Experimental Approach

Imprinting Period

This is the time that the mother bonds with the newly born shortly after birth up to 3 weeks. If they don't learn certain behaviour in this period it may be difficuilt to learn as an adult dog and even impossible.

Socialisation

This happens between 3-16 weeks. This is also the time that relationships with other animals are formed. The mother also learns the puppy socialising skills that we can't teach them. But we should also introduce other animals and dogs to the pups between 8 and 16 weeks. Never take a pup away from his mother before 8 weeks. She also teaches the pup not to bite to hard etc.

Habituation

This is when the pup is starting to adapt to a new environment but can only take place when it's neutral or positive.

This can be done in two ways...

Say a dog is scared of a cat...you can then slowely intorduce the puppy to the cat by keeping the cat at a distance or maybe showing the dog the cat when the cat is sleeping and then maybe when he is awake but from a distance etc. This is called Systematic Desensitisation.

Or

By doing it fast and putting the puppy in the same room as the cat and closing the door. This is called Flooding

These are just some stages to give us an idea of how a puppy develops mentally.

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