YNP #021: Balancing Vaccines and Socialization
Your New Puppy: Dog Training and Dog Behavior Lessons to Help You Turn Your New Puppy into a Well-Behaved Dog
Debbie Cilento: Dog Trainer | Dog Behavior Consultant | Owner of Playtime Paws | Belly Rub Specialist
4.8 • 917 Ratings
🗓️ 28 November 2018
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A question I get ALL the time is about taking your puppy outside before they are fully vaccinated. This question usually comes up during potty training but my answer has nothing to do with potty training.
In short, your puppy needs to get out and start experiencing the world BEFORE they are fully vaccinated.
I know this can come into direct conflict with your veterinarian’s advice. I am not telling you to ignore your vet! As the title of this episode suggest it is all about balancing your puppy’s physical health and their behavioral development.
In this episode I talk about:
- What socialization is.
- What science tells us about when socialization is the most important.
- Why the advice of “keep your puppy inside until fully vaccinated” is still around even though it’s not what is best for your puppy.
- Suggestions on how to balance the risks of keeping your puppy physically and mentally healthy.
Don’t take my word for it.
In the episode, I talk about the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior and their statement on puppy socialization.
Their website is https://avsab.org/
You can get the statement I reference right here or by going directly to their website (which I recommend, they have lots of great information on dog behavior).
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You are listening to your new puppies podcast starting you and Your Dog Off on the Right Paw. |
| 0:16.0 | Here's your host, Debbie Salinto. Hello and |
| 0:27.0 | Hello and welcome to episode 21 of your new puppies podcast I'm Debbie and today we're going to talk about balancing |
| 0:35.1 | socialization and vaccines. |
| 0:37.6 | So for some of you, this might be something |
| 0:40.1 | you didn't even know that you had to do. |
| 0:43.0 | Because the most common question that I get |
| 0:45.6 | is about bringing your puppy outside |
| 0:48.2 | before they're fully vaccinated. |
| 0:50.0 | But the question usually comes up |
| 0:51.7 | during the potty training discussion, |
| 0:54.0 | because I talk about bringing your dog outside as much as possible |
| 0:59.1 | to create a habit of going to the bathroom outside and reduce the number of accidents inside. |
| 1:05.6 | I also discourage the use of potty pads because I don't want your puppy to even have an |
| 1:10.6 | inkling that he or she is allowed to go to the bathroom inside. So naturally |
| 1:15.8 | that question will come up if you've been given that advice. And the thing is, is that |
| 1:20.8 | my answer has nothing to do with positive. is that your dog, your puppy needs to be out and |
| 1:24.0 | do with potty training. |
| 1:26.0 | The short of it is, is that your dog, your puppy, |
| 1:30.0 | needs to be out and experiencing the world before they are fully vaccinated. Now bear with |
| 1:37.6 | me especially because you may have gotten this advice from your vet and your |
| 1:42.4 | vet's word holds a lot of water |
... |
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