Absolute Dogs’ Socialisation Tips: Prepare Your Puppy for Situations of All Kinds

You’ve brought your new puppy home, and you’re ready for a whirlwind of excitement. But things can get challenging if you go on that first walk or invite your friends over when your puppy isn’t ready. This is where socialisation is essential. If you’re not familiar with this kind of training, Absolute Dogs has all the tips you need to get it right.

What Is Socialisation?

Socialisation involves helping your puppy prepare to interact with the world. This type of training helps puppies build resilience in their responses to changes in the environment. Lauren Langman and the pros at Absolute Dogs have created several concept-focused dog training games that make socialisation easier to accomplish.

These games also give owners insights into their puppy’s weaker personality traits and show them how to turn these into strengths. For example, a puppy may be naturally pessimistic. With Absolute Dogs’ host of games, an owner can transform their puppy’s pessimism into optimism.

How Can You Prepare Your Puppy for Situations With Socialisation?

If you try to train your puppy in new situations, rather than before these scenarios crop up, your puppy is likely to struggle. They won’t have the skills or knowledge to respond well.

Socialisation can help you prepare your puppy for situations that they may otherwise find challenging. Here are some examples from Absolute Dogs on what can happen when owners train their puppies in the situation rather than for the situation.

1. Visitors Come Over to Meet Your New Puppy

Visitors arrive at your house to meet your new puppy. You haven’t given your puppy any foundation training yet. When your guests arrive, your puppy excitedly runs over and jumps on them. Your puppy doesn’t respond to any cues. You can’t reward any good behaviour because your puppy isn’t making any good choices. Your guests are stressed. You’re stressed. But there’s nothing you can do to stop your puppy from jumping on them.

How to avoid this scenario: Before you invite guests over, work with your puppy on settling calmly on a bed. Play games that focus on developing self-control and encourage them to focus on you.

2. You Take Your Puppy On Their First Walk

You’re excited to take your new puppy on a walk, so you take them out straight away. But they struggle to walk with you and baulk on the lead.

How to avoid this scenario: Prepare your puppy for walks by playing games that develop their confidence and optimism. This way, they’ll learn to face environmental changes with bravery. You could also practise disengagement, which shows your puppy when to react with a “that’s none of my business” response — perfect for walks.

3. You Want Your Puppy to Swim on a Hike

You take your puppy on a hike where you’ll pass a shallow creek, and you’re looking forward to introducing them to the water. Your puppy already knows all of their basic obedience commands, so you think they’ll be fine. Only they’re not. Your puppy pulls back as soon as they dip a paw into the creek and won’t go anywhere near it. Not even with treats and toys.

How to avoid this scenario: Prepare your puppy for mid-hike swims by playing games that grow water confidence, flexibility, and optimism in the face of novelty. Keep in mind that hikes will likely come with a range of interesting or confusing environmental changes. Therefore, your puppy needs to be on top of their water confidence before they tackle swimming in a public place, where these changes are likely to occur.

Building A Trust-Based Relationship With Your Puppy

Preparing your puppy in these ways gives them the skills they need to respond well in potentially challenging situations. What’s more, your puppy will develop a strong, trust-based relationship with you, which is essential to their confidence in situations like these.

When And How Should You Start Socialisation Training?

It’s never too early or too late to start socialisation training. You can begin right away by playing games that focus on:

• Building confidence, resilience, and optimism.
• Problem-solving.
• Navigating puppy-appropriate obstacles.

It doesn’t matter if the weather is bad. There are plenty of training games that you can play indoors. And it doesn’t matter if your puppy hasn’t had all of their vaccinations yet. You can play games in the comfort of your own home and garden.

It’s always a good idea to start training in a private space anyway. This will prepare your puppy for when you take them out into the wider world.

Here are five socialisation games from Absolute Dogs to get you started.

1. Cardboard Chaos

Absolute Dogs’ “Cardboard Chaos” game helps socialise puppies of all ages. This game reveals useful insights into how your puppy responds to stimuli.

You’ll need: shallow cardboard boxes and daily food rations.

How To Play Cardboard Chaos

Sprinkle some of your puppy’s daily food rations in and around shallow boxes, and then let your puppy explore the boxes independently.

Watch how your puppy responds to the movement beneath their feet as they explore the boxes. Observe how they respond to the sound of the boxes as they interact with it, and how resilient they are when experiencing this challenge/novelty. As your puppy progresses, add more boxes for them to explore.

If you have children, include them in your puppy’s socialisation by asking them to set up the chaos. All you have to do is check that the layout is suitable before allowing your puppy to explore.

2. Did You Hear That? It’s Not a Big Deal

Absolute Dogs’ “Did You Hear That? It’s Not a Big Deal” game introduces your puppy to the concept of getting a good deal. They learn that when they behave calmly in response to stimuli, they receive a reward.

In this case, the stimulus is a sound. This game is great for preparing puppies ahead of hearing fireworks, thunder, or other noises that they may find stressful. Once your puppy has mastered this game, they’ll learn that hearing a sound like this can come with a good deal: a piece of food.

You’ll need: Daily food rations.

How To Play Did You Hear That? It’s Not a Big Deal

Whenever a sound occurs and your puppy responds calmly, reward them with a daily food ration. A calm response may be turning their head or flicking their ears towards the sound. Alternatively, they may not respond at all.

Either way, give your puppy their food quietly and calmly. (Excitement could create emotion that they connect with the noise.)

Of course, there won’t usually be enough naturally occurring sounds to practise this game. Get around this by playing recordings of sounds that your puppy might come across in real life. You can use a wireless speaker in random locations to make the source of the sound unpredictable.

When choosing which sounds to use, consider seasonality. Your puppy is likely to hear different environmental sounds in the spring/summer and autumn/winter. For example, think about when your puppy is most likely to hear howling storms or fireworks displays.

Playing the game with these sounds can help your puppy prepare for unanticipated situations that may arise later. Play the sounds at a low volume, and increase the sound when your puppy gives a “that’s none of my business” response to the noise. Build up to the volumes these sounds may occur at in real life to help prepare your puppy for the real situation.

You can play this game on its own or while you’re playing other games, both inside and outside.

3. Balance Path

Absolute Dogs’ “Balance Path” game helps puppies become confident when environmental distractions arise. Although we have no idea what novelties the world will throw at our puppies, we can prepare them to cope with the unexpected. This game encourages outside-the-box thinking as you show your puppy how to adapt to change.

You’ll need: Household items and daily food rations.

How To Play Balance Path

Use household items to set up a safe obstacle course — a balance path — for your puppy. Opt for items that don’t have too much height, and alternate wobbly and solid surfaces to stop your puppy from feeling easily overwhelmed.

Items that you could use in your balance path include:

• Tables turned onto their sides.
• Mats and rugs of different textures.
• Yoga mats.
• Hula hoops.
• Empty plastic bottles.

Be as creative as you like when plotting your puppy obstacle course. You’ll likely have ideal props all over your home to make use of.

The aim isn’t for your puppy to race through the course. Instead, encourage your puppy to move slowly and steadily. This can help them develop their confidence and awareness.

The first time you set up an obstacle course, you may like to sprinkle food throughout the obstacles. This can encourage your puppy to interact with the balance path and prevent them from losing interest. Alternatively, you could place food directly in front of your puppy, on the obstacles, while they’re following the balance path.

Reward your puppy generously as they move through the obstacle course. Experiment with how much food you reward your puppy with to support them in the best way possible.

4. Two Feet On

Absolute Dogs’ “Two Feet On” game makes for pressure-free fun that helps puppies feel confident in new situations.

You’ll need: Daily food rations and a box, an upside-down bowl, or another stable platform.

How To Play Two Feet On

Hold your box, bowl, or alternative item in one hand. Have a food treat ready in the other (or you could use a treat pouch). When your puppy has their attention on you, place the box or upside-down bowl down in front of them.

Your puppy should show interest in the box/bowl. They might move towards the item, sniff it, and/or interact with it. When they do, say “Yes” and toss a piece of food away from the box/bowl.

It can be helpful to place the food against your puppy’s mouth and then bowl it away. This can help your puppy follow the food more easily.

Repeat this process, aiming for your puppy to place their front feet on the box/bowl. When they do this, feed them directly while encouraging them to keep their paws on the item.

When your puppy reliably places their front paws on the box/bowl, feed them in this position several times and then toss a piece of food away to reset the game. Move the box/bowl a few inches in random directions before you start your next round.

5. The Orientation Game

Absolute Dogs’ “Orientation Game” helps prepare your puppy for all sorts of adventures they’ll have with you. They’ll learn that you’re the main source of fun — not the world around them. The aim is to help them choose you over other distractions.

You’ll need: Daily food rations.

How To Play the Orientation Game

Hold a piece of food near your puppy’s nose and toss it lightly so it lands around a foot away. Holding the food near your puppy’s nose will help them track the food, which can be helpful as puppies tend to be less co-ordinated than older dogs.

Wait while your puppy locates and eats the food and then turns back to you. They may not offer eye contact at this point, and this is okay.

Say “Yes” as soon as they reorient back to you. As they return, throw a piece of food in the opposite direction to repeat the game.

Introduce this game in a low-distraction environment, like your kitchen, living room, or hallway. As your puppy progresses, play the game in environments that could have more distractions, like public places.

Give Your Puppy a Healthy Start in Life With Absolute Dogs

These five games will give your puppy a solid start to socialisation. However, socialisation is one of many training approaches that your puppy needs to get off to a healthy start in life. Absolute Dogs has collated over 10 resources to help you give your puppy all the training essentials they need to thrive.

Download Absolute Dogs’ puppy resource bundle.

About Absolute Dogs

Absolute Dogs is the creator of pioneering online courses and club memberships, the Sexier Than a Squirrel Challenge, and a wealth of free training resources. These offerings have seen over 120,000 dog owners and trainers progress on their training journeys. At the heart of Absolute Dogs’ provisions, the expert trainers focus on uplifting games that make training fun for owners and their dogs while strengthening the bond between them.

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