The Fear Period
We wanted to talk about a huge component that is at times, misunderstood or missed entirely when it comes to our puppies! Rory has been a big learning curve for me in general, and keeping something like the Fear Period at the forefront of my decisions with her training and social aspects have been huge!
Puppies have a couple fear periods, the first one being around the 8-10 weeks of age and then again from 6 months, right through to 14months! Here at HQ, we like to call this the bubble wrap phase. We wrap our puppies in bubble wrap, protect them from the scary things and hold their paws as we walk through the next few weeks
So, what is the Fear Period?
The Fear Period is an important survival response for a pup who is increasingly able to move through environments independently. During this period, any traumatic experiences can be generalised and have a profound impact on future behaviours and connections to stimuli.
How do we at A Bark Above work through this period?
Thoughtful management, successful set ups and calming enrichment strategies are super important during these phases. As pawrents, we need to avoid exposing the puppies to potential trauma stimulation during this period.
While we don’t physically wrap them up, it’s more about creating a predictable environment, supporting them with reward based training and encouraging them to learn and explore at their own pace
The secondary Fear Period that occurs between 6-14 months of age and can last for 1-3 weeks at a time.. this is when we see more visible behavioural changes. They can become apprehensive of both familiar, and unfamiliar environments! During this second phase, we usually think and see it as a situation that needs more socialisation or exposures. But that’s not always the case as repeated exposures to the fears can worse the response and in turn, create a large scale fear based connection.
Things to do for the puppies:
Support, if they need us, be there for them! If they’re scared, pick them up and move away!
Love, love them!! They’re young, feeling big feelings and working out emotional connections!
Work with the puppy! Don’t force them into something they don’t want to do.. if they can’t to leave a situation, off you toddle!
Distance, if you find something that may be scary, don’t take them up close and dump them in front of it. Hang back, watch their body language and let them process from a distance!
Time AND patience! It’s vital, every pup learns at its own speed, processes at its own rate and absorbs worldly information differently so just keep in mind they’re all different and have different needs and processing capacities!
SNACKS! Lots of treats, enrichment lickis and snuffles! Pack a goodie bag of supplies and head on down town, pop in a safe corner and have your pup just hanging out in a safe place with good things while the world unfolds around them!
Ask Questions! We are only a message away and would love to talk to you at any stage to help you and your puppy work through these periods of learning!
Our Aurora has some big boots to fill here at HQ, and the lifestyles our dogs have is heavily impacted by the foundation work we put in, during the early days and that bond created! We’ve said it before, we will say it again - set up for success and reach out if you need!