why-animals-do-the-thing:

herebelife:

They’ve made a text version of that handy video with the cute graphics:

If In Doubt, Add Some Space

Your
puppy doesn’t have to be right in the middle of something to have a
positive socialisation experience. If you’re ever worried that a
situation may be too much for your puppy, move further away and give
them a chance to acclimatise.

A
good example of this is socialising puppies to traffic. For many dogs,
standing right next to a busy road with all the large, noisy cars can be
very frightening. Avoid busy roads at first, starting somewhere like a
park where you can walk along away from the road. As your puppy’s
confidence improves, you can try coming closer and closer

What Should I Socialise To?

There are six main categories of things that you should socialise your puppy to:

This looks like a really good intro, but it doesn’t touch on a couple of important things, so I’ll add them. 

Small amounts of very positive socialization are much better for dogs than lots of marginal experiences. It’s tempting to try to expose your puppy to every possible thing as fast as you can, but that risks setting them up for unpleasant experiences, situations you can’t control, or just straight up overloading them. Pick a couple things and do them right. This is especially crucial for dog-dog socialization when you’ve got a breed that is genetically prone to reactivity or aggression because all of their experiences absolutely have to be positive ones. @molosseraptor has some great posts on picking the right dogs to socialize your pup with. 

Fear periods change socialization rules. Dogs have two fear periods – one predictably at 8-10 weeks and one later in adolescence, somewhere after about six months of age. These periods are when dogs would be gaining independence and it becomes super important for survival to learn what is dangerous and what isn’t. During these periods dogs are prone to single-event learning, which means you have to be really careful not to set your dogs up for bad experiences because they might shape their behavior for the rest of their lives. Fear periods are a good time to back off on active socialization attempts and work on keeping your puppy happy and comfortably engaged with things it is already used to. (Here’s a link to a great article on fear periods). 

Puppy Socialisation | That Dog Geek | Beacon Dog Training