Critical Developmental Stages of Puppies

The Critical Developmental Stages of Puppies

by Stormi King Parish, CCS

If you've noticed puppy training classes becoming more and more popular in recent years, you're not alone. Through studies and research, our understanding of just how critically important the first couple months of a pup's life is has grown exponentially. We now realize that, just like all other animals, puppies go through several stages of learning and early development that will shape their behavior and personality as an adult. Unlike us humans, though, a dog's early developmental stages close much, much earlier. If you are planning on getting a puppy, or have a new four-footed bundle of joy that you've recently welcomed into your home, this guide will help you know what to expect, and help explain just how important those puppy classes really are!

0-2 weeks: Neonatal Period
- Incapable of body temperature regulation. Puppy is fully dependant on mother for warmth, feeding, and elimination.

2-3 weeks: Transitional Period
- Eyes begin to open at 2 weeks, ears at 3 weeks. This sequence is adaptively significant to how your dogs learn. Remember, dogs learn about their world visually first, and auditorily second.

21-28 days: Awareness Period
- Senses fully functioning.
- Sexual imprinting.
- Extremely sensitive to stress and environmental changes.
- Presence of mother and littermates imperative to mental and emotional maturity and socialization.
- Begins to be able to learn through consequence and association.

5-7 weeks: Canine Socialization Period
- Puppy learns species specific behavior that makes him a dog: biting, chasing, barking, fighting, mounting, body posturing, and reading the body language of other dogs.
- Learns acquired bite inhibition from littermates.
-Leaving the litter before 7-8 weeks (ideally 8 weeks is truly best) can affect the puppy's ability to get along with other dogs later and they will likely have trouble learning to inhibit the force of their bite should they ever use their teeth in their adult life.

7-12 weeks: Human Socialization Period
- This is the age when most rapid learning occurs. Greatest impact on future social behavior will be made by any experience that happens at this point.
- Pup begins to form deep bonds with humans.
- Any traumatizing event may affect pup for the rest of his/her life.
- "100 new people by 12 weeks" is the motto of Dr. Ian Dunbar, veterinary behaviorist. You can't over do socialization, and you can't re-do it later in life. This is the age to expose your puppy to anything and everything he or she will encounter in his/her adult life (people, animals, sounds, sights, textures, body handling, ect.), and make those experiances positive and fun.
- BEST time to get your puppy into a puppy kindergarten class!

10-16 weeks: Seniority Classification Period
- Pushy puppy stage! This is the stage where your pup begins to spread their wings and test his or her limits... and sometimes your sanity!

4-8 months: Flight Instinct Period
- Think "teenager". The pup becomes independent from owner and easily distracted, may not respond as well to cues he or she previously did.
- Training should have begun long ago, but unfortunately many owners don't begin training classes until this age, resulting in undersocialized puppies and a less smooth training process. Unfortunately, we can't always help this fact, especially if its with a rescue puppy that was aquired later on in his/her puppyhood, so the earlier you can begin training with your pup, the better!

6-14 months: Adolescence
- Second "fear" stage: due to hormonal changes, the puppy may temporarily become weary or fearful of new & familiar objects and situations.
- Lifelong behavior patterns set in.
- Sexual maturity is reached.

1-4 years: Maturity
- Behavior issues not addressed in puppyhood will become apparent.
- Will continue to build associations with people, other dogs, objects, situations, ect. for the rest of his/her life.
- Social maturity sets in. Dependant upon the pup's early social experiences and genetic imprint, he or she may become more picky about social interactions with dogs and humans and less tolerant of rude behavior.
- Keep up with training and socializing! Just like with humans, although we may be set in our ways once we reach adulthood, learning is never over! We get rusty if we stop practicing!