Nowadays we are all becoming more aware about how our childhood can have an immense impact on us, later in life. The love and care our parents provide for us, will positively or negatively affect how we are as an adult. If we tell you that the same thing happens with puppies and their mothers, that doesn’t sound too strange, right?
The first 12 weeks of a puppies life shapes and defines their personality as adults. In these 12 weeks, every impression and experience is important, since it cements their core memories and gives them the tools needed to interact positively with the world around them.
We call this process of providing experiences and learning moments for puppies ‘socialisation’. This can be achieved through the simple act of talking to them, handling them or making them used to loud noises. However there is a huge difference between providing as many new experiences as possible, known as habituation and the act of socialisation.
In the time that we have been active as breeders - over the course of the last decennium - we have tried to expand our knowledge on puppy psychology and which upbringing guarantees the best results for our puppies. To do this, we experimented with different techniques and shared knowledge and information with other breeders around the world. We actively exchange knowledge with breeders in The Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, Czech Republic and the USA. The biggest factor in our success however, is Puppy Culture.
Puppy Culture is a handbook for breeders, which describes what to do and when to do it. Using Puppy Culture, we are able to tell when our puppies are most susceptible for positive interactions and handling, but also when any form of interaction could have an adverse effect! Puppy Culture allows us to read the body language and signs our puppies give us, so that we do the right thing at the right time.
Doing the right thing at the right time in the critical socialisation period positively shapes the puppies for the rest of their lives. Doing as much as you can whenever you can hoping it will work is called habituation. Habituation is a "laundry list" of things the puppy "must" meet before a certain age.
Most breeders will perform some form of habituation however getting the timing or exercises wrong can have lifelong consequences for you and your puppy.
Why is this timing so important?
Puppies go through 2 “fear periods” (one around 5 weeks of age and another around 8 weeks of age), in which they can be potentially permanently traumatized by their surroundings. In these 2 very short periods many things like a loud bang, driving in a car, vacuuming, interaction with other dogs, being brushed, washed or maybe not being handled correctly… can instil a lifelong trauma in the puppy. Have you ever met a dog that is afraid of fireworks, being approached by strangers/your partner/children, impossible to brush/wash, barks incessantly, impossible to potty train etc..?
These kind of behaviours are most likely caused by a negative experience in one of those 2 “fear periods”.
We take great pride in being able to recognise the mental development and developmental stages that our puppies go through, to give them the best possible base to become stable adults. The result? Let’s see some often-heard comments from our Pawrents about what they loved in their puppy’s personality/character:
“Potty training is a breeze, within a few days the puppy knew to go outside”
"No crying or separation anxiety"
"No excessive barking like many other Pomeranians"
“Outgoing with new visitors and our/their pets”
"Not afraid of loud noises like fireworks"
"Recovers quickly after a stressful event"
“Neither a picky eater, nor food obsessed”
"Learns new tricks quickly"
"Is a dream to brush/wash"
"Can take them anywhere, they never make a fuss"
Working with puppy culture IS labour intensive. It demands constant monitoring and awareness and providing the right stimuli at the right time. For that reason, we will never breed more than 2 litters at once and we leave plenty of time between breedings, both for the health of the mothers as for ourselves to always be on top of our game.
It is absolutely impossible to raise multiple litters that are a few weeks apart, because these puppies are in different stages of their development. Unless you have personnel or are alert 24/7, you cannot provide a stable environment and prevent anxieties and/or fears in later life!
FAQ: what are the most critical moments in the socialisation period?
For an inexperienced puppy owner, this might be hard to tell. The signs of a puppy going through a transformative period can be very obvious, but also barely noticeable. It doesn’t help that the timing differs between breeds and even between littermates in the same breed!
We will give you a short overview of the ‘timeframe’ and when we are on high alert.
5 week mark: Around 5 weeks of age, our puppies go through the first fear period. In this period, we make sure to be careful to not expose them to noises, banging, other dogs or give them any new experiences that might cause a fear-response. This period lasts a few days.
8 week mark: Around 8 weeks of age, the second fear period occurs. This period is more critical, because the brains of the puppies are now developed enough to create lifelong memories. During these few days, we are highly cautious about everything that can leave a negative impression. Being separated from the litter and being driven around in a car at this point, WILL cause trauma. For this reason, we never sell puppies under the age of 9 weeks old. If we feel the puppies are not mentally developed enough to leave the litter, we will keep them with us for up to 12 weeks of age. Puppies travelling to other countries will stay with us until 15 weeks due to this being a legal requirement for the Rabies vaccine. Up until a puppy leaves us, we will continue to train the puppy, first bath, brushing, walking on a lead, going in the car etc...
9 to 12 weeks: As stated, we let our puppies leave as of 9 weeks of age. Most of the formative period has been covered and we did our best to provide the best possible foundation for your new family member! For the remaining 3 weeks, we will give you pointers on what to do and warn you about potential dangers. We also love to hear from you about how your puppy is doing! Let us know how the trip home went, how the integration went, if there are issues… We love to help you in this final stretch of puppyhood!
12 weeks and on: The socialisation period has now closed. Of course your puppy can and will still learn, and new impressions will still have an effect! However, the formation of core memories has finished. Over time, new impressions will leave less and less of a mark and training your dog will require more and more effort. What was learned in mere seconds before the 12 week mark, can now take multiple weeks to learn, Or they possibly won't learn it at all!
The same applies to negative experiences in the critical periods, once the negative experience has been imprinted into the puppies mind (fear of the car, vacuums, fireworks etc) it can be almost impossible to remove it.
Common Myths
A puppy should be obtained as close to possible to 8 weeks of age to ensure a tight bond and ease of training
As we explained above, this is the last and most critical part of the fear period. This is the period where any perceived trauma WILL get imprinted into their brain and where it will be very difficult to remove. Where you may think that a car ride or a brushing session is a fun bonding moment this could have severe lifelong consequences in your future inability to brush your dog or enjoy a car ride and a nice walk!
Before 12 weeks of age and outside of the fear period it is very easy with very minimal effort to shape the puppies behaviour in a positive manner. After the 12 week period this is no longer called shaping, it is called training and the older the dog gets the harder to almost impossible it will become to "remove" the preprogrammed behaviour. Think of many hours with a professional trainer or living with a scared fearful reactive dog which is no fun for anyone.
But my breeder says that 8 weeks is the optimum age
For the breeder it is, the quicker the puppy leaves the better! A puppy older than 8 weeks old starts to really become "their own person". They start to have their own opinions, make more mess and noise, require more time and as we all know time = money. The longer a breeder needs to care for "older" puppies the less time they have for other breedings and litters.
Older dogs do not adapt so well
This is very dog specific, however this is why we place so much importance on teaching our puppies emotional resilience instead of simply habituating them. Habituation exposes the puppy to as many things a breeder considers the puppy could meet in their lifetime however it is impossible to expose them to everything they will ever see and sometimes this habituation even occurs in the fear period!
Emotional resilience teaches a puppy to bounce back from fear, so we instill in the puppy that overcoming mild fear and reluctance = reward. This is solid gold that a puppy can use later on in their life to generalise about anything. If a puppy can generalise that something scary is positive they will go much further than a puppy who is not scared of one thing but terrified of another.
A Pom Royale Anecdote:
We had a puppy born in Belgium, who found what we hoped was his fur-ever home at 12 weeks of age. Sadly this was not to be and he was returned to us. He lived with us for a year and moved to Spain with us, we continued to search for a new home for him as he was not happy in our "pack" with our other males. At around 2 years of age we finally found the perfect home for him, it was a 4 hour flight with his new owner to his new home. He has settled in perfectly from the absolute get go and now lives an amazing life as an only dog with his new Pawrents! Proving that age has nothing to do with his ability to adapt, rather the exposure and training we have provided to ensure he is of a sound mind have ensured he has adapted seamlessly into a completely new environment with new Pawrents!
Have you heard of any other potential myths we can debunk? Let us know!
Our 2023 Queen litter provided us with the perfect opportunity to expose them to fireworks just before their critical 8 week fear period which coincided with NYE 2024!
