilitate
that.
Discovery Box
The discovery box
is a form of enrichment, but it is also used in socializing a puppy/dog.
Materials for the box:
1. Cardboard
box approximately 2 feet by 1 foot by 9 inches in height. Height can change
depending on the size of your dog.
2. Another
box to cut up to reinforce the discovery box.
Use super glue to affix the pieces of this box to the discovery box, all
four sides and the bottom.
3. Adhesive
waterproof shelf paper for inside and outside of the discovery box.
Gather some leaves,
rocks, pinecones, weeds, and other material and bring it home for your dog to
interact with. Put all this in the
discovery box. Swap it out daily. You can bring in materials from where you’ve
walked your dog, or from where you are going to be walking your dog the next
day.
How to Use
Put the discovery
box on the floor with your dog. At first, you can also put in a few pieces of
smelly food to entice your dog into putting his nose into the box. This should only be done the first couple of
times. Your dog’s interest should be in
the smells in the box.
Do not leave your
dog unsupervised with this box. It is
not a toy; it is only a means to bring the outdoors in for the enrichment of
your dog’s nose or to get your dog use to various smells of outside
environments that you want him to feel safe in.
Leave the box on
the floor until your dog is done sniffing all the smells. You can put the box down twice each day. I would suggest just before meals.
Using the Discovery Box for
Socialization
The materials you
will be using will be gathered the day before you take the dog to the
environment where the smells reside.
This includes indoor environments like a bank, a doctor’s office, the
library, a restaurant. Each environment
should be preceded by a discovery box full of smells from the environment.
People Box
Dogs lick each
other’s mouths on greeting to “taste” them. They lick our own mouths if
allowed, for the same reason. Their “other nose” the vomeronasal organ
(Jacobsen’s Organ) in the roof of their mouth allows them to evaluate
pheromones and other scents that do not evaporate well. This is also why they
lick urine, but we don’t need to involve urine here!
But first
introductions to people can be stressful. The dog is hesitant and may panic if
it goes too close for comfort, and then suddenly feels endangered. Yet, it
desires to check out the person.
But we can expose
the dog to our saliva and ear and hand scent on a tissue without meeting the
dog physically.
For instance, leave
your scented tissue somewhere, then have the familiar person walk the dog near
it. If it chooses to, it can sniff it.
When it does
finally meet the person physically, it tends to feel slightly familiar as if
they had met before. Also, nothing bad happened when it was sniffing the
tissue, so they build a tiny bit of confidence in being near that particular
scent.
This reduces the
initial caution and tension. It might only show a 10% reduction in fear (from
my experience in introducing dogs to strangers, other dogs, and cats). It might
show far more than 10%. But even that is a big difference that can be helpful.
Materials for the box:
1. Cardboard
box approximately 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch in height.
2. Another
box to cut up to reinforce the people box.
Use super glue to affix the pieces of this box to the discovery box, all
four sides and the bottom.
3. Adhesive
waterproof shelf paper for inside and outside of the people box.
4. A
stool or very small table that is low enough for your dog to easily put his
nose inside the box in order to sniff.
How to Use
Like the Discovery
Box, you can set up a scent station where you can put the scent of various
people, one by one, on the station next to a treat box. The treat box should be
one that cannot be opened by the dog.
This allows the dog to sniff the scent item and then look to you for a
treat. I always teach my dogs to check
someone out and then come back to me.
Scent items do not
have to be tissues. Too many of the dogs
I’ve had or trained like used tissues way too much. QTips, dental cotton, make-up remover pads,
can all be utilized.
Using the People Box for
Socialization
The materials you
will be using will be gathered the day before you take the dog to meet the
person who provided the scent. If these
are people you meet on a walk, there is no need to do a Discovery
Box first. If you are going into someone
house, a bank or other place of commerce, then first do a Discovery Box. It is not recommended to combine the two
boxes. Remember that both boxes are
designed for socialization, not play.
Dog Box
Just like with
people, dog’s smell all parts of each other’s bodies in the process of getting
to know them. It is helpful to get three
separate scents from dogs that you want your dog to meet. Anal, Fur and mouth.
Materials for the box:
1. Cardboard
box approximately 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 inch in height.
2. Another
box to cut up to reinforce the discovery box.
Use super glue to affix the pieces of this box to the discovery box, all
four sides and the bottom.
3. Adhesive
waterproof shelf paper for inside and outside of the discovery box.
4. A
stool or very small table that is low enough for your dog to easily put his
nose inside the box in order to sniff.
How to Use
Like the Discovery
Box, you can set up a scent station where you can put the scent of various
dogs, one by one, on the station next to a treat box. The treat box should be
one that cannot be opened by the dog.
This allows the dog to sniff the scent item and then look to you for a
treat. I always teach my dogs to check
out another dog and then come back to me.
Scent items do not
have to be tissues. Too many of the dogs
I’ve had or trained like used tissues way too much. QTips, dental cotton, make-up remover pads,
can all be utilized.
Using the Dog Box for
Socialization
The materials you
will be using will be gathered the day before you take the dog to meet the dog
that provided the scent. If these are
dogs you meet on a walk, there is no need to do a Discovery
Box first. If you are going into
someone’s house, a park or other area, then first do a Discovery Box. It is not recommended to combine the two
boxes. Remember that both boxes are
designed for socialization, not play.
Sound Pool
The sound pool is a
form of enrichment, but it is also used in socializing a puppy/dog.
One of the ways
I’ve found to get dogs used to sounds is to use a baby pool and put plastic
bottles, ball pit balls, and any other material that makes a slight noise when
moved or knocked together.
Every time you
allow your dog access to the pool, add one or two items that make a sound from
the environment. Bells, thunder machine,
rattles, squeaks, and anything else that
is small enough to fit.
For other sounds
like cars, trucks, fire alarms, timer noises (like the microwave), and other
environmental sounds, you will be using some type of recording device. There are recordable answer buttons that you
can record sounds with that could actually be used in the sound pool. It helps when the dog can step on the button
to make the sounds – it pus the dog in control.
Materials for the pool:
1.
A baby pool that has a diameter that allows the
dog to get all the way into the pool without having to scrunch.
2.
Plastic bottles from soda or water, the plastic
balls that are used in ball pits, plastic cups, bowls, plates. Anything that can be easily moved around by
the dog to get to the treats you will throw into the pool.
3.
An exercise pen or some way to encircle the pool
to keep the mess from getting out as your dog dives around and shoves the
plastic pieces hard enough to knock them out of the pool.
Gather some items
that make noise when moved or stepped on.
Baby toys are great for this. I specifically like using a thunder
machine to help with fireworks and storms.
How to Use
Put the discovery
box on the floor with your dog. At first, you can also put in a few pieces of
smelly food to entice your dog into putting his nose into the box. This should only be done the first couple of
times. Your dog’s interest should be in
the smells in the box.
Do not leave your
dog unsupervised with this box. It is
not a toy; it is only a means to bring the outdoors in for the enrichment of
your dog’s nose or to get your dog use to various smells of outside
environments that you want him to feel safe in.
Leave the box on
the floor until your dog is done sniffing all the smells. You can put the box down twice each day. I would suggest just before meals.
Using the Discovery Box for
Socialization
The materials you
will be using will be gathered the day before you take the dog to the
environment where the smells reside.
This includes indoor environments like a bank, a doctor’s office, the
library, a restaurant. Each environment
should be preceded by a discovery box full of smells from the environment.
What’s That
This is a variation
of the "Look At That" game, but done while moving instead of standing
still. The environment is always out there and your dog, if reactive, is always
checking that environment to see if something is going to "get" her. So,
let's put it on cue and at the same time, desensitize the dog to the
environment.
Take your dog for a
walk. Whenever you see something interesting, start moving toward it with your
hand in front of you pointing at the object and saying to your dog "Look
at That". When your dog is actually looking at the object you selected mark
and treat.
The “What’s That”
game which is basically getting the dog to target, “touch”, everything in the
vicinity, is the first part of the process of handling a dog who is obsessively
changing.
You do this game
with the rule that you touch something near, something big, something far,
something small, something close, something the same size as the dog. Alternate
the parts over and over in one room in your house every day until you exhaust
all the rooms, then move outside.
This shows your dog
that what they fear is not part of the immediate environment and therefore
helps them relax. It also shows them that things they think are scary in their
environment aren’t and that they can interact with those things without fear.
The “What’s That”
game also helps a dog who is obsessively chasing shadows or lights see that
there are objects that can be touched instead of shadows and light that can’t.
Chase My Hand
The simplest game
of getting your dog to follow your movements is “Chase My Hand”. With a treat
or toy in your hand, sitting on the floor with your dog, start moving your hand
around enticing your dog to chase it. Occasionally drop the food or allow your
dog to grab the toy for a quick game of tug. Keep the dog moving.
For shy dogs, the
movement may be tiny and hesitant, but the more movement you can eventually
get, the better for your dog.
As your dog targets
your hand for a touch, move it quickly backwards so the dog falls short. Laugh
and offer again, in a new position! Most dogs start diving at your hands with
total commitment until they actually connect. When your dog hits one hand
touch, quickly put that hand away and offer the other hand – in any position
you like – for the next one. You can alternate one hand low and the other hand
high. For added interest, move backwards, sideways, or turn in circles as you
offer hand touches at different heights and in different positions. The games
are on!
