Since our puppy will be picked up at less than 16 weeks, we understand that we have a good chance of socializing her and setting her for a better life experience, because we have that optimum window for her to be exposed to neutral / positive things she hasn’t seen before.
This doesn’t mean just socializing with other humans or dogs, but literally with anything. With trickling water (later on for showering), a kiddie pool, vaccuum cleaner, dish washer, nail grinder / clipper, body being touched (paws, ears, tail), construction work noise, bikes, skateboards, cars, car rides, doorbell, microwave “Done” ding, etc.
For each of the socialization we do, we carefully see what our puppy’s natural reaction is, what is considered a safe distance, what is considered a safe duration of exposure, and adjust our course of action based on how well the socialization goes.
Here we’re sharing our list of what we plan to expose our puppy to.
- Other dogs (various size, various age, various colors)
- Other humans (various age, various height, with beard, with glasses, carrying umbrella, various race)
- Car rides
- Vacuum cleaner and our Robovacuum
- Nail grinder
- Facial hair trimmer
- Hair dryer
- Bathtub
- Kiddie pool
- Wind blowing on the plants on the patio
- Noises from the patio
- Coffee grinder
- Moving bikes
- Moving skateboards/scooters
- Sounds of other animals (e.g: birds chirping, other dogs barking)
- Cats
- Sounds of musical instruments
- Doorbell
- Airplane sounds (at the airport)
- Sights of boats (at the marina)
- Having her paws, tail, and ears touched during play, and during mealtime
- Dog shirt/rain jacket
- Dog socks/shoes
- Automatic car wash
- Construction noises