Socializing

Just like children, puppies have different critical stages of development. These begin at birth and continue through puppyhood. From three to twelve weeks of age is a critical time for socializing your puppy. This means you want to expose your puppy to as many different surroundings, people and animals as possible. While you may handle your puppy a lot, if he never sees anyone but you he will likely develop a fear of strangers. The same idea applies to surroundings. You want to expose your puppy to the different sounds, smells, sights and any other stimuli now so that he can be a well rounded dog with little or no fear later in his life.

Eli is about nine weeks old and we have taken every opportunity to expose him to different things, people, places. On Saturday we took him and my son to the feed store where he was met by other patrons with great enthusiasm (everyone loves a puppy!). He walked next to my son's wagon, and he rode in the wagon. We walked along a very busy street with lots of noisy traffic, and we took quiet side streets where there were other dogs, children and fire hydrants to spark Eli's interest. He did great and if I had to guess, his favorite part of the day was being in the feed store with all those wonderful smells!