Pop-up Puppy Social at ZENFULdog
Kendra gave pet-parents the opportunity to safely begin socializing their puppies despite recent weather conditions last Sunday, January 23rd by hosting a pop-up puppy social at ZENFULdog from 1 pm to 2 pm.
ZENFULdog offers a safe space for puppies to socialize where Kendra can observe their specific traits, needs and personalities to gather the information necessary to teach parents how to encourage and help their unique puppies to safely engage in and enjoy socializing without incident and without intimidating others.
It is ideal for puppies to start engaging in safe and positive socialization before they reach 16 weeks—while they are in the development stages most conducive to learning new things and most receptive to novel experiences, new people and other dogs. Puppies can still be taught to socialize after 16 weeks but it does become increasingly challenging.
The Puppies
Six puppies were present for the ZENFULdog pop-up puppy social—including two very thoughtful puppies and one very excited, confident puppy who was people and puppy social. The other puppies were a mix of confident and thoughtful so overall it was a nicely balanced group of puppies.
As Kendra observed the puppies, she was also teaching parents how to do the same and how to learn about their own puppy’s particular social needs. All the puppies are babies so parents need to patiently help them learn to communicate and behave with other puppies’ personalities and behaviours. To do this, it is crucial to watch and learn their behaviours and give them feedback. Every puppy is unique and needs a specific approach to socialization. For example, thoughtful puppies may need to be approached carefully to grow their confidence. Meanwhile, extroverted puppies may need to learn to respect the boundaries and communications of puppies who are not ready for ‘too much too soon.’
Warm-Up
The social began with a decompression walk to warm up and allow the puppies to acclimatize to the space by walking around with their parents on leash to observe, look around, sniff and explore without any pressure to greet people or other puppies. This was a good way for the puppies to gather information and see how they felt in the space while the parents observed which puppies explored independently and which ones were not quite ready. It was completely normal for some puppies to not feel ready because the main goal was simply to reassure the puppies that their feelings and their choices were being respected. When puppies are shown that even the smallest choice is respected and rewarded, they start to build confidence in themselves, in the people and puppies around them, in their environment and even in approaching new environments and objects.
An Introduction to Obstacles
After the walk, the puppies’ body language became settled and relaxed demonstrating that they were starting to feel more comfortable. Kendra was then able to introduce and explain ZENFULdog’s training methods such as cognitive, choice-based training, operant and classical conditioning like how markers and reinforcement work.
All puppy-parent teams then practiced some training with a little ‘sit’ using a marker and a treat for reinforcement. They went on to practice 'doggie-zen' and then ‘down,’ which was a first for some of the puppies. Parents used treat lures, markers and then treat reinforcement and all of the puppies were successful.
With the puppies’ focus now on their parents, Kendra introduced safe stopper-pad height obstacles like platforms, non-slip tilt boards and some low, multi-textured wobble cushions. Kendra and puppy-parents were actively using markers and reinforcement while the puppies sniffed the obstacles and eventually sat on them or put paws on top. Parents were instructed to follow their puppies to ensure all puppies were getting on and off obstacles safely.
One frame obstacle was above stopper-pad height so parents were instructed to hold the leash up while they stood next to their puppies acting as a wall as a parkour safety measure to ensure there was no way for the puppy to fall off the equipment. If a puppy wanted off an obstacle, Kendra and parents honoured that choice by helping them off before any panic set in. The same choice was given when they were deciding which obstacles they were ready for or not. Each puppy was free to choose which obstacle they were ready to try. For some puppies the tilt was scary and the platform was fun and for others, it was vice versa. At this point, it was clear to everyone that the puppies were in a really good place and feeling good about themselves. It was time to introduce some puppy play.
First Puppy Play
For the first puppy play, Kendra was mindful of the fact that the two thoughtful puppies consisted of one small Pomsky puppy (Lumi) and one rather large Bernedoodle puppy (Bailey). If the confident labrador retriever puppy (Bosco) played with Lumi right away then she might role over Lumi leading to a loss of confidence in an already-thoughtful puppy. So Lumi was released off-leash first with an importance placed on the release cue and a nice ‘sit’ first to reinforce this behaviour down the road. The others were on leash while Lumi was walked around by his parent to see what he would do with that freedom in this environment. Lumi walked near the other puppies but not right up to them at first. Then he started to play-bow with other puppies but got a little fearful when one puppy responded by coming up to him. Eventually, when Lumi learned that the other dogs were consistently stopped by their leashes, his confidence increased and he realized he was safe to play-bow up to all the puppies without being chased or cornered. One bigger, more confident dog even self-handicapped to show Lumi that he was approachable. The bigger dog had successfully judged Lumi as a thoughtful dog so he made himself smaller and more docile to encourage Lumi to take in all the information he needed in order to feel safe to play.
After Lumi got this confidence boost, he was taken on a trail walk so that the other puppies could be released to play. Parents were encouraged to help their puppies socialize and to reinforce good puppy behaviours.
During this play, Bailey got a bit overwhelmed so she was not forced to play. She was allowed to retreat and just stand next to Kendra and the other pet-parents while they redirected the enthusiastic puppy plays. Nothing was forced on any of the puppies. Bosco was over-excited so she was jumping on people and puppies, which just meant she needed a different approach to help her and direct her to have a successful play.
Second Puppy Play
Puppies were refocused with another decompression walk starting with a ‘sit’ and ‘down’ and a leashed walk. During the second puppy play, the two thoughtful dogs (Lumi and Bailey) played together successfully and then went for a trail walk together while the other puppies were released for play. To change the dynamic for Bosco who was overwhelming the other puppies with her excitement, Kendra got a big orange ball out for her to refocus her energy on and she ran around with it and it helped her play more successfully with others and she felt more confident and stopped jumping on people.
Parents assisted in the success of their puppies playing beautifully together by separating two dogs when one seemed overwhelmed and then releasing the intimidated one first to give the choice of going back to play or not. The puppies kept choosing to go back to play and parents were giving them consistent feedback.
Continued Success
All of the six puppies have sweet personalities and with their parents’ help and guidance, it is clear that they can all be successfully socialized. They already learned a lot in one social—the thoughtful dogs learned to build confidence and the confident dogs learned that when they ask to play respectfully with other dogs instead of jumping on them, they get to play more.
The puppies and parents still have work to do on their own like on-leash walks with other dogs and practicing safe playdates in fenced-in areas. Puppy parents are encouraged to reach out to make friends with compatible teams from the class and members of the community to continue socializing their puppies. This way they can hold their own play dates off-leash in safe fenced-in areas while actively watching their puppies, redirecting and giving feedback. It is also important to go on dog walks with other puppy-parent teams to teach puppies that walking on leash side by side with other dogs can also be a fun way to socialize.
Meanwhile, Kendra was impressed and proud of the progress accomplished in just one puppy social and she can’t wait to host another one soon. Thank you to all the puppy-parent teams and don’t forget to follow ZENFULdog Training on Facebook where you can stay connected to your like-minded dog-loving community every day!
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