These periods are generally over a couple of weeks in which your puppy may become scared of random novel objects, a person, or a dog and become very sensitive to traumatic experiences. A single scary experience may be enough to traumatise the puppy and have lifelong effects on its behaviour later in life.
The first imprint periods happen at 5 weeks and then 8-10 weeks.
During their first fear imprint period, you won’t even probably notice this is happening, due to puppies normally going to their homes at this time but some breeders will choose to keep the litter till they are around 12 weeks. It is good practice to avoid exposing your puppy to any potentially scary experiences; vet visits should be fun, and keep handling by strangers to a minimum.
The second fear imprint period happens between 6 – 14 months (again this will only last for a couple of weeks).
This period tends to be more recognisable for us caregivers/owners as our dogs are bigger by this point and we know their characters. This period tends to coincide with growth so bigger dogs may experience the imprint period towards the latter end of the scale, but small dogs may experience it earlier in the scale.
It often seems the dogs fear of objects has come out of nowhere and reactivity levels can rise in this time also as they are more defensive.
- Try not to put your dog in overwhelming situations
- Keep all experiences fun
- As we cant tell absolutely when they are having the second imprint period keep note of behaviour and how long it lasts (just in case it is a behavioural issue developing)
- Keep calm for your dog
- Reassure them
It may be that you need to take a few backward steps with training, to keep your dog’s confidence levels up.
Alice