Learn about the importance of socialization, and what the latest research says about the topic.
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Dr. Judi Stella: Judi Stella is Head of Standards & Research at Good Dog. Her research has focused on assessing the behavior and welfare of domestic cats and dogs housed in biomedical laboratories, shelters, veterinary hospitals, and commercial breeding facilities.
Dr. Gayle Watkins: Gayle is the founder of Avidog and renowned Golden Retriever breeder. She is an AKC Gold Breeder of Merit and a three-time AKC Breeder of the Year. Her educational course "Savvy Socialization" is the topic of this week's episode.
Check out Good Dog University's Summer of Socialization https://www.gooddog.com/courses/summer-of-socialization (here).
In this episode, Judi, Gayle, and Laura discuss what socialization means and how to be effective at it.
Judi talks about the importance of socialization and the impact behavioral problems have both in the dog world and beyond. Dogs with behavior problems have significantly negatively impacted lives (thus also negatively impacting their owners). Preventing these problems is easier than managing them - that’s where socialization comes in.
Historically we’ve focused on socializing our puppies in the first 16 weeks of life - Gayle has developed a socialization course that extends beyond traditional wisdom, drawing on science and her years of experience in the dog world.
Resource: https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/heritable/1965-scott-geneticsandthesocialbehaviorofthedog.pdf (Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog) by John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller
Gayle discusses the importance of introductions. Dogs have a hard time generalizing and need a lot of exposure to a lot of different things. "Sit" in the park is a lot different than "sit" in the kitchen!
Gayle gives a bit of background on her course "Savvy Socialization." The course teaches how to build trust in your puppies. There are four types of trust:
Trust in people,
Trust environment
Trust in expectations of them
Trust in themselves