Interesting article on socialisation

[SkeletonSkins]

Saw this article doing the rounds on a few fb groups and found it interesting:
www.collared-scholar.com/more-harm-than-good-3-reasons-why-i-never-socialize-my-puppies/

Rather than the argument of not socialising, I think it raises good points about good and bad socialising, in that many seem to think it involves doing as much as possible as quickly as you can. I've seen puppy classes filled with puppies dashing around the room together apparently labelled as socialisation yet in fact simply leading to recall problems when the owner is much more boring than the other dogs.

My dog is nervous around people and I fell into the trap of feeling I needed to get people interacting with him asap to fix this. I had been told socialisation is the fix for nervousness but in fact now I feel I pushed him too far and should have just had him out and about but ignored by others.

www.collared-scholar.com/more-harm-than-good-3-reasons-why-i-never-socialize-my-puppies/

Clicky link

I agree with a lot of that. It was ingrained in us that we had to let our puppies meet other dogs and people which I did and then spent months trying to undo that so he focused on me rather than wanting to run to everyone else.

Like everything else hind sight is such a useful thing and I would do 'socialization' differently if I had to do it again.

Totally agree with the part about understanding the dog's genetics/personality and working with that. I did a tonne of socialisation that, in reality, I didn't really need to do because my pup is a naturally friendly dog - with humans and dogs. He had fun and lots of my locals got some nice puppy cuddles but I am now having to teach him that not everyone we pass in the street wants to say Hello.

Instead, I could have used that time differently to work on the things he is not naturally great at - e.g. being left alone.

As I said in another thread, I also spent too much time when he was young worrying about fitting in everything I thought we "should" do and not enough time just enjoying him as a little puppy. I spent the first few weeks like a race, just trying to tick off everything I could. I have since learned to slow down and relax - just enjoy his company. We are a better team for it.