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Why is rough handling of a puppy and direct handling, desensitisation important in puppy training? It helps a dog become comfortable with everyday physical contact, reducing stress, fear, and resistance during grooming, veterinary care, and routine handling throughout its life.

If you don’t sort this out in puppy hood, you’ll have problems in later life.

Handling puppies in Desensitisation Training i’s got to be one of the most overlooked areas in early puppy training and development. New owners to puppies focus on obedience, basic commands and walking, but fail to prepare the dog for being actually physically handled.

My exact point on this is when it becomes noticeable later on in life when their nails need clipping, when they fight or pull away during grooming, or bite you because the grooming brush is hurting them, or they react defensively when they’re being examined or they’re back passage needs cleaning, and so on.

One of the worst issues you will have with a dog if you don’t prepare them in puppyhood is when you need to clip their nails. For some dogs they will bite you and make it an impossible task.

You then have to put a muzzle on to restrain them. This then becomes incredibly stressful for the dog. If you care for your dog, it becomes stressful for you too because you know they are getting into an anxiety tizzy.

Desensitisation training

In my experience, one of the worst things to neglect is teeth cleaning. Some dogs will never allow it with a dog friendly toothbrush.

At the very basics of handling and desensitisation training. It’s about familiarising your dog, with these intrusions. The dog interprets it as unpleasant or negative energy and it doesn’t like it. This includes areas that dogs naturally protect, areas that are sensitive such as their paws, ears, mouth, teeth and around and up under their tail or private parts. Without early exposure and desensitisation, these areas can become overly sensitive and protected and any attempt to handle or inspect them, can trigger anxiety and discomfort because you are causing fear in them.

Undeveloped puppies are at an important and critical stage of learning. During this period, they are raw and open to new experiences, and less likely to form strong negative reactions or even associations. Introducing controlled handling during this early stage can make the difference in how your dog responds in its later adult life.

At their early stage in life introducing a controlled step by step or incremental handling can make all the difference in later adult life. And it’s not about forcing a puppy into submission or dominating the puppy. It’s a step-by-step process to show that touching sensitive areas is safe and can be enjoyable if done gently and slowly.

The term handling

Doesn’t mean aggressive handling but it’s referring to a calm, purposeful and deliberate physical contact where the handler or you as the dog owner may gently hold their paws, lift their ears, open them, or briefly restrain the puppy, and the aim is to produce, a less defensive or flighty reaction to these touch actions in a way that does not overwhelm the dog’s nervous system later on.

Desensitisation practises like this works well by reducing the sensitivity or the reactions of the dog over a period of time. So, a puppy that initially pulls away will over a period of repeated paw or ear and teeth inspections – which you would call gentle exposure, start to tolerate and accept the contact.

In my experience they simply just put their head down and relax because I’ve associated the sensitive touch points to gentle massage approaches that the dog knows that this is good energy. The dog says I like this, I want more of this and relaxes.

Canine myotherapy

Allow the dog to relax, especially when they want to sleep. Stroke them, massage them, and allow them to just enjoy that touch and then gently touch their ears and continue to touch their back, gently touch their paws and then continue to touch their back. It’s an on off touch approach and then lift up the paw, open the pad a little bit and put it back down and continue to massage. It’s 50, 50 as opposed to going all in, opening up the pad and messing with their nails associating the touching of the paws, the ears looking at the teeth with gentle massage strokes. Gentle caressing all over. All dogs love massage.

This will almost eliminate any kind of stress and will help you when you visit the veterinary practise for examinations, grooming, nail trimming or other general health checks in their adult life. A dog that has not been prepared for any of this will have to have muzzles on and cables restricting the dog. At the grooming parlour or at the vets. All this will do is cause fight or flight and stress reactions and the whole experience will just send your dog’s heartbeat through the roof and also runs the risk of them biting the handler, making these situations even more unsafe.

An adult dog that has never had its ears or teeth and back passage under its tail or paws handled can go into defensive behaviour and start biting and overstressing. So early desensitisation removes all this uncertainty from the dog.

An unprepared dog

Dogs are highly sensitive to human behaviour and certain areas that are being touched. Sudden movements, tension or even impatience on the part of the handler can influence how your dog perceives the situation NEXT TIME. So calm, consistent handling helps the puppy remain safe, settled and reduces the risk of negative associations forming or even sensing touch as attacks.

The difference between a dog that has never been touched in sensitive areas and a dog that had lots of touch in sensitive areas could be the difference from a bite attack or just – this is nice, I like this when I get massaged.

Wrong perception

Many people misinterpret the title or the term ‘rough handling’ or ‘desensitisation handling’ as some form of force or dominant control over the animal and this is absolutely not the case. This concern comes from misunderstanding or jumping to conclusions. When done correctly, handling is not about dominance or overpowering any dog. It’s just about better preparation and intelligence with forward planning. The puppy learns what to expect and becomes totally relaxed as a result in later life.

This is about building more confidence, gaining access to where we need to get access to and reducing or eliminating all forms of stress and anxiety so the dog doesn’t panic.

How to put it together!

Gently play with your puppy dog. Involve massage and gentle caressing and stroking all over their body, and slowly touch the sensitive areas. Just touch the paw for a second and then go back to massage, touch the ear for a second and go back to the massage and then just open the mouth for a second and go back to the massage and that’s it.

The next time go a little bit further, put your fingers in the dog’s mouth for a second whilst playing with them, touch the teeth and go back to the massage, open and press the paw pads and look inside them for a second and then go back to the massage, open and inspect their ears and just see how the dog’s reacting. If it reacts bad, slow it down and distance it and there you have it.

A simple tutorial on how to train your dog to be calm in inspections around sensitive and delicate areas of its body.

It is really good practice for dog owners to avoid rough handling during early development to prevent long-term fear and aggression forming. Instead, introducing correct canine desensitisation training early in your puppy’s life to build positive associations with intrusive touch, grooming, and vet visits for examinations.

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