Episode #144 Exploration Stations: A DIY Puppy Socialization Project

Ready to unleash your creativity and build a jungle gym for your puppy that promotes positive socialization? Join us as we walk you through a simple, fun project that will not only strengthen the bond with your furry friend but also help them get used to various surfaces, sounds, and textures. This is a fantastic summer activity for the whole family to enjoy!

We dive into the importance of positive puppy socialization and share some creative ideas for items to hang from the jungle gym. With food rewards and free shaping techniques, you'll guide your pup in exploring and getting comfortable with their new environment. Plus, stay tuned for our upcoming classes on babies and dogs, barking, and reactivity and greetings as part of our membership. So grab your pup and let's start this exciting adventure together!

Chapters

• 0:00 Creating a Puppy Socialization Jungle Gym
• 11:18 Positive Puppy Socialization

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 144, jungle Gym Socialization. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning, as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the Puppy Training Podcast and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hi you guys, welcome back to the Puppy Training Podcast And, if you're new, i'm so glad you found us. So when I train young puppies in my home, i like to focus a lot on socialization, and today I want to teach you how to create a really simple, fun socialization jungle gym. I find that this is a great summer project, especially if you have kids in your home and they're looking for something to do or, you know, looking for a project. This is a good one. So the concept of this socialization jungle gym is that it has different surfaces, sounds, textures, things that the puppy can move through, bump into, chew on, explore and just get used to a bunch of different things happening around them. I really like to use these four service dog puppies that I'm training because they need to be used to, you know, things touching their body or bumping into things or just different textures in general, different sounds clanging together. I think it's just a good, healthy way to get a puppy used to some unpredictable things in their environment, but in a very safe, positive, playful way. So that's what we're going to talk about today. It'll just take a few minutes to explain how to build it And then hopefully, you guys will just have fun making it and enjoy picking out things to attach to it so your puppies can enjoy practicing being around different things. Before we dive into it, i just want to tell you about a few things we have upcoming here at Baxter and Bella that are exciting. We are teaching a few new classes this summer, so we just released a babies and dogs class As part of our membership. These are all included. You can watch them on demand, so they're recorded. You don't have to wait for it to be taught live. You can come live, but then you can just watch the recording as well. So babies and dogs if you have or are bringing home a dog or a baby soon and you want them to live peacefully together, that's a great class to look into on just some tips and tricks on how to make that go more successful. And then next week we're teaching a barking class. We have had a lot of interest in this barking class. We're super excited to teach it, so that recording will be posted next week after the class is taught And we'll teach two sessions of that. We're teaching one on Thursday and one on Saturday next week And then, upcoming, we have a reactivity and greetings class that will be happening in July. So watch out for those things.

Amy: 2:46

Super excited, always just trying to create some new classes on topics that we find clients really are interested in. So there's three for you that you can go check out as part of our membership. All right, let's get back to this puppy jungle gym idea. Again, this is just helping your puppy get used to as many new site, sounds, textures, experiences, you know, smells I guess I don't really have a lot of smells in my jungle gym, but you could add them actually now that I'm thinking about it. Anyway, we just want to socialize these puppies and from the get go, we want to do it in a positive way. So these are easy to put together with a few supplies from your local hardware store, and creativity is key when choosing items to hang from the bar. So my kids like to come and help me pick out fun items. We had to the dollar store actually to get a lot of the pieces that will be attached to the jungle gym. So go to your local hardware store, get the PVC pipe, which I'll explain in a second, and then you can head to the dollar store. It doesn't have to cost a lot of money to find things that are noisy or bright, have bright colors or, you know, soft bristles, different shape, sizes, etc.

Amy: 3:49

So once the jungle gym is built, i like to just guide the puppies in and around it. I use food rewards that they enjoy and I help them walk all the way through it from any different angle or side, and then I also just let them play with it and explore each item on their own, because the items are dangling from, you know, some coated chain, then they move and they're kind of unpredictable, which is fun for the puppies. I also like to use free shaping techniques. So luring is great. Luring is when you just put that food right on the puppy's nose and lower them where you want them to go. You're guiding them with that food reward where you want them to go. But free shaping is more about just sitting back and watching And then when the puppy does something you like, you reward it, and then they choose to do that again because it got them a reward. So that's a really fun activity to do with any kind of training exercise, but it's fun with this jungle gym as well.

Amy: 4:41

So I use the free shaping to get puppies to touch items I'm thinking of. So, for example, maybe I say, okay, i'm going to reward the puppy every time they touch this plastic cup or every time they bump into the plastic cup, right? So I'm just going to sit and observe and watch. And as the puppy touches the plastic cup, yes, and I give them a food reward and they start to figure out, okay, what's going to get me my next? yes, and pretty soon they're bumping that cup to get more and more food rewards. So pick a task that you want your puppy to achieve and then try to free shape them until they figure it out. All right, we also practice a recall or come or come cue from going from one side through the middle to the other side several times. It just helps the puppy walk through the items and they're going to be kind of bumped as they walk through on their body by these items. That are gentle, but it's just good socialization again for them to experience these noises and objects kind of bumping into them.

Amy: 5:35

So let's, do you guys want to make one now, are you interested? Here's how you make one. I need some materials, so I'll type these out in the show notes as well. But you're going to need one inch PVC pipe. I cut these to 30 inches and I make 12 pieces. So 12 pieces of one inch PVC pipe cut to 30 inches. Then I get one inch PVC three way elbows. You'll need eight total of those. You'll also need 16 feet of plastic chain and then zip ties to attach items to the chain and chain to the box. With the zip ties you want to make sure that you trim them when you're done so that there's no pokey edges sticking out. Okay, we want these to be safe for your puppy, all right.

Amy: 6:13

And then you get to be creative, head to the dollar store and pick out 16 to 20 items to hang around the gym. So this is going to be a four-sided, almost like a cube. You're building a PVC cube and then on the four sides you're going to dangle that plastic chain and then attach the items to each of those chains. So each side you'll have about four to five items dangling from the PVC pipe.

Amy: 6:34

So we've used things like pythons, wooden spoons, measuring cups, drinking cups, tennis balls, cowbells. Cowbells are fun because they make lots of noise, jingle bells, rattles, rings. Baby toys work pretty well for this kind of thing And then you just kind of hang them in any order you want so that you could buy two six spot muffin tins and then they kind of cling together as that puppy moves through. Or the tennis balls don't make necessarily a lot of sound, but as they walk through those are going to kind of gently bump into their body. Again, the cowbells, the jingle bells, are fun because they do make noise. Or measuring cups that are connected together. They're all dangling from one chain. Those will rattle around pretty well. So I just like to get a variety of things that will make different sounds and feel differently when the puppy's walking through the jungle gym.

Amy: 7:26

So in order to make it, you're just going to make a square from four of your PVC 30 inch pieces and four of your PVC three way elbows. That's going to be your base square. And then you're going to put four more PVC 30 inch pieces upright in each of the four corners of that base square. Next, you're going to attach four PVC three way elbows to each of those upright pieces And then you're simply going to complete the cube by adding in the last four PVC 30 inch pieces. So you now have a box. Then you're just simply going to attach plastic chain to the box using a zip tie.

Amy: 8:00

I cut the chain to the length needed per the toy you are attaching. So, just as a tip, go pick out your toys and things that you want to attach And then, before you attach the PVC or, sorry, the plastic coated chain, you want to be able to see how long that item is and then adjust the chain accordingly so that it's dangling. The toy is dangling, not dragging on the ground. Does that make sense? So some will be longer, some will be shorter. I just advise getting the things you want to dangle from your jungle gym first, and then, as you attach them, it'll be easier to decide how much chain you need. And then you just move around the box, attaching the plastic chain to both the box and the item until your jungle gym is full, and then make sure again you trim off those zip tie ends at the base so that there's no sharp edges poking out.

Amy: 8:43

Now you can introduce your puppy to the jungle gym Again. Do not force your puppy to go through it. That's really important with socialization that we don't force a puppy to experience something that they're nervous about. So if you have a sensitive puppy, your puppy might look at this jungle gym and want not a lot to do with it. That's where I would introduce free shaping and just kind of observe and watch and maybe just walk around it. If your puppy looks at it, toss a tree away from it. So your puppy gets to turn away from the jungle gym, go collect something delicious and then they have an opportunity to get another reward by looking back at it. So if they turn back to the jungle gym now you can say, yes again, give them another reward. So by sending them away for their food reward, you're creating an opportunity, basically setting them up for success so that they can get another look and repeat that again.

Amy: 9:29

We want them to get as many rewards as possible around this jungle gym. Other things you could do would be to try to lure them around it. We don't again. If your puppy's really nervous. Luring's not my favorite. I don't want them to be lured into a scary situation. So I really would rather them just be free shaped with it. But if your puppy's pretty confident and they're just a little hesitant, then luring can be helpful to get them started. Can you guys hear Bruno in the background? His cute little tag on his collar is jingling, so if you think you're hearing a bell, you are, you're not going crazy. He just went upstairs, so we should be good now to finish this out.

Amy: 10:01

So then, the other way I like to use the jungle gym is to practice behavior. So try calling your puppy to come from the other side. See if they'll come through the jungle gym to you. You may need someone to help hold them on one side while you excitedly call them through the other, so you can experiment with that. But try to play some games with them where they have to move through the jungle gym. My kids also love setting up obstacle courses For my dog right or my dogs, so you can use different things boxes, platforms, dog beds, bar stools, chairs you know furniture, this jungle gym.

Amy: 10:36

And then there's, you know, you're getting your puppy to run around something and then sit on something and then run through this little jungle gym. So that could be a really fun summer project to is not only building it But then trying to play some of these games with it, with your puppy, and they're learning all of these good things by Experiencing this jungle gym. Another idea would be trying to get your puppy to sit in the middle. Could you get them to walk through one side, pause, sit in the middle And then they can exit? that might be fun, almost like a crate game, where you get them to enter the crate And then they get to run right back out. Try that with this jungle gym. See if you can get them to go into the middle. Have a sit, pause in the middle, right, sit, get a reward and then okay, and Call them out of it. Any other things you can think of awesome.

Amy: 11:18

Again, we're just trying to have fun. We're also trying to get our puppy to experience different feelings and you know, sounds, textures all by building a simple jungle gym and then using it to play lots of training games with them. Now, if you aren't up to making one of these, that is okay too. You do not need one of these to socialize your puppy. It's just a fun extra idea.

Amy: 11:41

But make it a goal this week to introduce your puppy to at least 20 new things and make each interaction as Positive as possible. That is most important. We want these experiences with socialization to be positive and that your puppy will get this really quick bounce back so that if, as they grow up, they do encounter something new, that they start a lot, that they will recover quickly. All right, you guys, i hope you have a wonderful week. Enjoy your dogs, get out and have some fun with them. Go live life with them. That's why we got a dog right. That's why we love having them with us. So go enjoy happy training. I'll talk to you soon. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site, backster and bellacom, to contact me.