All About Puppies
What could be more fun than a room full of puppies? One of the greatest joys in owning a pet care facility is getting to play with puppies. If you’re like me, all work ceases when a puppy enters a room because, of course, you just have to go get puppy kisses! So it may come as a surprise to you when I say I really don’t think puppies should come to your daycare every day! Keep reading to learn why and what you can do about it.
As a dog trainer, I’m a huge advocate of socializing puppies. But socialization is more than just introducing puppies to other dogs. That is certainly one aspect of socialization and it’s the one aspect that you can easily provide in a dog daycare. But a puppy needs to get socialized to everything else in the world too: cars, bikes, other people, children, men with hats, people carrying bags, pushing carts, household sounds, different flooring textures, buses, etc…the list can go on and on.
The critical socialization period for puppies ends at about 4 months of age. During this time, you can shape the puppy’s view of his world at a stage in the puppy’s life when he is receptive to learning. Positive experiences help him learn that new things are fun, and hopefully he’ll remember the good association when he encounters them again later. It’s important for pet parents to take advantage of the socialization period and provide their puppy with positive experiences in the world.
Having a young puppy attend daycare is great socialization the first time the puppy shows up (assuming he has a good time)! After that, the puppy knows your staff, he knows the environment, and he has met some dogs. Things are no longer novel to him and this really no longer counts as socialization. After that first visit, you can provide him with a safe and healthy outlet for his energy, but he is missing out on his socialization. Even worse, if the puppy comes to daycare every day, he’s also going to be too tired for any socialization at home or in his own neighborhood.
So what should you do? If you have clients who want to bring their young puppy to your center, then you can help them. Create a program that benefits the puppy and helps the family get a well-adjusted adult dog! That’s the focus of this month when we will be talking all about puppies! You’ll get inside access to a great syllabus for running your own puppy socialization classes, some ideas on options for generating revenue by bringing more puppies to your center, and even suggestions on how to incorporate housetraining programs as an add on service.
