What age to collect your puppy?

Okay so there could be some debate between 5- 12 weeks so here I have tried to use as much clinical evidence and peer reviewed arguments to support my view that it is arguably optimum to get them at 8 weeks and crack on with gentle, short, fun, training sessions and socialization exercises straight away.However just because I argue its optimum does not mean thats best for you…..

Neural-Plasticity:

First up, the most important time in your pups life known as the critical or sensitive period is 0-16 weeks covering, birth, the neonatal period, transition period and into the primary (human) & secondary (Canine) socialisation window and finally the seniority classification period. This time in a puppy’s life is when a their brain has the greatest amount of neural plasticity and in fact it is believed the puppies physical DNA can be changed during this period and passed onto future generations. Therefore, there is hope one can physically overcome biological predispositions/ inherited traits, if addressed now.

It is not the new neural pathways cannot be made after 16 weeks, the make them all the time and more so the more you work them, however according to Scott and Fuller (1965) by around 16 weeks at the latest, the puppy’s neural plasticity and thus physical ability to learn noticeably begins to decline and thus it is generally advised to try and have your puppy fully socialised by 14 weeks.

“It is shown by research that a dog that has had no experience of a specific stimulus at the completion of the sensitive period will always be fearful of it, a dog that has had slight exposure will be slightly better and not quite so fearful, but a dog that has had lots of positive experience of a stimulus during the sensitive period will express no fear at all. Although it is possible to help an adult dog overcome a fear of a stimulus, prevention is better than cure. Especially with dogs, as anxiety or fear may be expressed as aggressive behaviour, and a dog exhibiting aggressive behaviour is not likely to be wanted as a family pet.” (Animal Behaviour Centre, 2020).

So whilst breed variation will alter timelines slightly if you’re only getting your puppy home at 12 weeks, you’ve missed the human (primary) socialisation window and probably only got 2-4 weeks left of optimum neural plasticity left to work with and even if your breeder is great, have they really managed to expose your pup to the world and environment you are expecting them to live in? I.e children, roads, pubs, your parrot, scooters? If so to what degree? Especially if they have a litter of eight or multiple litters?

“Puppies who do not have these early experiences in these critical stages, have a less developed axonal, dendritic and synaptic connection pattern in their neural circuitry. i.e. his brain will have less connected wires, which represent the different functional networks (connectomes) of his brain. Without these early experiences, he will be less able to deal with the experience that mediates the tuning of his sensory system surrounding excitation and inhibition (he will be easily excited and aroused which means he is less able to deal with variations in his daily activity). The hormone response elements (HRE’s) actually inhibit the ability for the animal to learn new things. This is because they inhibit the transcription factors that are fundamental to DNA replication processes and the formation of new learning experiences. This lack of environmental adaptation renders him incapable of dealing with environmental stressors. If learning happens in this critical stage, when we have neural-plasticity, it is far more likely to help him deal with novel situations when he is older.” Simply Behaviour (2021).

Moreover what happens if breed variation means your pups neural plasticity is declining prior to 16 weeks and you wait to get them home till 12 -14 weeks and that optimum window is closing?

Also what happens if you choose to wait till 12-14 weeks but all other owners have taken their pup from that litter at 8 weeks and thus yours is alone not benefiting from being with litter mates?

Separation

Secondly as soon as you get your pup home at 8 weeks you want to start crate training as dogs not exposed to separation prior to 12 weeks are said to struggle more with separation reactivity:

“From three weeks of age pups signal distress upon brief separation from the mother in the form of whining and yelping, which decreases in intensity with age (Elliot & Scott, 1961). This initial phase of distress upon maternal separation is also seen in monkeys and humans (Kaufman & Rosenblum, 1967), and is followed by a phase of despair and depression if separation is prolonged. Prolonged or permanent maternal separation at an early age has potentially detrimental consequences in dogs; disease and mortality related to separation stress occur more often in pups weaned at six weeks of age compared to pups weaned at twelve weeks (Slabbert & Rasa, 1993). In addition, early permanent maternal separation, a common occurrence in commercial breeding, may play a role in the development of behavioural disorders.” (Lindsay, 2001). However…. ‘Puppies….that were not exposed to separation until 12 weeks of age appeared to panic and unable to cope effectively with such experiences, [whereas puppies exposed on and off from weeks, 3 , 6 and 9) appear to have learned how to adjust more effectively when separated from littermates that is, they appeared to have habituated to the separation experience.” (Lindsay, 2001.)

The Mother & Pups

Thirdly, the dam (mothers) job is done by 7 weeks and competitive play with puppies is not being checked, thus arguably creating a more rambunctious pup if you leave them with the litter any longer.

‘This period [7-9 weeks] is associated with increasing irritability on the mother’s part toward her young, coinciding with the decline of lactation and a growing disinterest in nursing. This disinterest is not shared by her puppies, whose appetites are as sharp as their teeth. Not surprisingly common maternal punishing activity peaks at around this time.’ (Rheingold, 1963.)

‘The mother’s job is done both nutritionally and psychologically, making seven to eight weeks of age a very sensible time for final weaning and the finding a new home for her brood. Secondly, within the litter itself, agonistic interaction between the puppies has reached a peak, and although their aggressive play is not intended to hurt, the skills and attitudes developed by such an assertive competitiveness does not beneficially serve puppies in terms of their future adaptation to family life.’ (Lindsay, 2001).

Rapid Learning

Fourthly, researchers have shown that by seven weeks puppies have fully functioning brains based on EEG and what a puppy learns at 5-12 weeks really sticks so why wait until after 12 weeks and have your training be less effective?

“The puppy now [7 weeks] has the brain waves of an adult dog, but the attention span is short. This period is when the most rapid learning occurs. Learning at this age is permanent so this is a perfect time to start training but make it fun not arduous.” (Rawlinson, 1999).

Again, no one is saying they can’t learn later, far from it and the more you work your dog the better they will learn at any age but this research suggests you will get your optimum prior to 12-16 weeks.

Furthermore, the Curiosity period is said to be at (5-7 weeks) and the type of experiences that the puppy has during this period will have a strong effect on how he will react to humans as an adult. Therefore, it is recommended by Rawlinson (1999) that a pup meets hundred different people by the time it is 12 weeks, so unless the breeder is doing this you want to get your pup and crack on.

(Side note; these should positive greetings, allow the pup to approach the person not the other way round. Encourage touch under the chin or on the chest rather than grabbing and patting the dog on the head and all over which can lead to aversions to handling later on.)

“For most purposes, secondary socialisation begins in earnest when a puppy leaves the mother and litter mates to begin life with the human family. The ideal timing for this transition is seven weeks of age, with a relative range of minus one or plus one.” (Lindsay, 2001).

Fight Instinct Period 16 weeks

Also, by about 16 weeks fight instinct period is going to kick in and your puppy is likely to be more truant and less likely to stick with you so seeing as you need to get the behaviour e.g recall and reinforce it to teach it, why would you want to make training more difficult by having that to play against as well as the fact the wiring in the brain is pretty well complete by now and further learning is thus going to be more challenging and not stick as well.

Approaching Strangers & Fear Imprint Period

‘Also peaking at this time [9-12 weeks] is a puppies willingness to approach strangers confidently and to investigate novel things with vigorous tail wagging.’ (Lindsay, 2001).

 Admittedly this coincides with a fear imprint period around 8 to 10.5 weeks which you want to be careful not to give your pup a fright in but otherwise this is a great time for the pup to form long lasting bonds with people (human socialisation period) before the aforementioned truant stage starts.

So why not even earlier?

Not to go into it too deep but Pups are reliant on their mother initially requiring tactile touch, feeding, assistance eliminating until they can do so themselves etc, etc. Moreover they are learning bite inhibition and their social language from their litter mates. However, according to Lindsay (2001) Five-week-old puppies are more outgoing and less fearful of social contact than are seven week old puppies so some may argue from around then would be great time to go out into the world and meet new people but early removal from Mum or litter mates leads to a host of physical and behaviour problems in adulthood most significantly anxiety and fearfulness and difficulty dealing with stress.

For more info on that click below:

 Counter argument:

Now a good friend who isn’t citing other data but perhaps has three years more experience than me, strongly argues 12 weeks is optimum so I’ll give you some of this as a counter argument:

She says:

“I can normally spot when a dog has come at 7-9 weeks as there is a lot more nervous energy present, they are a lot bitier and often these are the dogs a year down the line, who are are a bit full-on.”

“When we as animals learn we create neuropathways i.e. neuroplasticity. This can happen at any age.”

“The anxieties caused by their humans for say that 8-week critical period is going to be far more detrimental than collecting your puppy at 12 weeks after boundaries have been learnt from mum and puppies are more secure and independent.”

Conclusion

“Adoption is a matter of timing. Both the extreme of adopting too early before week six or too late after week twelve with the emergence of increasing social avoidance may compete with appropriate socialisation or predisposed published developed social adjustment problems.” (Lindsay, 2001).

Thus in other words unless you know the breeder and Mum are doing an amazing job and all the other pups haven’t gone and you think you are going to ‘anxiously’ do a bad job, personally I’d be getting my pup at 8 weeks and if I had a choice really not after 12 weeks.

Pups that were rehomed between 13 and 16 weeks of age showed a higher prevalence of growling, snapping and avoidance behaviour towards unfamiliar humans after one year of age, compared to pups rehomed between six and eight weeks of age (Jokinen et al., 2017).

There may be an argument for avoiding the first fear imprint period 8-10.5 weeks so in an ideal world if it wasn’t illegal I’d get them at 7 weeks but as thats not possible, personally I’d be careful during this period and still have them rather than risking valuable time not getting them till 11 weeks.

My friends point about them being more anxious and ‘bitier’ until 7-9 weeks is interesting and she may well be right on that. It would be great to do a larger controlled sample size. As it stands I feel Lindsay (2001) thinks otherwise:

‘The mother’s job is done both nutritionally and psychologically, making seven to eight weeks of age a very sensible time for final weaning and the finding a new home for her brood. Secondly, within the litter itself, agonistic interaction between the puppies has reached a peak, and although their aggressive play is not intended to hurt, the skills and attitudes developed by such an assertive competitiveness does not beneficially serve puppies in terms of their future adaptation to family life.’ (Lindsay, 2001)

So therefore get your pup between 8-12 weeks and not after. However socialisation doesn’t and shouldn’t end at 16 weeks, so there is plenty of work that can still be done.

“… socialization and exposure are part of a lifelong process. As a puppy comes out of its socialization period and becomes more suspicious of novelty, controlled and positive exposure is probably equally important. If a puppy owner were to stop socializing a puppy at 3 months of age, the puppy would be more likely to become fearful as an adolescent. Even the well-socialized dog might regress if positive exposure does not continue into adolescence.” (Martin, 2016)

REFS:

Jokinen, O., Appleby, D., Sandbacka-Saxén, S., Appleby, T. & Valros, A. (2017). Homing age influences the prevalence of aggressive and avoidance-related behaviour in adult dogs. — Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 195: 87-92.

Lindsay S (2000) Handbook of Applied Dog Behaviour and Training. Volume 1 Iowa State University Press

Lindsay S (2001) Handbook of Applied Dog Behaviour and Training. Volume 2 Iowa State University Press

Lindsay S (2005) Handbook of Applied Dog Behaviour and Training. Volume 3 Iowa State University Press

Rawlinson, S (1999) CRITICAL PERIODS IN YOUR PUP’S GROWTH. [Online] [ Accessed October 2021]