Puppy socialisation - what if that ship has sailed?!

[PacificDogwood]

I've been reading up on puppy socialisation and how there seems to be a relatively short window to get it 'right'.

However, in my totally anecdotal experience and with a cohort of 5 dogs , the rescue dogs I've lived with have been…. well, just dogs: some better behaved than others, but all utterly trainable and with time and patience a pleasure to live with.

As some of you may be away we've just adopted a 20 month old greyhound and he's been great in the 12 days he's been with us - early days, I know.
It was important to me when I decided on what breed and what rescue to go with that I'd know as much as possible about 'my' dog's past. I have children, youngest is 5, and I would not have taken on a stray at this moment in time.

I believe that going out with him and exposing him to lots of new and different things and people and situations, he will learns. Surely that's true?!

If any dog behaviourists are out there, tell me more about how 'fixable' it is when puppy socialisation did not happen as well as it might have.

PS AFAIK, our dog was not abused or mistreated, just kept in kennels and never raced.

I think it's more of a nature/nurture debate than we might be told. Patch obviously didn't have a great start to life and even though we got him as a puppy (far too early, but we were naive and were lied to) he was scared of everything. I mean everything.

Some dogs will be more resilient than others, despite the hardships they face.

Hm. Yes, the natures vs nurture debate - I don't even know where I stand on that one with regards to human children

"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"."

from here

It's those kind of statements I find myself struggling to fully agree with: yes, it is clearly preferable if a puppy is exposed to lots of different thing before 14 weeks, but older dogs can IME learn about things they had no previous experience of.
Is this where 'Old dogs can't learn new tricks' comes from??

Well, I disagree. My totally anecdotal experience has been different.

Learning doesn't just stop after socialisation, of course they continue to grow and develop as they mature and even as adults. With careful handling and sensitive introduction most - not all - dogs can get used to almost anything, even if they'd not come across it before.

Having said that, in my own experience I have had two rescues that missed big chunks of socialisation due to health problems. Both had varying degrees of what I suppose you'd call anxiety and both showed fear at new/novel situations/people/dogs etc. Whereas the one and only non-rescue I've had, who was brought home at 8 weeks and did everything 'right' with , puppy classes, then training classes, then continuing at dog-club throughout her young life etc, was absolutely bombproof, loved everyone and everything and was positively nosey about anything/one new or novel.

I raised all dogs in a similar way, same amount of love and care, same training methods and handling and had all three from young pups. The only thing that was different was the lack of sufficient early socialisation. There is always the chance that part of it was just their nature, but it seems a bit coincidental that both pups that started out with health problems that stopped them receiving adequate socialisation went through life anxious and finding new situations/people/dogs scary.

I do agree though, that just like people, some dogs are more able to get over a bad start and move on than others.

Interesting, moosemama, thank you.

I suppose I don't have experience of a 'bomb proof' dog…. hm. I've never thought about it like that.

I consider it quite 'normal' for a dog to be cautious or a bit intimidated in new situations, but expect a 'good' dog to tolerate that uncertainty and deal with it without aggression.

We are still in the honeymoon period with this latest dog although he is getting more confident every day - which mainly shows itself in him inviting any of us for play by 'nibbling' our clothes. He is only 20 months and in many ways quite puppy-like, including all the mouthing, but it is of course intimidating to the uninitiated and my youngest, so we are working on that.

I've had my 3 year old Dalmatian 2 years and she was obviously poorly socialised very skitterish and very nervous. She kind of still is. The saving grace I suppose was she was actually pretty well trained in the day to day stuff and had a pretty good nature. I was also lucky that I had plenty of safe dogs (if you know what I mean) that she could learn to socialise with and learn a few social skills with.
She is still pretty timid and does get very nervous in new situations I'm not sure that will ever entirely go away but she does relax far more quickly now and is far less likely to be quite as barky as she used to be. She has learnt how to read us better and other dogs better but is has been stressful and we are o my just there this year really.

The second of my two 'anxious' undersocialised dogs is currently sitting on my feet. He's a 23 month old Lurcher, with a lot of Greyhound in him and is still fundamentally a great, big baby. They're big dogs and take a long time to grow up. In fact I've been told by those that know Lurchers a lot better than I do that he might not mature until he's at least 3.

I suppose if your lad was kennelled he probably never learned the rules about not mouthing people, but he'll get there.

I'd say Eric is pretty much bomb proof in so far as nothing phases him. I've no idea whether that's his nature or whether it's just nurture or most likely a bit of both. We got him at just over 8 weeks, he'd been raised in a home with other dogs, a cat or two, children and babies visiting, horses, chickens and geese in the yard, he was small and portable so was carried round wherever we went until he was covered by his immunisation and then still went everywhere with us afterwards. We were lucky that we met up with plenty of dogs and their owners on walks who were happy to play with Eric and teach him a few manners kindly when he overstepped the mark and he's never had a bad experience so probably incredibly lucky really.

Everything all sort of combines in with each other really...

My last dog was picked up as a stray as a puppy, rehomed and then returned when he grew too big and clearly had never been socialised or exposed to much.

But he had a pretty stable personality so what I ended up with was a dog that avoided things he wasn't sure about, but learned to take my lead (puddles freaked him out to start with for instance) and he was bad at reading other dog's cues, but was overjoyed to meet dogs and people...so we had to do a fair bit of training on less enthusiastic greetings and managing his interactions with dogs because he would ignore the fact that they didn't want to play and carry on doing it anyway.

My current dog, has medical problems and was housebound a couple of weeks after being allowed out after his first vaccinations for months, then on and off until he was 1, on top of that, he's had some bad experiences with other dogs and his medical issues have meant that what should have been positive experiences caused him pain and he's had a huge amount of vet intervention and a couple of operations.

He's dog aggressive and very very iffy with strange humans.

Partly that's definitely to do with a lack of socialisation at a crucial point and his medical history, but, some of it also has to be just his basic personality as other dogs have similar issues and haven't developed the behavioural issues he has.

So the point about the socialisation windows is that you use them to maximise your chances of getting a well balanced dog, but other factors still come into play.

My two under-socialised dogs handle/d their fear very differently and I'm sure that's down to their individual personalities.

My first lad was fear aggressive to both people and dogs in a big way.

Pip on the other hand is a total wuss who prefers to hide behind me when he comes across something he's unsure of. The only thing he ever barks at is off-lead dogs. This is because of a few bad experiences with off-lead dogs when he was a pup (and on the lead himself) so he feels he has to warn them to stay away. If he meets them close-up and they're not being manic or they're on the lead he is totally submissive.

Ok, so seeing that I seem to have a fairly chilled lad on my hands, there's no reason why I should not carry on exposing him to all sorts of things: dogs, people, trains, cars, sounds, games etc etc? It's not in vain?

I did not think so, but some of the stuff about puppy socialisation made me thing it was being implied that any dog who missed out on that was a lost cause.

It's great to hear about everybody's experiences with their dogs with less than ideal starts in life - keep 'em coming

If he's happy to be exposed to them, expose away

Well, no, he is mainly happy to lie next to me and not move a muscle or run after a ball
But I shall persevere.

Well, he was on a boat today and coped admirably well
I bet my bottom dollar that he was never on a v small, v wobbly, v noisy speed boat before.

We also met some other dogs and he got on fine with them - I think we are just lucky that he is fairly easy going. Or that we are still in the honeymoon period….

We have a house full of Any old Dog. The only one we have had the opportunity to socialise from 8 weeks is our pup. One of our dogs was totally unsocialised, another socialised with bricks and feet. The first one was a lovely lovely dog who lost most of his hangups. The other one is a work in progress, but progress he has made. The pup, meanwhile, is a total nightmare, chasing and nipping anything that moves which isn't in her immediate family. The others are kind of normal'ish. Ho hum.