3 Keys Of Exposure: Good Dogs From Messy Lives

The advantage of getting a puppy at eight weeks old is the ability to plan ahead and prepare your dog to engage with you in every aspect of your life and family.

Well thought-out conditioning, or what I would call exposure, during early puppyhood can solve a lot of common problems in adult dogs. Their little dog brains just can't hold onto that much obedience training at first. The first 3 or 4 months for a dog are about soaking in the world they are about to exist in. I prefer the term “exposure” over “conditioning” because conditioning is for cults, not for dogs. You expose a dog to loud noises, you condition a dog for reincarnation after fire cleanses the earth.

What is the difference between socialization and exposure? For one thing, Socialization is an overused term. There’s one type of socialization that happens prior to the eight week mark. This is the socialization that happens between mother and litter mates. Then there’s the socialization that happens after they get their last round of shots. That’s the kind of socialization that happens at dog parks or bar patios. You are letting your dog know that they have to behave, and that they have to participate in a well-mannered way. Exposure is different because exposure is simply looking around without participating. Exposure is like taking a child to an art museum. Socialization is enrolling that child at art camp. If you just enrolled that child in art camp willy-nilly without even seeing how much they like art, you have doubled your chances of your child beating up the other artsy kids. If you spent a little time getting to know your child you would have sent them to MMA camp where they belong.

From 8 weeks old to four months, puppies don’t have all of their shots. Be very wary of the other dogs your pup comes in contact with. This is the perfect time to focus on exposure. Exposure in early Puppyhood means showing the puppy the world they are about live in bit by bit. By exposing your dog to things like cars, other animals, and your daily routine, you can lessen or eliminate unwanted behaviors. These include destructive chewing, separation anxiety, or even freaking out at the mailman. Not unlike Baby Einstein videos for humans, carefully planned exposure pumps your dog full of class and poise before they even learn to sit.

In the same way that they need to know not to wrestle every dog they meet, they need to know that ambulances come by, trains run, and the mailman won’t hurt you.

I’m working on exposure with a couple of client dogs now and continue to do so with our own puppy, Buford, a Great Pyrenees. Buford just celebrated his first “Gotcha Day” with us. . Great Pyrenees are a livestock guarding breed, and I have no livestock, so in my case early exposure is crucial. Not only am I modifying the job that this dog was bred for, he went from living on a goat farm to living in Cleveland. If you’ve never been to Cleveland, but still had a cold chill run up your spine when reading that sentence, you can imagine how a puppy would feel.

Here, we’ll go over how to plan for your young puppy with 3 key elements of exposure, and what I did in Buford’s case when none of those plans worked out.

Key #1

Take a deep look inside of yourself and assess your life honestly: physically, spiritually and emotionally. Be honest about who you are.

When it comes time to decide what to expose a puppy to, take a look at your life: do you live on a farm? Downtown? Are you homeless? All of these things require different things out of a dog and can’t really be answered by a blog. There’s a lot of noise coming from different voices in the dog world which want to tell you what your choices should be. Whether you adopt, go to a breeder, or steal a dog from a laboratory that does animal testing, no one has the right to tell you what to do with your family.

If you live on a goat farm, get your dog comfortable around goats. If you live in Cleveland, understand that your dog will have to ignore things, like people cussing out no one in particular. If you don’t currently have a routine and just do whatever whenever, I encourage you to start one. It doesn’t have to be forever, but in these early days a standard routine makes your life more digestible and understandable. I know establishing a routine is easier for some people than others, but it makes a big difference to your puppy if you try.

Everyone’s life has repeating patterns. The only wrong answer here is no answer at all.

When Corey and I adopted Buford, our dog Lola had just passed away. I can’t go into too much detail because I’m just not in a good place do that yet. I’ll write about Lola in this blog before too long, but I actually have stuff to do today and can’t crack that door open. Working with dogs and coming home to an empty house was a gut-wrenching pain for me and I was reeling. Beyond losing a dog and a friend, you lose a whole routine. It’s like, what do I do with my hands now?

Corey and I chose Buford, a Great Pyrenees, for several reasons. We like big dogs and I was interested in the training challenges. Plus, we thought if they could keep coyotes from eating sheep, we could shape those instincts so that he would do a good job of keeping Cleveland outside where it belongs, and where Cleveland wants to be, inside rifling through our stuff.

Physically, I knew I would have to commit at least an hour a day to moving around. Which is tough, because dogs today are competing with Netflix and I’m great at not moving—you can ask my Fitbit. You can teach a dog to be lazy, and I did that with Lola, which I do carry some regret over.

The same week Lola passed away, I got a call from my sister saying that doctors found more Cancer in my dad’s organs. He was saying that he’d just about had enough treatment and didn’t want to deal with the side effects anymore. I get it, but of course it still sucked.

Tim the Dog Trainer would have said, “wait ‘till things calm down a little, then get a puppy.” So between grief for my dog and grief for my dad I got a puppy, spitting in the face of my first key element of exposure. I was not looking at my life honestly, I was swimming in some significant changes and without even knowing where I was at emotionally. On the outside looking in, there is no way I would tell a person to get a puppy in this situation. I did anyways, and luckily, it really worked out.

Key #2
Realize where the dog is. Push the dogs boundaries but dont overwhelm them.

It’s helpful to know the signs of stress in a dog. They don’t smoke like monkeys do when they’re stressed. They can only exhibit subtle signs that they are upset, but these signs aren’t so subtle once you know what to look for. They’ll pant like they are being chased by a Frankenstein, or they’ll pace like they just committed a murder. They can show stress by drooling, humping or whipping themselves into a frenzy. If they are so agitated it seems like they can’t hear you at all, it’s time to change that dog’s situation and mindset as soon as possible.

There is a fine line here between where the dog is developmentally and where you need the dog be. You, as the person who has the dog and is in the moment, have to decide where to draw the line between exposure and overstimulation. This back and forth process starts on the way home from picking them up, where they have been removed from their mother and now find themselves placed with you. It’s up to you to lessen the trauma of this experience as much as possible.

Note: Understand that while potty training starts in this early period, the puppies won’t have a that much bladder control until later on, so be patient.

For example, you want to expose your dog to the crate. You make it pleasant, you do it for short increments and build a little at a time. By the time the dog is two years old, you’ll have complete faith in your ability to leave the house without the dog destroying everything, or getting a complaint from your neighbors.

Puppies this age go through a fear stage, maybe because high tech monkeys came in and stole them from their mother. On the other hand, overstimulation can lead to trauma. Or worse, they just teach themselves what they want know. Throwing a puppy in a crate while you work an 8 hour shift without proper exposure can really backfire on you. You might get lucky, but if a truly exceptional dog dedicates 8 hours a day to figuring out how to escape their prison and poop on the floor they will eventually do it, and then they’ll perfect it. You will be left with the Lebron James of floor pooping, only this one might have Vietnam-style PTSD.

Show your dog as much as possible early so that they are not surprised later on. This is actually common sense. How many childhood lessons are about “these are animals that happen?” Can you imagine having no concept of a horse?

Then you see a horse

and it’s got a cop on it?!?

You’d crap yourself.

In these early weeks, dogs aren’t inclined to wander too much at this point. Everything in their little doggy bones is telling them to stay close to you and to home. So you can expect a little resistance to the world at large, but that’s OK. Your dog’s whole life will be filled with fighting its natural instincts. That’s the agreement we all have in society. You want consistent shelter and food all the time? Well, you can’t just do whatever you really want all the time.

Buford’s early puppyhood was not slow or controlled. It was spent driving back and forth from Downtown Cleveland to my brother’s farm in rural Kentucky, where my dad was preparing to say goodbye. We picked up Buford on a Monday and by that Friday that puppy went a long trip to meet my family. Dad was still a little with it, but we knew we were down to days. We took some pictures and said what we needed to. This is where having a baby animal around really helps out. I was all too happy to go outside every hour for bathroom breaks. It’s not a problem to get up in the middle of the night if you’re not sleeping anyways. The rituals and disciplines of having a puppy allowed me to step outside of myself and give all these big emotions a little room to process.

As for the rest of my family, they were delighted by Buford, who’s not only adorable, but also managed to put a little more life into the situation.

Between all the emotional hillbillies flying around, the vastly different environments of Cleveland and Kentucky plus the long car ride (7 hours!) in between, we can all agree that Buford got too much Tim Cornett much too fast. Great Pyrenees are bred to be independent and chilled out dogs, but Buford really came through for me.

Key#3
Roll with The Punches and expect it to to be slow going.
Puppies need extra work and you need to plan accordingly. The problem with plans, though, is that they tend to fall apart at the littlest things. Life happens almost every day. The sooner your puppy learns that the better. I don’t say that to encourage you to be a jerk to the dog, but I wouldn’t expect everything to go perfect. Maybe you get a promotion at work that requires more hours, maybe your dog becomes a mega chewer. It’s not a comment on your character or skills, just do the best you can. When things go wrong— and they will— just remember to be as consistent as you can. We live in a capitalist society. If you find yourself out of the house and working more, just hire a dog walker. If a weird behavior develops, take the extra steps to correct it with a trainer. This dog will be here for a long time, problems happen and no one is perfect; neither you nor your puppy. Be patient and manage your expectations. No dog is perfect but a damn good dog is possible out of just about any dog.

Buford was 10 weeks old the week of my dad’s funeral, and we had to spend the entire week in Kentucky. I obviously was focused on things other than Buford. Early socialization is so important, and throwing such a different environment at a dog so young is borderline reckless. But it worked out! Because Corey and I were the constants in a bunch of situations, I believe that Buford learned to trust us. Since my family is so big and varied but usually have ham on them, Buford learned to trust that people are pretty cool. Buford, for being so young, is one centered and calm dog. Buford is still a puppy but he’s got a gentle spirit. I’m proud of how he rolls with new things life throws at him. It’s the bright side of getting socialized all at once. There is no dog training book in the world that would recommend having your dad pass away as a training tool, but by rolling with the punches Buford and I were able to learn life lessons together.

Life happens to dogs as much as it happens to you. Don’t forget that your life is your dog’s life too, and they might have some insight on how to get through it.

If you live in Cleveland, hire me to work with your pooch