The following article was borrowed from PreventiveVet.com
With coronavirus requiring social distancing between humans, new puppy owners are finding it harder to make sure their puppy learns about the great big world. But it is possible to provide your puppy with much-needed experiences even while you’re social distancing — and have fun while doing it!
During this coronavirus pandemic, you can take advantage of extra time at home and help your puppy grow into a well-adjusted and well-trained adult. Social distancing with your dog might actually mean better behaved dogs when life gets back to normal.
According to the CDC, there is no current evidence that our pets can spread the coronavirus to humans. However, it’s important to not put yourself or others at risk while working on puppy socialization. Practice appropriate social distancing, wash your hands after interacting with pets, and sanitize often. Check out the University of Illinois School of Veterinary Medicine’s informative FAQ on pets and COVID-19 here for more information.
Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late to Socialize Your Puppy
Introducing your puppy to the world in a positive way while they’re young is crucial for a happy, well-rounded dog in the future. Lack of socialization during the critical “imprint period” can lead to a higher chance of behavioral issues when the puppy becomes an adult, such as separation anxiety, noise phobia, or leash reactivity and fear aggression.
The imprint period lasts from about 7 weeks to about 16 weeks of age, so it’s important to get lots of proactive exposure training done during this time.
For all socialization and proactive exposure training, take everything slow and follow your puppy’s lead. Keep socialization practice short and sweet, and start new exposure low and slow.
Tips for Puppy Socialization During COVID-19
Socialization Isn’t Just About Other Dogs and People
While you won’t be able to attend group puppy classes like usual, there are other things to focus on besides dog-dog interactions. Socialization includes common experiences that your dog will have throughout their life, such as handling at the vet or groomer, getting their nails trimmed, the sound of thunderstorms or the vacuum, and different kinds of surfaces they’ll need to walk on (like the bathtub). Luckily, you can practice most of these things from the comfort of your own home. Working on these things at home means less distractions, which will help your puppy learn better and faster!
Tactile experiences for your puppy
Introducing your puppy to different surfaces can be easy to do at home, on a walk, or in a yard. Here are some ideas:
- A flat baking sheet they can sniff at or walk over
- An empty plastic water bottle to chew on and toss around
- The bathtub (without the actual bath)
- Outside surfaces such as gravel, bark, dirt, garden stepping stones, grass or turf
- A kiddie pool filled with balls
- Different flooring such as wood, linoleum, and carpet
Play different sounds in the background
If you live on a normally busy street, you want your puppy to be used to the sound of traffic or other car noises when life gets back to normal. Introduce audio recordings of different things at low volume to create neutral or positive associations with these things. You can find many free audio recordings on our socialization resources page, or download the Sound Proof Puppy Training app (also available for Android users).
Introduce different scents to your puppy
Dogs brains dedicate a lot of space and energy to their sense of smell, so working your puppy’s nose provides great enrichment and helps burn off energy. Studies have also shown that certain scents help calm dogs and reduce stress behaviors. Make sure any scents you use aren’t irritating or toxic to dogs.
Go for a Drive
Taking your puppy for a field trip in the car is a great chance to introduce them to car rides and work on preventing travel anxiety. Take a short drive and park in a large parking lot outside of a grocery store or other business that’s open right now. Sit and watch the world go by with your puppy, rewarding with praise, toy play, or treats when they notice things happening outside.
If possible, park on the outskirts of the parking lot so there’s distance between your puppy and the activity. Then you can sit in the back of your car with the door open to let in more outside noise and scents. Make sure your puppy is on leash and secured so they can’t hop out of the car. If the parking lot is small or too busy, keep your doors and windows closed to ensure social distancing.
Prepare Your Puppy for “Sudden Environmental Change”
A big part of life is the ability to cope with sudden changes in the environment. To prevent anxiety and future reactive behavior, it’s important to help your puppy learn how to bounce back from startling and possibly scary experiences. It’s normal for a dog to be startled by a loud noise or the sudden appearance of a person or dog — we humans often jump at an unexpected noise or if someone we didn’t notice taps us on the shoulder. It’s our ability to calm down quickly afterwards, and not generalize this fight-or-flight reaction to the rest of our day, that helps us stay healthy and happy.
You can foster your puppy’s coping skills with sudden environmental change in a couple of ways:
- Reward your puppy when things suddenly appear. If you’re out on a walk (or sitting in your yard watching the world go by) and a person or dog makes a sudden appearance, give your puppy praise, a treat, or entice them to play with a toy. This is building a positive association with a sudden environmental change and redirecting their attention back to you.
- Comfort, don’t coddle. There is nothing wrong with comforting your puppy if they get scared by something. Keep your own emotions calm, cool, and collected when you do so. Dogs are very attuned to their people’s emotional state (they can smell the hormones and chemicals our body releases), and if they see that you’re not worried about something, they’ll most likely follow your lead. Say “it’s okay!” in a happy voice and pet gently. Then add some distance between you and the person or thing that scared them. If they reacted to a sound, practice noise desensitization in future training sessions using free audio recordings on youtube or an app like the Sound Proof Puppy Training app.
- Give them the opportunity to back away. If something startles your dog, don’t force them to interact with it up close. I once was walking a client’s puppy and a balloon that was tied to a sign started blowing around in the wind. He was rather freaked out by this big red moving balloon and scampered behind me. We backed up to a distance where he was able to watch it without feeling threatened, and I rewarded him with praise and treat whenever he looked at or took a step towards it. After a few minutes of this positive reinforcement for curiosity, he was able to walk right up to the sign and balloon. Find a comfortable distance for your puppy to observe the thing that startled them, and reward them for showing any courage or curiosity.