What is Socialization?

The socialization window cannot remain open forever. If it did, then you could have animals trotting up to you in the forest.

In socialization to any category of people, the single best way to obtain this cushion is through hand-feeding.

It is true that there are breeds that are extra hard to socialize...need more because they're selected to be aloof with strangers...part of their job.

But with well bred dogs, everything is fun. I don't have to make sure they see blowing trash as something to not be feared. I just go places with them and do stuff and in those cases the socialization does just happen. But I can also see if one is having issues with something and work on that one part.

It also helps that she has the same trust in me as I have in her. That's also, for me, an integral part of socialization. It's not just an acclimatization on the part of your dog, it's your dog learning that you are a team, and it deepens the bond between you.

But it still takes more to develop a really stable, well adjusted adult dog.

Could a perfectly bred dog that's never seen a car before be ok with one zooming by? As with anything in life there needs to be balance. IMO It isn't 100% nature that determines how anyone, including dogs, are going to turn out. Nurture plays into as well and even the best bred dog will need some socialization. If it was 100% nature then a well bred dog could get over a tramatic experience easily with no long term effects....

Wild animals need to get these things "figured out" much quicker or they'll run into false negatives more quickly and die. (being curious about something that turns out to be deadly dangerous..that they should have avoided)

I'm hoping people won't read all the *science* and decide that an older dog is a lost cause and leave one sitting in the shelter for that reason, or leave one tied in the yard because "he missed the window."

Wild animals need to get these things "figured out" much quicker or they'll run into false negatives more quickly and die. (being curious about something that turns out to be deadly dangerous..that they should have avoided)

Huh?

You can't change nature. If nature produces a stable temperament, you'll always have a stable temperament. If nature produces a fearful temperament, no amount of socialization is going to make it unfearful. You can certainly create positive associations, but in times of stress, when faced with the unknown, they'll revert to their core temperament.

Aloofness really has nothing to do with socialization. Unless of course you want slews of people to hand feed the dog. My aloof dogs have no problem walking through crowds of people. They just aren't "OMG! Pet me!" when doing so.

But again...wild animals have hard wired survival behaviors that our dogs don't have. It comes with being part of the food chain.

As for the "bubble", if it is so critical, it's a lot shorter than suggested. I haven't seen any puppies truly changed within the window of time from when acquired at 8 weeks and 4-5 months of age. Maybe there's a "bubble" before they're 8 weeks.

So I guess I've just gotten lucky in that all the puppies I've raised without having slews of people hand feed them have never become fear biters? Hogwash

Again....you'd have to read and understand what Jean Donaldson was explaining so well.

<snip>

And unless the OP is read, this discussion for me, is fruitless because some of you bring up questions and quotes that were addressed there.

Huh?
If curiosity is something that only happens during the "critical bubble", then it never closes in dogs. Because I have seen many senior dogs who are just as curious as puppies.

I think where we are tripping up is, what is the definition of "socialization"? Might it be different for each dog? I work in a shelter full of dogs, 100 at least in any given time (most are young adults, 5 months - 2 years of age, although we have a few middle age dogs and some seniors). You can bet the previous owners of these dogs didn't actively socialize them more than just having them live in the home, and taking them for walks now and then, and they are friendly, playful, curious, willing to learn, ready to bond. But maybe that's all the socialization most dogs, with normal stable temperaments, really need, just socialization enough to say, this is grass. This is a car. These are people. That is a cat. That is another dog, that is rain, that is snow, etc.

A nervy pup might take a bit more work to become comfortable and assign a positive value to the same experience. If that makes sense??

Puppy Socialisation and Habituation (Part 1) Why is it Necessary?
David Appleby
One in five of the dogs that Dr Valerie O’Farrell (1986) studied while conducting research at Edinburgh (Royal Dick) University Veterinary School had a behavioural problem to a lesser or greater extent. A similar, but larger, American study fixed the figure at one in four. In one year my practice treated 773 dogs - 79 of them, that’s 10 percent, had problems of fearfulness towards people or the environment due to a lack of early socialisation or habituation and a further 4.5. percent were inept at relating to other dogs, again due to a lack of early socialisation. The problem is immeasurably greater than these figures suggest. Many dogs show a weakness of temperament or inability to cope when faced with a particular situation, without their behaviour becoming problematical enough for the owners to seek help from a behavioural counsellor.

Socialisation can be described as the process whereby an animal learns how to recognise and interact with the species with which it cohabits. In the wild this is likely to be limited to the animal’s own species, but for the domestic dog it includes other species such as man and cats. By learning how to interact with these the socialised dog develops communication skills which enable it to recognise, amongst other things, whether or not it is being threatened and how to recognise and respond to the intentions of others.

Habituation can be described as the process whereby an animal becomes accustomed to non-threatening environmental stimuli and learns to ignore them.

There is a sensitive period of development in which socialisation and habituation must occur and be properly completed if the dog is not to grow up to be maladjusted. The degree of deprivation a dog suffers in respect of socialisation and habituation will be reflected proportionately in the extent of maladjustment. Accordingly, a dog that has had no experience of a specific stimulus at the completion of the sensitive period will always be fearful of it; a dog that has had some exposure, but not sufficient, will be better adjusted, although not entirely sound; and a dog that has had adequate experience of the stimulus in the sensitive period will grow up to be "bomb proof". Dogs that grow up to be fearful because they have been subjected to stimulus deprivation can be improved by counter conditioning programmes, but the maxim prevention is better than cure was never more applicable than the first few weeks of a domestic animal's life.

The empirical evidence which shows the crucial importance of systematically socialising and habituating puppies during the critical period has been around for a long time. Few people interested in animals can be unfamiliar with the imprinting experiments of Konrad Lorenz, who, from the 1930’s onwards, recorded the fact that birds such as geese hand-reared from hatching became imprinted upon him and behaved towards him as to a parent of their own kind. In fact, Lorenz found that birds would imprint on virtually anything, even a flashing light, and treat it as mother. Significantly, birds that accepted Lorenz or a bird of another species as a surrogate parent would also recognise and accept other people or members of the adopter’s species. Birds are a special case because it is to their evolutionary advantage to recognise and follow the parent figure as soon after birth as possible.

Similar experiments have been conducted with mammals which have shown the important role socialisation has in species recognition and subsequent social and even sexual orientation. (There is a good story on record (Hediger, 1950) about a hand-reared bull moose that became amorous with his keeper rather than the female moose with whom he was supposed to be having an assignation).

Puppies, born blind and deaf and relatively immobile, are not fully able to start the process of species recognition at birth. However, an experiment on this question was conducted at Utrecht University where half of a litter of newborn puppies had no exposure to humans while the other half were exposed to a high level of human scent for just 30 seconds, after which the litter was kept in isolation from human contact for several weeks. When they were reintroduced to human company, it was found that the puppies that had received the early exposure to the researcher’s scent had a distinct preference for investigating people as opposed to investigating other environmental stimuli, whereas puppies that had not had the early experience showed no preference. In 1961 Freedman, King and Elliot identified the age of three weeks as the start of a puppy’s critical period, in terms of social/environmental interaction and the commencement of their capacity to develop social relationships. Significantly, this is the point in time when the puppy becomes truly mobile and can hear and coincides with increased electrical activity in the brain (Fox 1971a).

Michael Fox (1971a), a behavioural researcher, found that three week old Chihuahua puppies fostered individually in litters of four week old kittens would, at twelve weeks, prefer the company of cats over the company of their litter mates that had not been fostered. Additionally, the foster mother’s kittens were found to be able to relate to dogs whereas kittens from other litters who had not had a canine companion thrust upon them avoided contact with dogs. In the same year, Michael Fox (1971a) carried out a subtler but even more revealing experiment. Litters of puppies were split into three groups: one group of puppies were hand-reared from birth and received no canine contact; the second group were given an equal amount of canine and human contact; and the third group only experienced the company of other puppies and their dam. When these three groups of puppies were reunited those that had only experienced human interaction preferred the company of those who had received the same rearing experience. Similarly, those puppies who had been exposed to both human and canine company preferred the company of puppies of the same upbringing, as did the puppies only used to canine company.

Perhaps the most significant tests of all are those carried out in 1961 by Freedman, King and Elliot, which found that if puppies are kept in isolation from man and introduced at different ages their response to man deteriorates with age of first exposure. The results show that if puppies are introduced to humans for the first time between three to five weeks they will approach confidently, but those that are introduced between five and seven weeks of age will show increasing amounts of apprehension. Those puppies whose first experience of man is at nine weeks old or later will be totally fearful. In 1968 Scott concluded from his research into puppies kept in isolation from man until fourteen weeks “by fourteen weeks fear and escape responses have become so strong that any puppy raised in these surroundings acts like a wild animalâ€. Freedman, King and Elliot also found that puppies exposed to human company at fourteen weeks for the first time never developed a positive approach.

So far, the research cited has been concerned with aspects of socialisation, but what of habituation, i.e. environmental stimuli rather than social interaction? Experiments have been designed to reveal a puppy’s sensitive period for habituation, for example, puppies housed in conditions devoid of stimulation were placed in a test area with various articles for just half an hour at five, eight, twelve and sixteen weeks. These puppies were found to be increasingly keen to explore the items and to develop a preference for those that provided more complex stimuli. However, puppies who did not enter the test area until they were over eight weeks old tended to withdraw from rather than explore the items, and those who did not experience the test area until they were twelve or sixteen weeks old frequently became catatonic with fear (Fox 1971a). These results correlate with those from socialisation tests, reinforcing the theory that there is a critical period in which a puppy needs a stimulus-rich environment and social interaction.

Experiments have also shown that puppies, pre-stressed in early life, subsequently have a good capacity for coping with stress and those that do not receive the stressful experiences respond to stress less well as they mature (Fox). This has to be significant for anyone interested in dog training as it is essential to the success of training that a dog is able to cope with stress and has a positive response to complex stimuli and situations. Stress inhibits learning, and training requires of the dog the capacity to process complex stimuli.