Developing Puppy Socials Skills (and cuteness overload!)

I warn you! These videos are next level cute!!! Kahu meets Maisey as part of Kahu’s puppy socialisation.

Introducing Kahu and Maisey

In this video Kahu was a 14 weeks old English Staffy pup. I was hired by his owner to help socialise Kahu. He had been very fearful (and a bit snappy!) of other pups at puppy school so his owner wisely looked for extra support with his social skills development. This was our very first session with another dog.

Maisey is a black Labrador about 5 yrs old and she often helped me in my training sessions. She was always very patient and gentle with my students. So I arranged for Maisey to come and have a playdate with Kahu to help him build some confidence with a gentle friendly dog.

Start slow with under-confident pups

The idea with under-confident puppies like Kahu is to start slow and choose the right candidate as a play mate. Have the other dog on lead to begin with so as not to overwhelm the pup. Keep an eye on the puppy’s body language to monitor how they are coping. If your pup is trying to hide behind your legs or under a chair, rescue them by helping them feel supported. If they feel supported, they might be brave enough to try again.

And they are off!

Most pups, like Kahu in this video, warm up super quickly! Once they realise the new dog is safe, their pup instincts will hopefully kick in and they will want to play and probably jump on the other dog. It can be a good idea to keep puppy on a long line so they are not a pest to the other dog once they have gained some confidence.

Enjoy the cuteness!!