SIRIUS Guide to Safe Socialization and Infection Risk

During the first few weeks your pup lives with you it is important that you introduce your pup to lots of (100+) new people, expose your pup to lots of new things, take your pup to lots of new places, and introduce them to a few healthy, vaccinated, friendly puppies and dogs and allow them to play together off-leash.

However, to keep your pup from getting infectious diseases you should get your pup vaccinated, keep them up-to-date on their vaccinations and limit your puppy’s exposure to other dogs and public places until one week after their second set of vaccines, which is when their immunizations become mostly effective.

Until then:

• Don’t let your puppy meet unknown or unvaccinated puppies or dogs.
• Don’t let your puppy come into contact with the ground in any place where unknown or unvaccinated puppies or dogs may have been in the past 6 months.

With that in mind, when you are in public:

• Don’t walk them. Instead, carry your puppy in your arms or a crate, bag, cart, or carrier.
• Don’t put them on the ground. Instead, use a picnic table, bench, blanket or towel.
• Potty them in a place that other dogs don’t have access to, like a raised landscaping bed or an out of the way corner

Keep outdoor shoes outside, or at least check the soles of your shoes before going inside.

And especially: don’t put your pup on the ground of the waiting room or parking lot of a veterinary hospital!

DO take your puppy to SIRIUS Puppy Classes where they can safely socialize with new and unfamiliar people and puppies in a new and unfamiliar place, under the supervision of a skilled puppy training expert.

Why:

Parvovirus is spread in the feces and urine of sick dogs and the virus can survive in the environment for several months. It’s possible to step in infected urine or feces and carry the virus around on the soles of shoes.

Follow these simple precautions and it is easy to provide your puppy with the socialization they desperately need while minimizing the risk of exposure to Parvovirus. 

You may also want to refer to the AVSAB’s (American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior) Position Statement on Puppy Socialization.

More Information

Why Socialization is Essential

   Prevent adolescent-onset fearfulness and aggression problems 

The Risk of Parvovirus

   Basic precautions make it very unlikely your pup will contract Parvovirus

Safety Precautions

   Vaccinate your pup and avoid unfamiliar dogs and public grounds

How to Socialize your Pup Safely

   Introduce your pup to lots of new people, just keep your pup off the ground in public

Socialization with Other Puppies and Dogs

   Only allow your pup to meet dogs you know to be vaccinated, healthy, and friendly

The Best Place to Safely Socialize Your Puppy

   Expert supervision, safety, and training make puppy class the best place for pups

When to Start Walking

   Don’t start until your pup is fully vaccinated, then take it slow to avoid bad habits

Why Socialization is Essential

When dogs reach adolescence at five months of age they often grow fearful or reactive towards anything new or unfamiliar. Resolving this fearfulness during adolescence and adulthood can be difficult, dangerous, and time-consuming, but preventing these problems is incredibly easy during puppyhood with proactive socialization and desensitization.

The first twelve weeks of a puppy’s life is the Critical Period of Socialization. At this age puppies are developmentally inclined to explore, approach, and engage with new and unfamiliar things. If your pup encounters a person, place, or thing during puppyhood, they will be much less likely to become fearful or reactive towards it later in life.

The more new and unfamiliar people, places, and things you expose your puppy to, the more you will build their overall confidence, so that they will be more comfortable in the future, even when they encounter something they’ve never seen before. If they do get frightened by something new or unfamiliar, it will be much easier to rebuild their confidence if they have had lots of proactive puppyhood socialization.

Puppies that are not adequately socialized often appear to be friendly and confident, especially around familiar family and friends, but this can change very quickly when they reach adolescence. Starting at eighteen weeks of age your pup will begin to go through several developmental changes that make future socialization much more difficult and dangerous. Your puppy will become less eager to approach, more likely to avoid new and unfamiliar people/dogs/places/things, physically stronger and more capable of inflicting injury, and your puppy will no longer smell like a puppy to other dogs, and may be perceived as a threat to other dogs and people.

In order to adequately socialize and desensitize your puppy, you need to introduce your puppy to 100+ new and unfamiliar people, you need to take your puppy out into the world to experience the many sights, sounds, and smells that they might someday encounter, and you need to give your pup the opportunity to play and interact with other puppies and dogs, and the sooner you start all of this, the easier and more effective it will be.

The Risk of Parvovirus

Your pup’s immunizations take a while before they reach full effectiveness. One week after their second set of vaccines your pup’s immunity should be fairly solid. Until that time, they are more susceptible to diseases like Parvovirus and Distemper. These are serious and highly infectious diseases and it is important to take precautions to prevent your puppy from infection, but fear of these diseases should not stop you from giving your puppy the socialization and desensitization they desperately need.

The likelihood of your puppy catching Parvovirus varies immensely from neighborhood to neighborhood. Parvovirus is very rare in many communities these days. If you ask your puppy’s veterinarian how many dogs in their clinic have died from Parvovirus in the past year, the answer will almost certainly be zero, or perhaps one. If the answer is higher than that, then you are in a community with an elevated risk of Parvovirus and you should be extra vigilant about keeping your pup safe, but even so, there are still easy ways to safely socialize your pup.

Safety Precautions

The first step towards keeping your puppy safe from disease is to keep them up to date on their vaccinations. Until you reach one week after the second set of vaccinations, you should take the following precautions to limit their exposure to infection, since their immunizations will not yet be fully effective.

Don’t let your pup meet unknown puppies or dogs. They may be sick and could pass an infection to your puppy.

Don’t let your puppy walk or sniff in public places where unknown dogs may have been. When you take your puppy out in public, carry your puppy, either in your arms, or in a crate, cart, stroller, bag, or other carrier. Your puppy can get sick from coming into contact with pee or poop from an infected dog and these germs can survive in the environment for up to six months.

If you want to put your pup down, you should put them on a bench, picnic table, or a blanket or towel. 

If your puppy needs to pee or poop while you are in public, look for an area that other dogs do not have access to, like a raised bed for landscaping or an out of the way corner. Don’t let you pup walk around when you are letting them go potty, instead stay in one place  to limit their exposure.

It is also possible for people to step on infected pee or poop and then carry those germs with them on the bottom of their shoes. For this reason it is a good idea to keep your outdoor shoes outside, and ask your visitors to remove their shoes before entering the parts of your house that your puppy has access to. At the very least, it is a good idea to inspect the bottom of shoes before going inside.

How to Socialize your Pup Safely

Socialization with unfamiliar people is the most important part of socializing your puppy and it’s quite easy to socialize your pup to lots of people without any risk of exposure to diseases like Parvovirus or Distemper.

Socialization with people starts at home, with you and your pup’s family. Everyone who lives in your home should hold, handle, and hand-feed your puppy so your pup is totally comfortable being held by everyone and handled on every part of their body, including their collar, ears (both!), muzzle, paws (all four!), and belly, as well as being held, hugged, and stared at. Feed your pup a good portion of their food during these handling sessions as it will teach your pup to love people and love being handled.

The next step is repeating this process with more people, like other family, friends, or neighbors. If possible, invite them over and have them hold, handle, and hand-feed your pup. It’s important that you get your pup used to people coming into your home, so this is a great time to have lots of people over. Even better, throw a party so you can get your pup used to a crowd of people, as well as novel stimuli like decorations, music, and dancing. 

You can also bring your pup to other people’s homes, including private outdoor areas where there is no risk of encountering pee or poop from an infected dog. 

Getting your pup out into the world is an essential part of socialization and part of that involves taking them out into public places. You can do this safely by carrying your pup, either in your arms or in a cart or a carrier. Bring your pup to the park and put out a picnic blanket, or find a bench and keep them on your lap. Go to places with lots of interesting things to see, like outside a school, or a construction site, or a farmer’s market. You can even bring a sign that says “Meet my puppy” and see if any strangers want to say hello to your puppy. This is a great way to socialize your pup and spread joy and laughter in your community!

Taking your pup for outings in the car is another easy way to show them new and unfamiliar places safely. Drive to new places, park the car, roll down the window and let them watch the world go by.

If your pup is small enough to fit inside a backpack or carrier, you’ll find that you can bring them into most shops and businesses, which is another great way to introduce your pup to new people and places. Big box stores like Home Depot or Target can also be a great place for your pup, often you can put a blanket in the bottom of a shopping cart and then push them around the store.

Socialization with Other Puppies and Dogs

Most puppies get the chance to socialize with their littermates during the first few weeks of their life. During the first few weeks your puppy is with you, it’s OK if they don’t get a ton of socialization experience with other puppies or dogs, while you are waiting for their vaccinations to take full effect.

If you have family, friends, or neighbors with vaccinated, healthy, friendly, well-socialized puppies or dogs, it is a great opportunity for your pup to socialize. 

Often, when dogs, and especially puppies, are allowed to socialize freely together, they engage in play fighting. This is totally normal and natural behavior and it’s actually very important for puppy development. When puppies play fight, they also tend to play bite. When one puppy bites another puppy too hard, it hurts, and the victim will Yelp! and Freeze. This will usually get the other puppy to stop. Playtime grinds to a halt and then, over time, gradually gets more energetic until the same thing happens again. 

This is how puppies develop Bite Inhibition. With sufficient off-leash play, puppies will learn that they can play fight and have fun, but they have to be very, very careful with their teeth so that they don’t hurt their playmates.

If you are ever concerned that your puppy, or the dog they are meeting, is not enjoying the encounter you can always try the “Bully Test”. Simply restrain one of the dogs and see what the other dog does. If the unrestrained dog approaches and tries to engage with the restrained dog, then they’re enjoying the encounter. Try switching and restraining the other dog.

The Best Place to Safely Socialize Your Puppy

The best place to safely socialize your puppy is an off-leash puppy class, like the ones we offer at SIRIUS. Your pup will get to visit a new and unfamiliar place, meet new and unfamiliar people and other puppies, and all of it is safe, confined, and supervised by a puppy expert who can answer your questions, help you understand your pup’s needs and behaviors, and teach you how to integrate training into play and socialization, so your pup learns valuable skills.

If you have questions about your pup’s training or socialization it can be really helpful to get feedback from an expert who can work directly with you and your pup to make sure your pup is getting the education they need. Also, a weekly puppy class provides a wonderful opportunity for accountability to keep you on track with your socialization goals. When you are socializing a puppy, the clock is ticking, so it’s often helpful to have someone checking in with you regularly to make sure you are not neglecting your pup’s socialization.

It’s far too easy to undersocialize a puppy because the consequences do not become apparent until too late. Puppy training experts know how to recognize the warning signs while there is still time to intervene.

When to Start Walking Your Puppy

Walking your dog can be another wonderful way to socialize them and provide them with new and unfamiliar experiences, but you should be mindful of certain risks. 

While your pup’s immunizations are not yet fully effective, your pup is vulnerable to infection and walking your pup in public places has the potential to expose them to dangerous infectious diseases like Parvovirus and Distemper which can be contracted from unseen feces or urine on the ground. 

For this reason, we strongly recommend that you avoid walking your puppy in public areas until one week after they have received their second set of vaccines.

Once your puppy is fully vaccinated, walking them can be a very rewarding and worthwhile experience, but you should keep a few things in mind. For most puppies, exploring a new environment, sniffing new scents, and meeting people and other dogs will be very enjoyable and exciting. Therefore, when you walk your pup, you will be rewarding your pup and reinforcing their behavior. If their behavior is undesirable, for example they are pulling on their leash and ignoring you, then walking will reinforce this undesirable behavior.

For some puppies, all the new stimuli can be overwhelming, especially if you move briskly through the environment so they do not get enough time to take everything in and get used to it.

For this reason, we strongly recommend that you approach walks with your pup slowly and gradually, and that you incorporate basic training exercises and lots of handfeeding into your walking routine. You don’t need to be in a hurry to cover a lot of ground, instead, step outside your front door and stand there and give your pup time to take it all in. Offer your pup some food and ask for some basic skills, like Come, Sit, Down, or Watch Me. Give your pup time to get used to the new environment and reinforce your pup for paying attention to you and following your instructions in this new setting.

Then, walk a few steps and stop and repeat the process. If your pup is ever pulling on leash, or lunging or barking uncontrollably, it’s a sure sign that you should stop and wait and give your pup time to adjust to the environment and practice some training before moving further.

One of the best exercises that you can do with any puppy or dog is to walk them, but stop every minute or so to do a little training routine. Every time you stop you will be in a slightly different setting. This is the best to train your pup to ALWAYS listen to you, no matter where you are.

Conclusion

Infectious diseases do present a risk to your puppy, especially while their immunizations are  not yet fully effective. However, they are a minor risk compared to the risk on insufficiently socializing your puppy, which is almost guaranteed to lead to devastating behavior and temperament problems as your puppy gets older. 

Fortunately, there are simple precautions you can take that will allow you to safely socialize your puppy so that they develop the confidence they need to live a happy life as a companion animal, without exposing them to a significant risk of infection. 

Until one week after your pup’s second set of vaccines we strongly encourage your to  keep your pup off the ground in public places and don’t let your pup meet unfamiliar or unvaccinated dogs. However, do not let fear of infectious diseases stop you from introducing your pup to 100+ new people, lots of new objects and places, or a handful of other puppies or dogs.

And if at all possible, bring your puppy to an off-leash puppy training and socialization class like the ones we offer at SIRIUS!