# How to socialize a puppy before she has her jabs?



## RRRaquel (Oct 10, 2011)

Hello there! 
My boyfriend and I adopted a beautiful and intelligent little puppy.
She's just 6 weeks and 4 days old, which I know is too young, and should still be with her mother and siblings, but her mother was not caring for her anymore and her owner was a little fed up with the puppies, so well, we decided to bring the puppy home sooner than we intended to.
We've had her for 4 days and she's been doing great, but I'm concerned about the critical socializing period. I read somewhere on this website that she should meet at least 100 people before she's 3 months old. The problem is, she can only have her first jab when she's 8 weeks old, then she will take her 2nd jab two weeks later, and only one week after that can she walk on the street. This means I can only take her safely outside (to meet new people and animals) when she's 11 weeks old! Then I'll have only 1 week to introduce her to a hundred people?
When she was with her siblings she had a lot of contact with other dogs and cats, and loads of people. I'm afraid she forgets about it and becomes anti-social for spending a whole month seeing just me and my boyfriend!
What could we do? We thought about taking her outside (on our lap, without touching the ground), and allow everyone we pass to touch her (people usually come straight away with a "oh so cute, can I touch it?"). But what if some stranger has just touched a dog without vaccinations and then comes and touches our little princess? Would it be dangerous for her?
When she grows older we intend to take her with us everywhere, and she'll be meeting a lot of people and animals, so I really wanted her not to be anti-social...
What do you suggest?


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## luv2laugh (Oct 4, 2011)

I am waiting for the answers and wondering the EXACT same thing!


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## acavfan (Sep 22, 2011)

The majority opinion is that the enormous benefits of socialization during this key period overrides concerns about exposure before being fully vaccinated. There are some dissenting opinions of course, but honestly if you are just smart and careful about how you go about it, the risks are very very small.

Here's a great article on the subject that covers the topic and gives suggestions on where to socialize a young puppy: http://www.aspcabehavior.org/articles/83/Socializing-Your-Puppy.aspx

Good luck and have fun!

ETA: As far as the "100 people" goes, it's not a magic number you have to reach I don't think, basically I believe Dunbar is just emphasizing that its important to get your puppy introduced to as many people as you can so they meet a variety of different people in different shapes, sizes, ages etc.


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

You can safely socialise her before the final vaccine, just be smart about it. Also, socialisation doesn't just mean meeting loads of people. She should be exposed to as many new environments and situations as possible, and should also be exposed to noises, like traffic, trains, kids yelling, heavy machinery etc etc. Anything you can think of. She should also be around other people and dogs without interacting with them, otherwise you'll end with a dog that thinks she's entitled to meet everyone she sees, which can be quite annoying to have to fix.

When I say 'be smart about it' I mean to avoid areas where a lot of dogs hang out, such as dog parks and other off leash areas. Hanging out outside a shopping centre or supermarket is fine, and she can sit on your lap and you can carry her around while exposing her to various noises and sights.


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

I agree that you can socialize before she's fully vaccinated. You just have to be careful. Don't let her on the ground in any area that other dogs go. You can take her to pet stores, just hold her. You can set up play dates with fully vaccinated, healthy adult dogs. You can go on "walks" but just hold her! We started taking our first puppy on "walks" when we first got him, before he was fully vaccinated. We live in a small town, and our house is down a quiet lane, just near "downtown". So, we starting going on walks through downtown, but just holding him. He got to see lots of people, tourists, the regulars, the business owners. Now that he's 2, we still take that route for many of our walks!


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## RRRaquel (Oct 10, 2011)

So today we took our little lioness for a walk outside, for the first time, always carrying her on our lap and never letting her touch the floor.
First we went just down the road (she reacted ok), and came back straight at home, 'cause I wanted her to understand that walks outside are just a temporary thing, it's not like we're taking her somewhere new and dangerous and getting rid of her. Back at home she slept a little, and then we took her for a longer walk, about 45minutes outside, and in the high street. 
She was very shy at first, and tried to hide her head inside my boyfriends coat. Although, after one of the ladies we passed asked to pet her, she became less scared, and ventured to put her head out of the coat and look at the people and cars that passed by. By the end of the walk she was way more relaxed, less lethargic, and being more like herself and giving us little bites. But sometimes (more on the beginning of the walk) she would growl, very low, but growl. I hope it just happened 'cause it was her first time in the outside world...
Anyway, tomorrow we'll take her outside again, and I even arranged with some friends for her to meet 6 well behaved and vaccinated adult dogs 
It's just a shame that I don't have friends with cats in this city, but let's hope that one day she'll have the change to learn to respect them...


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

Socialization is a two-part activity: People and animals.
1. You can have puppy parties in your house to introduce 2 - 4 friendly people, having them pet and feed her. And you can do these parties are frequently as you can handle it. The idea is to shoot for a very wide variety (100 men, women, children) within the first month.
2. After the Vet gives the OK for Parvo and Distemper, you introduce the pup to as many friendly dogs as possible, pups and adults, small and large. You can also introduce up to date adults in your house or your backyard.

As Doxie said, you can take her on car trips all over, carrying her nearly anywhere, as long as her feet never touch areas where infected dogs may have been.


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## luv2laugh (Oct 4, 2011)

What about petting and shoes?

I think it was Ian Dunbar's book that said you should have all guests take off their shoes before walking in the home and use hand sanitizer before they pet him/her. (it may have been somewhere else)

Is this generally known/done?

I want people to pet my little guy, but don't want to offend them by asking them to wash their hands. Although, anyone I invite to my house I'm comfortable doing this with, I would feel a little weird doing it on a walk/park/grocery store.


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## RRRaquel (Oct 10, 2011)

I was under the impression that this kind of diseases were only caught through infected animals faeces, or eventually shoes or even hands that had touched surfaces where the faeces had previously been, but now reading this website I learnt that some diseases can also be spread through the air!! 
It being true, means that walking my puppy around town, even if just in my lap, I'm risking that she can get infected because she still doesn't have her jabs!!
Maybe I'm being paranoiac, and overreacting, but this really scared me (since I already took my puppy outside two days)!
What is one supposed to do? Take the puppy outside and risk she gets one serious disease? or lock her inside until she's fully vaccinated, missing the critical socializing period, and risking she grows up aggressive towards other people and animals?!


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## luv2laugh (Oct 4, 2011)

I just read your link. Thank you for posting it. For some reason it has been more difficult to find that information than I thought.

I wouldn't fret too much about your baby being outside (without being on the ground). Although if it were me, I wouldn't take her out again until about a week after she gets her first shots (then she has some more protection).

Here are a bunch of articles/letters from recommendations on the socialization vs. vaccination debate.

http://www.4pawsu.com/vaccinations.htm

I would recommend calling your local humane society and seeing if there have been an outbreak of any of the viruses that they know, or maybe your veterinarians office. If there hasn't been much in the area, I wouldn't be too worried about it, although I would still probably keep him in before the first shots. 

There is a lot of socialization you can do at home, such as different noises, textures, treats, toys, etc. I'm getting my puppy at 9 weeks and I'm going to do the same thing by calling my vets and local humane societies. If there are no outbreaks, I'll probably be walking him around with me (in my arms) about a week after the first set of shots. After the second week of shots, I'll organize play dates with vaccinated dogs, go to puppy class, etc. I still won't take him to dog parks. For me, socialization is more important - the breed we are getting is much more likely to be skittish than some and if there are no outbreaks and i'm carrying him and I'm not in an area where lots of dogs go, the chances are just so small that i'm willing to take them. 

I may be the crazy lady who tells the kids they need to hand sanitize first before petting him though. I'll just say it REALLY nicely. It depends a lot on whether there has been outbreak in the area. 

Hope that helps. Here is a checklist I really liked on socialization. It's a printable one and there's a lot you can do at home.

http://info.drsophiayin.com/puppy-socialization-checklist-0/

**Oops, there actually isn't a ton that you can do inisde, there's more here:

This second one has more examples of inside ones.

http://ahimsadogtraining.com/blog/puppy-training/


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## RRRaquel (Oct 10, 2011)

Thanks for the answer, I read all those websites and I found it helpful.
Basically it seems that one has to always risk one thing, we cannot have good socialization period + diseases immunization at the same time. So we have to choose.
Yesterday at night I was wondering how many of those diseases really exist in this city. I went to sleep thinking that in the UK owners usually care about their dogs vaccination (unlike portugal or spain, for example), and that are probably really few cases of infected dogs here.
And today I read on those websites that "In fact; the risk of a dog dying because of infection with distemper or parvo disease is far less than the much higher risk of a dog dying (euthanasia) because of a behaviour problem.". So yeah, I'm more relaxed.
I was talking with my boyfriend, and he actually made some good points: if you have a kid and you don't let the child touch anything, you're always cleaning with anti-bacterial every time the child puts something in her mouth, and you lock her inside the house, she'll grow up with a very poor immune system (we know of real cases like this). I argued that there's less dangerous and contagious human diseases than dog diseases, so the risk of taking a small child outside isn't as big as taking a puppy, but then again, he made a good point. What about tuberculosis? You can get it just by taking the same bus of an infected person! It happened with him a few years ago!! And we don't stop taking buses because of that...
There's also the cases of homeless people with dogs, and they don't all die and get ill... In fact, homeless people's dogs are the most well behaved dogs in general, 'cause they grew up used to everything.
So well, our little princess is 7 weeks old today, and she'll take her first jab next week. I think that during this week I'll be more careful, and just sit with her on my lap on our door step, or just walk up and down our street (which is a very quiet one) with her on my lap. After she gets the first jab, I'll start taking her again to busiest places (still in my lap). When she's all done with the jabs, we'll just hope that she didn't get too used to being carried around all the time, and doesn't complain for having to actually walk on her paws hehehe


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