- You awake, buddy? No. (chuckles)
(calm music)
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to another video.
Today, we wanted to talk a little bit
about how we've been socializing Kibo
over his first couple of days here
and some tips for socializing puppies during pandemic.
A lot of people have been asking me
how are you socializing him before he has all of his shots?
What are you doing for puppy training specifically?
So we just wanted to talk a little bit
about what we've been doing.
I am not a professional dog trainer.
These are sort of just tips and tricks that I've acquired
throughout the years with Kokoro and Chibi.
And we'll be putting them into practice with Kibo.
If you have any specific questions,
I definitely recommend asking a dog trainer
or reaching out to a professional if you need help.
But in the meantime,
we will share with y'all what we've been doing
with little Kibo here.
First off, I just wanted to talk a little bit
about what socialization is.
I think there is a little bit of a misconception
within new dog owners, new puppy owners, and people think
that socialization means your dog is going to go play
with another dog and have a play date or another puppy.
Really, how socialization should be looked at is
basically getting your dog acclimated to new situations,
new sights, new sounds, basically experienced the world,
and have them do it in a positive way.
So what you're trying to do
when you have a brand new puppy
who hasn't experienced a lot of things in life
is socialize them with loud sounds,
places with a lot of people,
different interactions and situations
that they're gonna be put in and teach them,
hey, it's okay.
Life is like this, and you don't need to be scared
or react or have a negative interaction with anything.
Of course, it can be harder or easier depending
on your dog's temperament and his personality.
And so that's part of the reason why
it's really important to get your puppy
from a reputable breeder who is testing for temperament
and producing confident dogs
that are not gonna have tendencies for bad reactions.
And a lot of that can be genetic.
It can be passed down from the parents.
And so one of our tips is to make sure
when you are getting a puppy,
look for a breeder that is breeding for sound temperament.
Make sure you can meet the parents
of the puppy that you are going to be taking home
because that will give you a lot of indication
as to what your puppy's personality will be like.
Kibo is only nine weeks old right now.
And we have been socializing him as much as we can
without pushing him over his limit.
So the first thing to know is dog body language
and how to read
whether your puppy is being overwhelmed or not.
When you put him into a new, stressful situation,
you can look for signs like licking of the lips,
panting excessively, yawning,
backing away or running away a situation.
These are just some examples
of ways that dogs indicate
that they're stressed out
and they're potentially not having a good time.
So it's really important
to know how your dog is communicating
when you're socializing them
and putting them in new situations.
Depending on your dog's temperament and breed,
they could be a little bit harder or easier to socialize.
For example,
Kokoro is a very outgoing, happy, confident dog.
And ever since we had her as a puppy,
she never had any instances where she appeared fearful.
She saw every single person and dog
and wanted to run up and say hi and get pets.
And so she was really easy to socialize
because nothing really fazed her.
Chibi was a little bit more of a submissive dog.
She could get overwhelmed in situations
when there was too much happening
or too many dogs coming at her.
And so another thing that's really important to remember
as a new puppy owner is to be your dog's advocate.
So if you see that your dog is potentially
not having a good time
or you see something that is happening
that could come and disrupt your dog's good experience,
it's important to step in
and tell the person that's coming to say hi to your dog
or block the dog that's running up to your dog
and really just be that advocate for your puppy
and make sure that whatever situation they're in,
they're having a really good and happy time.
With these things in mind,
understanding what socialization is and how to tell
if your dog is having a good time or not.
You can start to think
about how to approach socialization with your puppy.
For us, we like to look
at basically any opportunity as a training opportunity.
I think another misconception with puppyhood is
that people think training your dog means
teaching them to sit, teaching them the shake,
when you're at home.
A really good thing to do is
to always have a treat pouch on you
or some sort of way to reward your dog.
So if your dog is motivated by treats,
bring some little snacks in the little pocket of yours
and make sure that you always have something
that you can use to reinforce positive and good behavior.
If your dog is really into toys-
So Kibo here loves toys.
He loves to tug.
We like to bring a toy along with us, too,
so we can use that as a reinforcer.
Different things have different values to dogs.
So we also kind of go with this tiered-treat system.
So obviously a piece of kibble is not gonna be
as rewarding to a dog as a tiny piece of hotdog.
So trying to figure out what motivates your dog
what they like and sort of create a tiered system
from lowest value to highest value.
So you can structure socialization in that way.
If something is a little bit more scary
and a little bit more stressful,
potentially you'll take out the higher value reward
for your dog.
Because maybe a piece of kibble is not gonna cut it
in that situation.
But always having a reward on you is really important
for the first few months of puppyhood.
Another thing that has been really helpful for him
is having Kokoro and Chibi around.
So dogs learn from each other.
This is something that we saw a lot
when we fostered Mello and Polly in the past.
But having another confident dog to show the puppy
or new dog that situations are not scary.
And they're not reacting is a really helpful way
to have a puppy grow up.
In potentially really stressful situations,
we'll bring Kokoro or Chibi or both of them
and have him see that, you know, they're fine.
Nothing bad is happening to them.
For example, for his first vet visit,
we weren't allowed to go in with him,
which has been the case for all of Los Angeles,
basically throughout the pandemic.
Some of the vets are coming to the car
and taking the dogs and not even allowing owners inside.
And this can be really scary for a new puppy,
who's never been to the vet before.
And one of the things that we did with Kokoro
when we had her was give her just tons and tons
of treats at all of her vet experiences as a puppy.
So she loves the vet now.
So what we ended up doing with Kibo was we made appointment
for both Kokoro and Kibo.
And we went in, told the people at the vet that, you know,
he's a little bit timid
and we wanted to make sure that he has a really,
really great positive first vet experience.
Asked them to give him lots of treats,
even though we weren't there.
And they allowed Kokoro to go in
for his appointment with him.
So essentially, he saw that she was super, super happy.
She got lots and lots of pets and love from the vet techs.
And I don't know (chuckles) if it helped him at all
because we don't know what he would have been like
without Kokoro.
But it was sort of like a safety net for us,
or a way for us to make sure
that he has as good of an experience as possible.
In addition to having a treat pouch at all times,
the way that we've been socializing Kibo
before he has all his shots is bringing a little mat
or a place for him to work on.
And that is kind of the location
that he's gonna stay in wherever we go.
So if we go to a dog park,
we're not going inside the dog park,
but we're just going to be in the vicinity
of the dog park where he can see people,
hear dogs playing, barking, running.
And he's gonna sit on the mat or the dog bed
and pay attention to me.
So when we get to these new situations, we have him sit,
we have him do basic obedience, lay down,
very, very simple things that he already knows
and treat him for paying attention to me,
the handler or owner in these stressful situations
or high-stimulation situations.
A lot of new dog owners tend to think,
oh, I shouldn't bring my puppy out
because they don't have all their shots.
And the vet says, do not bring them
to places with strange dogs
or just potentially unknown places
where they could pick up diseases,
which is completely understandable.
And it can be really scary
if your dog does get something like parvo.
Knock on wood.
So that's why we use the dog mat.
We make sure to disinfect it,
wipe it down after every use and keeping it really clean
as the one place that Kibo can sit on
or stand on or whatever it may be.
It's a good way to keep him safe
but also a good tool for getting him socialized,
when he doesn't have all of his shots.
You can go to a nearby park
where there are a lot of kids running around, screaming.
We have outdoor malls here in LA
with a lot of people walking by.
So just taking them to all these new situations
and keeping your puppy on a mat
and doing obedience is a really good way to get them used
to the world and all the sounds and noises
and things that they're gonna experience as an adult dog.
When it comes to other dogs,
you can have structured play dates with dogs that you know.
They need to be fully vaccinated.
And it's ideal if you know how that dog already interacts
with other dogs or puppies.
Because it's really important to make sure
that your puppy is only having good experiences,
that's why we only have play dates with dogs that we know.
Ones that we know are not gonna be reactive
or react poorly to him.
Basically, dogs that are gonna ensure
that he has a good experience meeting other dogs.
These are the first dogs that your puppy is meeting
out in the world.
So if he meets, you know, the first 50 dogs of his lifetime
and they're all really nice to him and really respectful,
then he's going to grow up thinking that
that's how all dogs are.
If he has a couple of really bad encounters,
then he might grow up having a little bit
of a fear of new dogs.
Having structured play dates
with respectful older dogs that you already know
how they behave is really important for puppy socialization.
You can also take them to a puppy class.
We are taking Kibo to a puppy class
where he's gonna have the opportunity to have play dates
with other puppies of his age.
But make sure that the puppy socialization class
isn't just puppies playing freely.
There has to be some structure
and some time training involved in those classes as well.
So yeah, that's basically it.
Just a high-level overview of what we've been doing
with Kibo to socialize him.
He is a shepherd.
So shepherds can go through fear periods
and have a little bit more
of a tough time getting acclimated to new things.
It's a little bit different from Kokoro and Chibi,
where they just had no problem with new experiences.
And we sort of just flung them out into the world,
before we knew a little bit more
about what proper and structured socialization looks like.
We're trying to be very careful about how we socialize him,
especially because the pandemic just adds another layer
of challenges onto raising a puppy.
So hopefully, these tips have been helpful
for those of you who recently got a dog
or are about to get a pandemic puppy.
The good news is it looks like there is hope.
We're crossing our fingers
that people will be able to live a little bit more
of a normal life as he grows up.
But until then, we will be doing these types
of socializations with him, where we're taking him
to new places, keeping him on his own place or mat
and treating him for just being a good boy
in observing the world and not reacting.
That's pretty much all we got today
on the topic of puppy socialization.
Thank you all so much
for welcoming Kibo and being so interested
in his first few weeks of life with us.
If you have any more questions about puppyhood,
about his breed, just about anything in general,
feel free to leave them below.
We'll do our best to answer all of your questions.
Thanks for watching.
See you guys next time.
(calming music)