Natural fear response in dogs: the importance of socialisation

Fear is a natural, primitive emotion and dogs, as with all animals, are naturally fearful. But why is this? If a puppy has not had a stressful or frightening experience connected with a particular stimulus, such as a person or a loud noise, why may they be fearful of it?

Fear can be considered a short-cut emotional response to an unknown stimulus. In other words, a dog does not have to scan their memory bank for the specific circumstance it is facing in order to decide upon a how to react. Instead the dog is prompted by the emotional reaction of fear and will quickly run away, hide or bark to put a safe distance between themselves and the object of their fear.

A dog encountering something new for the first time has nothing in their memory bank to identify the object or situation as harmless. As such, by default, they may go a full-blown fear response, even if they have had no negative experience of it in the past.

In terms of survival and self-preservation, it certainly makes sense for an animal to remain fearful of an unknown situation until it has learnt that it doesn’t pose any danger to them. However, it is possible for the strength of the fear response to decrease over time through repetition.. The next time the dog encounters the same situation it will remember that there were no negative associations with it the last time, and will learn to be less fearful. And this is where puppy socialisation comes in.

Puppies and adolescents that have been exposed to a wealth of different experiences through socialisation until they are at least 18 months old will grow into less fearful, more confident adults. This is why puppies training to be guide dogs are familiarised with a variety of different environments and are introduced to many new people and situations in their ‘puppy walking’ phase.

Puppy walkers ensure that potential guide dogs are appropriately exposed to a wide range of experiences early on in their training.

Socialisation is so much more than allowing your puppy to play with other dogs. Think about all of the circumstances, places, people, animals, sights, sounds and smells that your puppy may encounter during their lifetime. By getting them used to these experiences early on in their life, they will learn to have a neutral response and simply ignore or accept much of the distractions that are going on around them, rather than resorting to their primitive fear response.

If you would like to find out more about my comprehensive puppy socialisation programme, please take a look at my Puppy Life-Skills package or get in touch.