Now that Cooper is almost done with his vaccines the vet said I could get him out more. However walking him can be embarrassing. People see a puppy and want to come see him and he goes nuts. Barking jumping nipping. When I tell them he nips and it hurts they look at me like I must have gotten ripped off because puppies especially labs don't act or bite like that. It has gotten to the point I dread walks. Everyone says bring him to the school yard to pick up my 3rd grader....are you crazy!!
I only socialised Stanley with family & friends & their dogs who I pre-warned about nipping. By the time his vaccines were done I was in full loose lead and recall training so I used to try & avoid people fussing him too much. Even now people want to fuss the cute puppy.. I say he's rolled in poo
I found it extremely convenient that Betsy would nip anyone - it gave me a perfect excuse to tell people to stay away. You do want to socialise your puppy, but that is not the same as teaching a puppy that s/he gets to say hello and jump on absolutely everyone. Your puppy should pretty much expect to ignore people in the street. So just ignore people - your I'm ignoring you body language will give most people a big hint, if you do not make eye contact, and just busy yourself getting your puppy to walk along nicely, ignoring all the Awwww! Puppy! sounds they make, most people will take the hint. The rest, just have something to say 'no thanks, we won't say hello' usually does it, with others you have to be a bit firmer 'no, really, I want my puppy to learn to ignore people' or 'no, go away, I just want to walk down the street, I don't want you to say hello to my puppy'.
I didn't realize that this was different than socializing him... interesting. I would Love to come out and say those things but I don't know if I have the nerve. I'm the type of person who will then go out of her way to find a place to walk where no one is.
Your puppy needs to be socialised - so don't walk in places where he won't have any new experiences! Socialisation does include seeing other people, traffic, other dogs, things that make noises, and so on. Socialisation does not mean that your puppy needs to rehearse behaviour that will later be extremely inconvenient such as being determined to say hello to every person he sees and play with every dog he sees. So, you do want to walk in busy places, but what would be good is if your dog saw (just for example) 100 people, and got to say hello to one of them, and learned that he doesn't get to say hello to 99% of people he sees. And even better if that one person acts appropriately around your puppy, and ignores him until he is calm - then he gets to say hello.
