Teaching Puppies Social Skills
We all know that young children need support navigating their social relationships, making friends, and communicating effectively. Leave them alone for too long and they’ll likely get into some sort of disagreement that they don’t know how to work out themselves. The truth is- children lack the skills to navigate complex social relationships because the parts of their brain responsible for these skills are not yet developed. Furthermore, we have quite a lot of influence over the skills that develop in the examples that children are provided in their years of social and emotional development. Provide poor examples of conflict resolution, empathy, and relationships- and studies show children will carry these patterns into adulthood, effecting their relationships and communication skills long-term.
Humans are just one example of this, but numerous other species rely on adults modeling appropriate social responses to teach young animals how to navigate encounters with members of their species. So, why should we treat dogs any differently?
In the pet dog world, it is somewhat common for large groups of socially-underdeveloped puppies to intermix in sterile training spaces- running in circles until evidently someone’s feelings get hurt and chaos erupts. By placing our puppies in environments where they have no access to adults to mediate interactions and model appropriate social behavior, we run the risk of teaching our puppies to solve problems by just running faster, using their teeth, or hiding. Without the skills of emotional regulation, our puppies can escalate conflicts quickly- without even necessarily wanting to. When they feel cornered, outnumbered, or nervous- they are left to fend for themselves and quickly develop unwanted and unhealthy patterns of behavior.
Think about this: Your parent drops you off for daycare and the adults aren’t paying much attention to the children. Another child approaches you and tries to cut your hair with scissors. You try to tell them to stop, but they won’t listen to you. You start to yell for an adult, but nobody comes. Eventually, you go hide under a nearby table to get away from the other child.
When you come in the next day, you spot the same kid with scissors in his hand. Instead of trying to reason with him- you decide to get a headstart on finding a hiding space because you already know that nobody is going to help you. Pretty soon, you’re spending every day under that table. You start to develop feelings about yourself and other children like “Other people want to hurt me.” and “Nobody will help me if I need it.” You might even start to believe that you are weak or unable to stand up for yourself.
Now, think about if one adult was able to step in and redirect the child the first time he ever approached you with scissors. Instead of learning that other people are out to get you and nobody will help you, you learn that you are capable of setting boundaries- and help is available when you need it. Instead of hiding, you spend your time learning how valuable making friendships is and you learn that you are safe. You never feel the need to hide from the other children because the adults have helped you communicate effectively with them and someone always steps in if you ever feel in over your head. You learn the value of social connection, effective communication and empathy and you carry these values and skills into your adult life.
In conclusion, while it is possible for puppies to learn skills from one another- careful setups and the help of adult dogs with appropriate social behavior can help young dogs build adaptive, healthy behavior towards other dogs. Leaving groups of young dogs to their own devices before they have had the chance to learn appropriate social behavior is usually ill-advised and can quickly escalate. We, as humans can help facilitate the process of our dogs learning appropriate social skills by carefully managing our young dogs interactions and finding appropriate environments and playmates for them to interact with. However, the value of an adult dog’s teachings can never be replicated by a human. By relying on the natural processes in which animals learn to engage with one another, we can build more resilient, stable, and healthy dogs.
