The first 100 days after you get your puppy are part of a crucial social development period that will last the rest of their lifetime. The first 100 days help form the patterns of social behavior that the puppy will use for years to come. That is not to say those patterns can’t be retrained in the future, but focusing on introducing your puppy to new social situations is key during this time. They learn how to deal with a variety of social situations that they can then generalize for years to come. Our mantra at this time was “100 New Experiences in 100 Days.” Every day we looked for something new to explore with our puppy.
Forming the Ideal Dog
Let’s start with an example, the first time a puppy meets a cat. The puppy is problem thinking a mix of “what is this thing? It doesn’t smell like a dog, it doesn’t move like a dog. It isn’t a squirrel either.” How this first interaction goes will influence future similar interactions and generalize to others as well. While of course possible to retrain an anxious or fearful dog, it is easier to get it right the first time.
The three-part process is simple:
- Define the behavior you want your puppy to show
- Guide them into that behavior
- Reward their behavior
Case Study: Puppy’s Frist Time Meeting a Cat
Back to our example of meeting a cat for the first time. The behavior I’d want from my puppy is to be curious, cautious, and communicative. Let’s take each of those one at a time:
- Curious: the puppy should be interested in meeting the cat, excited about a potential new friend, and open to the new possibilities of this adventure.
- Cautious: the puppy should be slow to approach the cat, give the cat time to be comfortable, and be ready to back away if the cat is not friendly.
- Communicative: the puppy should look to me for cues and react to my verbal and physical communication about continuing (“yes”, “let’s say hi”, “good boy”, “what’s that”) or withdrawing (“no”, “leave it”, “look at me”, “come”).
Ideally then, when meeting a cat for the first time, the puppy will approach slowly, look back to me for cues of how I’m reading the situation and for commands, and if everything looks good, continue to curiously try to make a new friend. I can give verbal encouragement and verbal rewards for every behavior that I want. And after the interaction, I can give heaps of rewards to reinforce the experience.
Case Study: How meeting a cat can go wrong
There are many ways that this first interaction can go less than ideal. The puppy can be the opposite of curious – afraid of this new animal. If the puppy cowers, tries to flee, or otherwise does not want to meet the cat, then the game is over. You can’t force a puppy through fear. And for the few situations you absolutely need to (such as to get out of a dangerous situation – like being afraid to finish crossing the street, or a vet interaction) don’t help teach the puppy how to be a dog.
The puppy can also be the opposite of cautious and just jump right into the cat’s face. I’ve had a dog like this, who thought the whole world was his best friend, and would just shove his face into every potential new friend’s face. This led to numerous scratches, bites, and otherwise avoidable hurtful situations from a lack of caution. If a puppy’s first meeting with a cat end’s with a bloody nose, you can bet it will take many more patient cats in the future to unlearn this first experience.
Finally, the puppy can be the opposite of communicative and never check in with how I’m feeling about the situation or what behaviors I expect of the puppy. For example, if we see a cat on the street with no owner, and the cat looks sickly, I wouldn’t want my puppy to say hi. In a perfect world, I could use verbal cues like “heal”, “leave it”, “look at me” to redirect my puppy’s attention and reward their communicative and obedient behavior. If that doesn’t work fast enough, I can physically communicate with a leash to physically control the puppy. And as a last resort, I can move in between my puppy and the cat or pick up my puppy.
Find a New Experience Every Day
The goal during the first 100 days, in addition to Potty Training and Legal Chew Toys, is to give the puppy at least one new experience a day. These should cover a full range of future situations and more important than training the puppy for any specific situation, your goal is to teach the puppy how to deal with new situations. You are building the foundation for the future. In all new experiences, we aim to encourage and reward behaviors around:
- Curious
- Cautious
- Communicative
And finally, you can’t force your puppy. You have to meet your puppy where they are and take a step from there. Keep trying a new experience every day and even if it seems like nothing or a tiny “newness” to you, it could feel scary new to the pup.
All Kinds of New Experiences
There are many categories of experiences worth covering in your first 100 days.
- Dogs
- Known friendly dogs
- Unknown friendly dogs
- Unknown unfriendly dogs
- People
- Aim for diversity. Your puppy will be familiar with people like you and your family.
- Different ages, sizes, clothing, groups, spoken languages
- Equipment like wheelchair, skateboard, helmet,
- Different postures or behaviors like police officers, homeless people, people on the sidewalk begging, runners, bikers, garbage men, and construction workers.
- Environments and things
- Noises
- Floor surfaces, grates, textures
- Objects that behave differently. Ballons, strings in the wind, motorized signs
- Buses, subways, cars
- Handling
- Holding in different positions
- Touching feet, ears, and mouth as if you are examining them
When It Is Too Much: The Signs of Anxiety
The goal of 100 New Experiences in 100 Days is to teach your puppy how to explore the world. You can not force them to be curious, and known the knowns of anxiety can tell you when you are pushing too far. If you ignore your puppy’s communication, it can lead to them escalating.
For example, one dog in the neighborhood was very friendly for months but then wasn’t allowed to say hi to us for some time. After a few more months we were able to ask the owners. Turns out, there dog had been aggressive (read: tried to bite) towards other dogs and when they went to a trainer, the trainer’s advice was that the owners needs to listen to their dog’s ques. The dog was saying over and over again “I don’t want this, take me away” but the owners where forcing the dog to be social and say hi. The trainer corrected the human behavior and now the owners and dog are back to socializing at the dog’s pace.
For our puppy Tuna, he is not trusting of unknown small dogs; he was bit on his nose from a small yappy dog and since then, he usually is very cautious towards small dogs compared to medium or large dogs. His signs on anxiety include:
- Looking sideways (not looking directly at the small dog)
- Trying to steer us away/towards the other side of the sidewalk
- Auto-heeling and leaning into our legs
The best thing we can do is be support. I’ll evaluate the situation and if I feel the other dog is not nice, I’ll reward Tuna’s cautiousness, saying: “good boy, let’s go.” If the dog seems nice and interested in us (and has an attentive owner), I may instead encourage more curiosity, saying in an upbeat tone: “they look friendly, do you want to say hi.” But if Tuna continues to indicate that he not interested I do not force him and instead affirm that I heard him, saying “that’s ok, it’s your choice, let’s go.” If my curiosity inducing did work, then Tuna will slowly approach the dog and make a new friend. But the point is, it is on his terms and I am a partner in it.
Every dog is different and you will need to learn your puppy’s signs of anxiety. There is nothing to gain from from forcing them into a new experience when the goal of that experience is learning. You can encourage curiosity through verbal commands and treats, but when your pup says enough it is best to listen and try again another time.
The Learning Never Stops
By focusing early on to how to be curious, cautious, and communicative, your puppy will know how to deal with brand new situations in an appropriate way. Just last week, now over 1 year old and well past his first 100 days, our puppy Tuna ran into a new situation and reacted exactly how I would have wanted.
Someone had lost their big puffy earmuffs on a rainy day. And upon finding the earmuffs, someone else hung them from some scaffolding to increase the chance that they would be seen and recovered. Tuna saw them before I did, and was both curious and cautious. He must have been thinking “What kind of squirrel is this? Why isn’t it moving? Why does it smell like a human?”
Over the course of a minute, he leaned forward to smell, stepped back and looked at me, I’d give him an “it’s ok”, and he’d take one more step forward to give another sniff. The excitement was building with each step closer. When he finally got close enough to determine it wasn’t something he could be friends with and on second thoughts it wasn’t a chew toy, he was ready to move on with his walk. Being proud of his behavior and wanting to reinforce good behavior as much as possible, he got a treat and a few “good boys.”
The learning never stops.