How to Socialize a Lab Puppy
Labrador Retrievers are rightly considered to be among the most social of dogs. While Labs have been bred for over a hundred years to work well alongside humans and other dogs, socializing your Lab puppy is the only way to bring these innate characteristics to their full potential. Fortunately, socializing a Lab puppy is not only easy, but generally enjoyable.
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Instructions
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Handle the puppy daily from the age of two weeks. Between two and seven weeks, the handling should involve gentle stroking by adults only. Slowly introduce household sounds such as the vacuum cleaner or television.
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Between eight and sixteen weeks, puppies go through a stage of rapid development. Begin to introduce other animals (ensure they are fully vaccinated so that the puppy will not catch an illness), children, automobile travel and the outside world. Labs are very social dogs, and should experience the widest variety of stimuli possible.
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After sixteen weeks, continue to socialize the puppy by bringing him out to places where dogs congregate, such as the dog park or pet store. You may introduce your Lab to the woods at this time if he is to be a hunting dog.
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Consider enrolling your Lab in a "puppy kindergarten" class. Not only will he begin to learn basic commands, but he will meet other puppies of different sizes and breeds and their owners. This will teach him to interact with strange dogs and people in a controlled environment.
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Tips & Warnings
Puppies should generally not be removed from their mother and litter mates until eight weeks of age. This allows them to learn restraint around biting. Puppies who have not had a chance not to learn to bite their litter mates will almost certainly bite their humans.
Do not bring your puppy to the dog park or around un-vaccinated animals until he has had all his shots, at around 16 weeks, as he could become ill.
References
- Photo Credit labrador image by JEAN-MARC MEDINA from Fotolia.com
