How To Socialize Your Dog & Prevent Aggressive Dog Behavior

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 4:12 am

How to socialize your dog

You must expose your dog to a large variety of new experiences, new people, and new animals from a very young age (usually, as soon as he’s been vaccinated). During the socialization process, you’re teaching him, through experience, that new sounds and sights are enjoyable, rather than frightening. You can’t just put an adult dog in a crowd of people he doesn’t know and tell him to, “Calm down, Rex, it’s OK” - he must learn, for himself, that he’s in a safe environment. He needs to learn this as a puppy, as he will have difficulty learning the lesson later on in life. Your dog will feel more relaxed, happy, and safe around strangers in general if he meets different types of people (babies, teens, the elderly, men, women, people in uniform, people riding bikes, the vet etc) in a fun and stress-free environment. If you want to learn how to stop aggressive dog behavior towards strangers, then you must understand that socializing your dog is the most important, first step of aggressive dog training.

So, do you want to learn how to train a very young puppy so that he doesn’t become an aggressive dog that is fearful of strangers? Well, socializing your dog isn’t a hard task; you need to make a general effort rather than follow a specific process. The first step is to take him to puppy preschool. At puppy preschool, which usually occurs at the vet clinic, there are easy group-training classes for puppies. Approximately ten puppy owners meet with a trainer that is qualified (usually there are two qualified trainers available) and start teaching their puppies simple commands such as sit, stay, paw etc. Although teaching your dog obedience commands is very helpful and is an excellent way to teach your puppy how to become a dog that is trustworthy, playtime is probably the most important part of puppy preschool. During play sessions, the puppies are allowed to run around freely and play with each other. This is the best environment a puppy to acquire good social skills: there are many different puppies surrounding him (he will learn how to interact with unfamiliar puppies), there are lots of new people present (he will learn that unfamiliar faces are not to be feared), and he is in very safe and controlled surroundings (at least one certified trainer is there to see that things don’t get out of control). Try not to overwhelm your puppy, however. Once you learn how to train a very young puppy to socialize, remember to begin slowly; your puppy’s tolerance to socialize will gradually build up. Socialization doesn’t end at puppy preschool, however. It must continue throughout your puppy’s upbringing. As your puppy grows older, continue to bring him into a lot of different places and allow him to gain many new experiences in those environments. For example, if he is already used to large crowds, bring him to an amusement park, where he will see adults and their young children and experience many different sounds and smells with those people surrounding him. Remember, learning how to socialize your dog is crucial if you want to prevent aggressive dog behavior towards strangers.

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