Social distancing and your puppy
Since my last blog, the scares about our pets potentially carrying Covid 19 have vastly reduced the opportunities to socialise our puppies with strangers in the traditional way. Many people will not want to interact with a puppy even if we maintain our own social distance. So we have to be a little bit more inventive.
In addition to the suggestions made previously, teach them to sit and wait as people maintain their social distance and pass by. In this way we can teach puppies to sit to greet strangers more easily when restrictions relax. Look for signs that your puppy may be nervous such as, hanging back, lip licking, yawning, scratching. If so move a little further away and sprinkle several, small, very tasty treats on the floor for your puppy to sniff and find.
Whichever technique we use we are teaching puppies that people approaching mean good things are coming from us. As pups mature they naturally become more fearful of new things in their world and we can counteract that by making sure they have lots of positive experiences when they are very young. For ideas of activities to help your puppy, see my previous blog Covid 19 and puppy socialisation.