We’ve reviewed a little bit about how you can start to categorize dogs by breed and breed tendencies. You can also do a similar generalization with stages of development.
It’s important to understand these phases because there are critical stages of development where you need to respond to a dog differently in order to ensure that nothing negative happens to that dog for the future of the dog’s life. When we are talking about stages of development, the smaller breeds do tend to develop faster than the large breeds, so they tend to mature faster. There are also variations within the individual dog, but for now we just want to cover some generalizations to help build your foundational knowledge of understand dog breeds. You will note that several of these phases do overlap.
The following is a breakdown of the stages of canine development. Please note that the first four stages will typically not be seen at our facility.
Neonatal (birth – 2 weeks)
Transition (2 – 3 weeks)
Awareness (3 – 4 weeks)
Canine Socialization (1 – 2 months)
Human Socialization (2 – 3 months of age)
- Puppy has short attention span
- Learning is permanent
- Fear response to strangers
This is the stage of development where it is extremely important to introduce puppies to as many new things as possible. Pretty much everything a puppy learns in this first socialization stage is what becomes normal for that puppy. Learning is permanent. So the more you can introduce them to a fun and positive environment…the better! This will help to minimize fear of strangers and new objects later in the dog’s life. This is when they are learning what is normal in the world.
Mental abilities are fully formed, but the pups lack experience. This is the optimum time to teach puppy manners and is, in fact, the period of fastest learning.
If socialized later than 14 weeks, shyness or aggressiveness may dominate behavior the rest of the dogs life. This is thought to be the number one reason for behavior problems…lack of exposure to people, especially kids and other dogs. Exposure needs to be several new dogs and people per week if not per day. This definitely takes some effort, but you basically only have a couple of weeks and then the window of opportunity closes. Procrastination may lead to extremely difficult fear / aggressive behaviors later.
Fear Impact Period 1 (2 – 3 months of age)
- Traumatic experiences may have lasting impact
- New experiences must be non-threatening
- Social interactions need to be fun and positive
- Threatening situations can result in fearful adult behaviors
This is the age when we really consider the puppy in a bubble. During this two to three month time frame dramatic experiences can have a lasting impact on a dog. To elaborate, anything that really scares a dog when they are young, they will tend to remember for the rest of their life. An example would be a puppy that was scared by a baby gate that fell over when the puppy was trying to exit a door. That puppy remains scary of baby gates for the rest of it’s life. Even the sight of a baby gate could cause the puppy to run away.
We want to be very careful when we care for new puppies into our facility, that we are making everything the puppy encounters fun and non-threatening. You want to be upbeat and positive using as much time as needed to help the puppy get used to whatever it is meeting and is new. DO NOT force the puppy into anything that the puppy considers threatening. The key here is that the puppy needs to be the judge of what is threatening or not. If a puppy in your care is backing away or running away from something, you need to take time to be fun and positive, allowing the puppy some time to get used to things. Most of the time puppies can overcome their fear of things, but in this two to three month stage, if often requires a bit of patience from the handlers.
Seniority Classification (3 – 4 months)
- Experiments with aggressive behaviors
- Period of adjustment
- Permanent teeth growing (chewing and biting should be redirected)
- Requires consistent reinforcement of rules and boundaries with patience and positive reinforcement
This is definitely a period of adjustment of the puppy. The name here does not imply seniority in terms of old age. It is really the age when a puppy starts to adjust and experiment with things in their world, especially with some aggressive behaviors to see what happens from people and other dogs when they try these out. Like humans, puppies will test different actions and see what kind of response they get.
During this stage, we also see that the puppy’s permanent teeth are growing so they will have chewing and biting behaviors. This is when we definitely want to use a positive approach and reward them when they are chewing on their own items versus items versus items in our house. So take a positive approach in all your interactions with the puppy…but definitely discourage any biting of our items or our human skin. IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE CONSISTENT, YET POSITIVE.
Flight Instinct (4 – 8 months)
- Instinct to explore new territory is evident
- May ignore “come” command and sees “chase me” as a game
- Teething and chewing behaviors continue
- Requires training and reward for all “come” behaviors
This is when your puppy begins to gain confidence and likes to explore new territory. You may find that a puppy that would stay close to you at home and on walks is now exploring and going off on their own. This can be a little frustrating because the puppy used to always stay by you and suddenly they tend to ignore their name.
In reality, this is really because in the earlier stages, the puppy didn’t have confidence and now as they gain confidence they are able to explore on their own. It is really important that we use positive rewards when puppies do come to us and that we NEVER punish them for running off and then coming back to us when called. So again, we want to stay very positive. Be patient with them as they grow and mature.
Fear Impact Period 2 (6 – 14 months)
- Fear of change and new experiences
- Uncomfortable with the unfamiliar (do not force)
- Work to build confidence
- Requires patience; allow dogs to come around on their own
This can be a confusing time for the puppy and their owners. They change and may suddenly exhibit fear behaviors of things that they used to know and enjoy. It is important to understand this and help owners also understand it. A dog that has come into our facility as a puppy and always enjoyed being with us may begin to show fear behaviors which will be alarming to pet parents.
If you can explain to the pet parent that this is a natural phase of development that will likely pass in a few weeks, it will help the pet parent to understand changes that they have seen in their puppy at home. Explain they do still like being at our facility…it’s just a stage of development. We really need to have patience with the puppies entrusted to our care and give them time to come around on their own. And they always do as long as things are kept positive.
Maturity ( 1 – 4 years)
- Timing differs by breed; average 18 months to 3 years
- Smaller breeds mature earlier than larger breeds
- Confident dogs may challenge and show aggressive behaviors
- Watch for resource guarding or inappropriate aggressive behaviors
- Requires effective leadership, management, and consistent enforcement of rules
Remember that smaller dogs will mature faster than larger dogs. Generally the Toy breeds will hit this maturity stage between a year and two years, where a dog like a Labrador Retriever or Golden Retriever might hit it at three to four years. This is the period of time when the dogs might start to challenge you more. It will not be uncommon for us to get a phone call from the pet parent of a dog that is 18 months old saying their dog has suddenly started barking or growling at people. This is because the dog is starting to test and challenge the waters a bit.
This is also the time you want to watch for more resource guarding and inappropriate aggressive behaviors because at this point the dog becomes a little bit more serious. This is a time when you want to highlight problems to your supervisor. Additionally, this is the period of time that really requires effective leadership and management which we are gong to learning about in upcoming topics. This leadership is going to help you to stay safe in the company of the dogs.
The following chart is a recap of the material covered above.
Development Stage | Key Developments | Off-Leash Playgroup Considerations |
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Neonatal (birth - 2 weeks) |
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Transition (2 - 3 weeks) |
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Awareness (3 - 4 weeks) |
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Canine Socialization (1 - 2 months) |
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Human Socialization (2 - 3 months) |
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Fear Impact Period 1 (2 - 3 months) "overlaps" |
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Seniority (3 - 4 months) |
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Flight Instinct (4 - 8 months) |
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Fear Impact Period 2 (6 - 14 months) |
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Maturity (1 - 4 years) |
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