The term socialisation gets banded about a lot when it comes to dogs. However not many people really understand what it involves or how important it is. The majority of dogs I see for behaviour help have had some sort of lack of socialisation as puppies and this has affected them for the rest of their lives.

To properly socialise a puppy means to gently expose them to all the things they will experience in every day life. This goes well beyond people and other dogs, it includes different sights, sounds, smells and experiences. Puppies have a critical deadline whereby they must experience all these things before they turn 16 weeks old otherwise the opportunity is lost and quite often leaves them unable to cope if for example they never met children or only met dogs in their own family.

At puppy classes I use the phrase 'The Rule of Twelve' which states that to adequately prepare a pup they should be exposed to 12 different types of people, 12 different sorts of dogs, 12 different sounds and so on. So for people this means allowing them to meet young kids, teenagers, men, women, elderly people, disabled peoople, loud people, people with different skin colours, people in uniforms and people wearing hats, carrying sticks or generally looking different!

A common mistake in socialising is to let your puppy or dog greet every single dog they meet and allow them to do what they want. We don't greet every person we pass on the street so why should our dogs? Unsupervised play is the cause of a lot of problems and can end up with dogs who enjoying the thrill of winding up other dogs or can cause them to become aggressive if they are the ones being bullied. This is becoming especially problematic at daycare facilities with too few or unqualified staff.

It is not fair on adult dogs to have to reprimand an unruly puppy constantly, owners must intervene when appropriate. Not all adult dogs will react appropriately. Some might let pups get away with murder whereas others can be over the top. It is your job as the owner to ensure any interactions are within the boundaries.

Ideally you should never allow your dog to run up to dogs who are on a lead. Dogs on a lead cannot move away and may react fearfully with or without aggression. Many dogs simply want left alone and may be on lead due to behavciour or health problems.

Teach your dog to focus on you when other dogs are about and use offlead play as reward for a few seconds or minutes of focussing. If your dog is over excited around other dogs then do lots of training to get them more used to responding to you when out and about.