A butterfly dog’s adolescence years—the so called teen years—is a period of make or break behaviors that can have so much effect on adulthood. Ignoring your papillon’s need for education may result to a dog that is hyperactive, bad-mannered, poorly socialized. What follows are some papillon training notes on taking better care of dog socialization.
Socialization often turns foggy and seem to require a new level of effort during a dog’s adolescent period, sometimes with the underlying reason of the timing of the dog’s maturing. By this time, puppy classes are a thing of the past, and owners want the dog to get used to daily procedures especially when the dog reaches around six months old. The dog’s waking hours are also devoted to meeting what amount to the same set of people, dogs and pets. This may eventually lead to the dog limiting itself to an inner circle of people with which to spend time with.
If your adolescent papillon does not get out and interact with a healthy amount of unfamiliar faces on a regular basis, the dog’s socialization so far might suffer. If at five months the dog was very sociable, by eight months the dog is chock-full of defensive and low self-esteem behavior. What used to be one of the friendliest dogs in the block is now skittish around house guests, or barks, snaps and lunges with hackles. All this papillon training information show the importance of not just being content with puppy socialization, but following it up with the socialization of your adolescent dog.
More on the socialization of your papillon with other dogs, this time. Everybody needs to know the basic idea that teaching a dog to have good relations with all dogs is more of wishful thinking than reality. The first big idea is that even wolves or jackals in the wild are not used to being chummy and welcoming towards strangers, while we human trainers sometimes expect too much in handling the dogs. Indeed, the next idea to consider is that a dog dog breed may never actually have very tight friendships with each and every dog down the street. Lastly, no dog can seem to live without having quarrels or arguments. If there is a dog that avoids and shuns confrontations, then it is the rarity.
A dog’s first adolescent fight often marks the beginning of the end of his socialization with other dogs. As stated before, this one applies to dogs of both size extremes. One root of the fall in socialization is that the small dog is babied and prevented from being with bigger dogs. In the long run, the small dog turns out snappy. Similarly, owners of large dogs (especially the working breeds) are understandably concerned that their dogs might hurt smaller dogs. This is the vicious circle that papillon training will need to resolve soonest: dogs that get less socialization out of safety fears, triggering behavior issues that lead to even lesser socialization.
Tags: papillon dog training, papillon dog training tips, papillon training
