# Weekly socialization and training schedules



## danecolor (Nov 22, 2010)

hello everyone. i was looking through some weekly raw feeding menus, which i think are very helpful in establishing a good schedule of my own. i thought it might be interesting and helpful to see some average weekly socialization and training schedules for those who have raised puppies as a way to learn what works well.

so in an average week, what did/do you do with your puppy? where do you go for socialization outings? how do you expose your pup to kids, dogs, and a variety of adults? what are your training sessions like? what commands/manners do you focus on? how often do you train and for how long? these are just general questions, feel free to include whatever you think is important. and also, for those of you who have already raised pups to adulthood: what would you have changed about your routine, knowing what you do now? 

thanks everyone!


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## SpooOwner (Oct 1, 2010)

I did a much better job socializing Mia than training her (novice that I am). I got her at 9 weeks and basically just started pimping her out. Almost daily for the first few weeks we went to Duke to meet people and dogs - we'd hang out on East Campus or near the parking lot at the WaDuke trail, and I unashamedly would ask people to pet my dog. Lots of people, lots of dogs. Lots of variety of both. My neighborhood is also very dog friendly, so we met other people and dogs by timing our walks for popular times (7 am and 6 pm). We made a few friends in puppy class that we still see almost every week for playdates.

One of the few things that I did right but that I haven't read/heard other people doing is to label everything I did with Mia right from the beginning, so that she now has a big vocabulary. When I say "leash," she stands still and waits for me to leash her (handy when we're on an off-leash walk). When I say "water," she either goes to her bowl and drinks or if we're hiking, she'll jump into the water and cool off/drink/swim. "Car" and she goes to the garage door. It helped my second dog learn these words, too.

Offered behavior works better than lured behavior, so get your clicker ready. Have lots of treats all around the house so you can reward anywhere.

I found puppy classes to be very important, both to teach me how to train and for socialization. Obvi, in a well taught basic obedience class, there won't be a lot of socialization, but we still made friends and we always got there early and stayed late to play.

I expect you know most of this. But just my $0.02.


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

I would do a lot of things differently nowadays if I knew then what I know now. Namely clicker training, I poo pooed it at first, thinking that there's no way I'd ever remember to have a clicker and treats with me at all times, but now I've become more intelligent and regret I never became proficient with it from the beginning and respect what a fabulous learning tool it is.
Mollie went to puppy class, then to Manners class (twice). I also took her absolutely everywhere with me, if she had to wait in the car, well, tough as she had to get use to that as travelling is part of our life. She went out on the boat, to the beach, walk up boat gang planks, down narrow docks, swim in the pool. 
I'd run/walk her every morning and every evening and if she was a little perturbed around strangers, I'd ask them to ask her to sit and give them a treat to give her. 
I made sure to socialise her with the next door neighbours grandkids whenever they visited, that was one of the best things ever. 
We'd go to Petsmart/pet shops, fairs, pool parties, walk her on roads with loud trucks going past, go to restaurants so she'd learn to lie quietly under the table so no-one would even realise she was there. We traveled 7000 miles around the US (on a whim) when she was 6 months old, so she had to learn to sleep in a strange place every night and to travel in the car all day. 
(My kitten also went through almost this exact same regime during the past year, poor thing!)
And, like Spoo, it was important to me to teach her the names of things, so certain words and phrases had to be consistent (try doing this with a husband who's had a stroke and thinks he saying one thing and in reality he's saying the exact opposite), but it is amazing how many words and phrases they pick up on if you keep the words exactly the same each time you say it. 
'Leave', sit and stay and come (ha ha) were my most important commands at that time. I've since added stuff like wait, look at me, relax which I'd teach from the beginning if I had a new pup.
So, there's a lot of stuff that I can't think of off hand, and I know you're pretty clued up on dogs already, so basically I just tried to mould Mollie (and Windy the cat) to be adaptable to fit into our somewhat different lifestyle.


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## KlaMarie (Dec 30, 2010)

danecolor said:


> so in an average week, what did/do you do with your puppy? where do you go for socialization outings? how do you expose your pup to kids, dogs, and a variety of adults?


Well, I'm still raising my pup but I'll answer anyway :smile: 

For socialization, she's been going to Petsmart or the pet boutique down the street on average once a week since she had her 2nd round of shots. So she meets new dogs, people, kids, gets exposed to the store and noises. I also keep a sharp eye out for any doggie activities/events in my area, and make an effort to take her to anything that would be fun. My sister babysits, and my extended family always has at least 2 small children of some age at family gatherings, so Rayne gets exposed to that whenever it happens (maybe once a month). 



danecolor said:


> what are your training sessions like? what commands/manners do you focus on? how often do you train and for how long? these are just general questions, feel free to include whatever you think is important.


Rayne went to 4 puppy classes. Now an average week for Rayne is formal training classes/ club training two times a week, Monday night and Saturday morning. On those days, I usually like to let her rest up before we go to training, just because it's so hot right now. But at training, I do one short session of OB using her balls for just basic commands--sit, down, speak, touch it, recall--and building drive, we've just begun focused heeling. She's goes back in the truck to rest and wait her turn again. And then we do a session with the decoy for bitework, which is her absolute favorite part of the day. During the bitework, she gets exposed to all sorts of environmental things (baby pool full of water or plastic bottles, yelling man, clatter stick, crack of a wip, milk jugs full of rocks, plastic tarps, etc etc etc). 

All other days I do at least two training sessions a day (maybe 15 minutes each) of just me and her training in the back yard. It's all clicker training right now, with food or her balls. We also just do fun play time or go on walks in my neighborhood. And we go hiking in the state park maybe once a week, and boating on Lake Conroe whenever we get the chance.


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## SerenityFL (Sep 28, 2010)

danecolor said:


> In an average week, what did/do you do with your puppy?


When they were young pups and I lived in Florida, I trained them to "hurry up" in a specific spot. How I would do that was simple. I would take them out, take them to where I wanted them to go, say, "hurry up", stand there and not move until they did their business. When they did finally do their business, (which didn't usually take long...with exceptions from the girl who enjoyed testing me), I would congratulate them immensely. I would THEN take them for their walk and do a little training.

A lot of times we were set back, significantly, in training, because all of the neighbors were dog experts and they all had to tell stupid ol' me who can barely find her way out of the house each morning without a compass and a map, just how I was doing everything wrong, how I should be doing this, that or the other, how they were "too young" to be trained, how everything I was training was, "not necessary", because they are "just puppies, it's ok if they jump on me to say, 'hi', I don't mind, they're puppies!!!", etc. etc. Apparently heavy alcohol consumption and drug use makes you a dog whisperer. Who knew.

NOW, I have some privacy, THANK YOU GOD! And am able to work on training them without a whole bunch of distractions and people who won't/don't respect what I'm trying to teach them. So now, we go out, again, they do their business, they get to play and run around like morons first to burn off some energy, then we work on training. I try to use any and every opportunity to train them.



> Where do you go for socialization outings?


When I lived in Florida, all I had to do was open my door and there was ALWAYS someone there and they ALWAYS had to come up to us and give us their expert and scholastic advice on dog rearing because clearly, even though their dogs didn't listen to them at all, they knew better than me. Clearly.

I did go to a dog park a couple of times but it was split in to big dog, small dog and I couldn't leave the girl unattended in the small dog area and couldn't put the boy in the small dog area so brought them both to the big dog area. The girl, while no one hurt her or threatened her, in her eyes, those huge dogs were too much for her and she became scared of many dogs.

However, at home, where all the experts lived, she got along very well with the older dogs; some doxies, a lab and some mixed breeds. She did ok with some younger dogs who were about her size but didn't really like them that much and the boy wasn't fond of them either but they both loved, LOVED the older dogs. In fact, one dog in particular was Sakari's "boyfriend" because when she saw him? I did not exist.

Now? Right now they haven't had much socialization because the boy has "issues" that we are working on. He was thinking he was the leader of the pack and he was deciding who got to come and who had to stay away. HOWEVER, he's doing better with the goldie and the Afghan Hound that both immediate neighbors have and he had a blast saying hi to every last person who decided to walk through Acadia National Park the two times we went shortly after we first got here in Maine. 



> How do you expose your pup to kids, dogs, and a variety of adults?


Before, as I said, all I had to do was walk out my door and someone was there. That included all of the above. Now? They get less of that but they are having more refined training for when they DO encounter other people, dogs, children, etc. The hoodlums don't appear to have an issue with kids but I have yet to have a kid play with them, off leash, here. I want to make sure that the boy is over the anxiety he started to experience from the kid back in Florida who, not being mean, just thinking he was playing, actually scared the crap out of Shasta in the way the kid approached him. 

Sakari, on the other hand, is now smitten with the Afghan Hound and because of that Hound, thinks that all dogs are to play with and whines and bows and begs to play with every dog she sees. She loves people, adores people and we have a LOT of work to do because at this point, no matter what I do, no matter how hard we train, no matter how consistent I am with every little thing, when she sees another person, her butt sways from side to side so fast, she's bowing, she's prancing, she's jumping up on them, she's whining, she's begging them to pet her, Oh please dear God pet her, she's starved for attention, she's neglected in the attention department in fact, if she doesn't get a pet right this second, she may actually die...so, save her, pet her, please, pet HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Is there an "I give up" icon here?)



> What are your training sessions like?


We are working on behavior more than "tricks" so they are constant. As said earlier, I try to use every opportunity to train them...really it's training ME how to act around them but they do get training. When I work on something specific, it's about 10-15 minutes at a time. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes both at the same time as we build up distractions.



> What commands/manners do you focus on?


Quite a few to let them know, especially the boy, that he is NOT in charge. Some of those would be your typical long down stay and recall. Very important to work on those for any dog.



> How often do you train and for how long?


Answered above. 



> For those of you who have already raised pups to adulthood: what would you have changed about your routine, knowing what you do now?


The first thing I would change is to tell the so called masters degree carrying dog experts in my old neighborhood to piss off and get out of my way if they can't respect me. I did do that, I just wasn't as assertive as I should have been....I thought, "I have to live around these idiots, try to make it as peaceful as possible" but what I should have done is told them to go (censored) and get back in the house and light up another joint, instead. They really made early training VERY difficult for me because there was no other place to go to train, it was a small area, I didn't have a lot of choices since I lived in the Everglades and there are gators and pythons about, I didn't have a yard...to get in to town to find some place would have been a half an hour or more drive...so, I worked with what I had. But I should have been more assertive in the beginning, not later.

Second, if I knew then what I know now, (thanks to my trainer), I would have two exemplary dogs right now. So, we're staring a little later but they're still young enough that it will all work out. (Just over a year old now.)

Third, I would NEVER have taken either one of them to the dog park, ever.

Fourth, I would have had more patience...because the first three would have been different, I would have had more patience. I hate to admit this...but, I will...a lot of times, my frustration with the idiots I used to live around caused the hoodlums to get confused and since I had not established myself as their leader, (I would also change that), it really pushed us back in training and sometimes I would get upset with them. And sometimes, I would cut it short, take them in, give them their food and close them out of my space to give me a breather. It wasn't their fault...but I got upset with them instead of the IDIOTS, when I first started. In time, I handled that better by telling those fools a thing or two and my hoodlums and I started to have a better relationship but yah, I was overwhelmed, hadn't planned on adopting two hoodlum dogs, was unprepared, did my best and when I got frustrated in the beginning, I pushed them to the side and ignored them instead of building our bond nice and tight when they were so young. (It's why I understand RC so well.)

I did a lot of things right, some out of instinct, some due to common sense. If I had neighbors who would have had respect for what I was trying to train, I think things would have gone a whole lot smoother. Sure, I still had more to learn, still do, but things would have been different. For me to fully explain HOW bad these people were would take a book...so I'm not going to except to say, they were light years beyond anything I had ever experienced with people, ever. I'm still decompressing...as you can see. They did a lot of damage to the boy, doing things they thought were funny, threatening him, (and I DID stand up and was prepared to bite on that one), etc and I am now having to repair all of that. The girl, they never threatened her or anything but they would interrupt our training sessions and just waltz on up and start petting her, letting her jump on them, giving her treats and pets and loves if she ran up to them when we worked on recall, interrupting my "hurry up" training, (which I did because in the summer the storms are dangerous and I'm not standing outside in the middle of the Glades to be struck down because the girl doesn't think the grass is high enough to conceal her...(yes, I'm serious about that, she's a fricken Princess dog and she has to make sure that no one can see her peeing....I wish I was joking about that)), which meant that hey, no sense in her listening to me, when she "talks" to those people, she gets pets and treats for doing things that she just feels like doing. Hurray.


By the way, SpooOwner, I did the same thing. They know the words, "water", "car", "leash", "collar", "left", "right", "bed", "upstairs", "downstairs", "cat", "door", "you're not driving", "grass", etc. etc. I think part of it was to train them and part of it was, I like messing with them and I tease them with inflections in my voice and words that I use...they dig it and love to learn.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

danecolor said:


> so in an average week, what did/do you do with your puppy? where do you go for socialization outings? how do you expose your pup to kids, dogs, and a variety of adults? what are your training sessions like? what commands/manners do you focus on? how often do you train and for how long? these are just general questions, feel free to include whatever you think is important. and also, for those of you who have already raised pups to adulthood: what would you have changed about your routine, knowing what you do now?
> 
> thanks everyone!


I've raised a lot of puppies. Until Shade came along, I got all my dogs at 8 weeks old and kept them their whole lives. When my kids were little, socialization was easy. We had little kids in the house constantly, their friends came over, there was always something going on and the dogs just accepted it all. These were my most social Chows, but least trained because I didn't devote enough time to their training. No puppy kindergarten, no classes, and no training time. It was usually chaos in the house.

Rocky is not social, will never be social, and no amount of taking him anywhere is going to make him social. BUT......we have gotten him very good at adjusting to new places and letting people pet him. I put him in Petsmart puppy classes just to get him out of the house and around people, and I would do that again with other puppies. He went from having to be carried thru the door, to calmly walking all around the store. He actually really likes little kids. We have some little kids in our neighborhood and I made a point of always walking him up to the kids and letting all the kids hand him treats before they pet him. Now they can come right up to him and throw their arms around him in a bear hug and he just stands there and lets them. Strange adults still get the chow stare until they hand him a treat and then gently pet him under the chin. I never let people reach out over his head and try to pet him without my permission. It really upsets him. He has to be in a sit and then they can pet him under the chin. Then he is fine with them from that point on, every time we meet them. 

We took Rocky on a two month trip across the country, staying at a new campground almost every night. After the first week, he got really good at accepting the new places, letting people come up to him, and in general actually enjoying himself. Travel was a great thing for him and I would not hesitate to travel again with a dog. 

He doesn't have a training schedule. We train constantly, whenever we get an opportunity to have him do something. I always carry a clicker and treat bag with me and I'm always working on something with him .....things like 'no cats' on walks and 'watch me' just spontaneously while we are walking. Rocky is probably the best trained dog I've ever owned because I've spent the most one on one time with him. 

If I could change one thing on past puppies it would probably be devoting more one on one time with each. At one time I had 7 animals and a bunch of little kids at home and those puppies just did not get the training they needed. My last two puppies have gotten to go to puppy kindergarten, agility classes, long walks with me, and travel with me. They were much better trained and therefore much more enjoyable to be around.


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## SpooOwner (Oct 1, 2010)

More thoughts:

There was a recent article where researchers studying learning in beagles found that the dogs learned faster with two 5-min sessions/week than longer/more frequent sessions.

If possible, I think it helps if you visit the puppy before it comes home. Everything with dogs is habituation and conditioning, so the more they are exposed to you before leaving the breeder, the better. Just something else I haven't read elsewhere but makes intuitive sense.

Just like Molly, I pooh-poohed clicker training. But it really is sooo much more effective than "yes." Although I think everyone ends up doing both.

Dogs totally dig routine, so make sure you build the right routines. On our first few walks, I played a game with Mia in the park. After that, she expected that we always played the game. Or where we walk - the dog will shoot you a dirty look if you turn in a different direction than usual.

Socialization: try to hit age, gender, race, but also height, hoodies, hats, umbrellas, facial hair, bikes/walkers/wheelchairs/skateboards/strollers, backpacks - anything that changes the look of a person.


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## MollyWoppy (Mar 19, 2010)

Oh YEAH! Serenity reminded me of a BIG one. I have blessed my little heart many times over for teaching Mol to 'have a pee'. Honestly, when you are travelling or out on a boat or in the middle of the night, having a dog that takes 'a pee' on command is a joy!


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

SpooOwner said:


> More thoughts:
> 
> Socialization: try to hit age, gender, race, but also height, hoodies, hats, umbrellas, facial hair, bikes/walkers/wheelchairs/skateboards/strollers, backpacks - anything that changes the look of a person.


I agree! Rocky was petrified the first time he had a kid ride up to him on a bicycle. He's an old pro at bicycles now. Then a kid came up to him on a motorized scooter and that scared him. Hats and hoodies are a big deal......a lot of dogs just hate people to be wearing a hat or a hoodie. 

And I totally agree on making sure they meet both men and women of all different races, sizes, heights. I had a Chow who would literally not let an overweight person near him without growling. Nothing bad had ever happened to him, he just would not let anyone that size near him.


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## monkeys23 (Dec 8, 2010)

I just took Lily literally everywhere with me. She wasn't a puppy though, she was about a year. She was freaked by a lot of specific stuff at first, but quickly got over it. She's always been awesome with kids and other dogs. She used to be amazing with even stray cats, but the prey drive has gone up over the years and living with a foster that is not okay with strange cats has really changed that despite keeping consistent with focus work, etc. around them. I model for figure drawing class every fall term and she's always gone with me every time, since the prof embodied her one really specific fear (gee wonder what type of human her previous owner was physically speaking...) it was really good for her. They totally adore each other and students have said it is relaxing and helpful to have a dog or two in class. We worked on leash manners and focus work in the neighborhood I used to live in. Lots of dogs that just get dumped in the yard for the day! I trained positively, but with lures.... I really want to do some review work with the clicker to get more comfortable with using a clicker. We also use a prong collar properly, its a great communication tool if used correctly for training. She's a very smart dog and I like that she always always pushes because she is a thinker. I have actually meant for the past several years to eventually get her certified to do therapy with kids because she is so great with them. I could take her to work with me every day if she were a certified therapy dog, my boss would totally be on board with a legit library dog (its the college library).

Scout the foster has been both easier and harder. She's such an odd duck, I really like her. I did the same thing with taking her everywhere, but I have to say its a LOT harder to take two dogs everywhere and its very very difficult to get one on one time with Lily because Scout can't be left home alone.


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