Welcome home, pup.

You've just brought your new bundle of fluff home! Now what?

Puppy training is a journey of self discovery for a lot of new owners. We now have this tiny creature to care for and the experiences and training they receive during this time lay the foundations for the future.

Puppies come to us betweent he ages of 8 - 12 weeks, which is during a critical developmental stage. This stage is often referred to as the 'socialisation window' and what this refers to is the period in which your puppy's brain is growing and developing rapidly and it starts from as young as 3 weeks of age.

Puppies around this age tend to fearlessly explore their surroundings and investigate new and novel things with very little apprehension.

Going back some years, we as dog trainers were told we had until our pups were roughly 16 weeks of age to expose them to as many different things as we can so that our adult dogs could handle anything.

We were doing it all wrong.

We quite literally had lists of things to work though. Livestock and vehicles, prams and pushchairs, various differnt outfits and umbrellas, wheelchairs and walking sticks - you name it!

We were thrusting our puppies into as many differenct scenarios that we could think of. But we were creating scared and anxious puppies, simply because they didnt have the emotional maturity to handle all of these things.

What we've learned now is that socialisation ISN'T about exposure, its about building confidence and optimism to handle new and novel things.

It's quite impossible to expose our pups to everything they might possibly encounter in a few short weeks, so instead we should look at socialisation and those first few very importnt weeks together as an opportunity to explore their new home and surroundings in a fun and optimistic way.

Does your dog really need to meet and greet every other dog they encounter?

No. They absolutely don't.

Our opinion is that being truly 'dog neutral' is the way to go.

If we let our puppy greet every dog they see, they'll grow into adult dogs that expect this, which can lead to pulling onlead and barking out of frustration because your cute little puppy is now a 30kg labrador.

Instead, encourage your puppy to calmly walk past other dogs and reward them for maintaining engagement and focus.

Rather than working through exposure checklists, we know that this period is when we demonstrate that the world is a safe place that they can navigate with YOU by their side.

If you'd like to find out more about how we navigate socialisation or how we can work together please head on over to my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/muttleycrewtraining