Socialization, yesterday and today

Ole and Abner and i just got back from Costco. What a great place to socialize your puppy! Ole met at least 4o new people and at least 10 children in the 3 to 5 yr range. We sat in the shade near the food court which is right at the entrance and he caught the eye of everyone who was coming in and leaving. He scored meeting and being fed by a woman in a wheel chair and lots of little kids sitting in shopping carts. I got him a cup of ice and he munched ice cubes. Everyone had a story about their own dogs or advice for me on how to raise him. I always get a kick out of the advice as I've been teaching people how to raise their puppies since 1992. But what the heck, I just may learn something new by listening to them. I never tell them I'm a dog trainer, if i do everyone wants free advice.

Yesterday Ole and Shelly and Elmo and I went to the local Target store and sat out front for about 20 minutes. It was very entertaining and all three dogs got lots of nice attention. A rather short obese woman who looked down and out ( she was hanging out by the garbage containers collecting cans and eating a pizza), asked if she could feed them pizza and I said no thanks. She finished her pizza and sidled on over and started petting Elmo. Elmo is a connoisseur of pizza breath so he liked her right away. She asked me if I needed any odd jobs done like she could wash my dogs for me. I said no thanks as I had that job covered. She then told me that she really misses her old man since he got sent to prison and can hardly wait for him to get back. We met a nice young man who wants to get a Shepherd puppy and he took Oles' picture to send to his mom. Then a kind of creepy older guy, ( what the heck, he was probably my age!), parked his bicycle right next to us ,mumbled something unintelligible and went into the store. Five minutes later he came back out and told me that everyone in the store is a crook. On that note , we left for home.

The reason I'm spending so much time and effort getting Ole out and about, meeting all kinds of people, places, and things is puppy brains grow very fast from birth to 16 weeks. It's called the window of socialization and it is a critical time for puppies to experience as many things in a positive way as you can think of in that period. After 16 weeks is is much more difficult to get the job done as their brain growth slows down. It is actually best to start this process of socialization and desensitization well before 12 weeks of age as really young puppies are very moldable. Dogs need to be socialized throughout their lives but that first 12/ 16 weeks is the most important time.