[YorkieMother]

[QUOTE=Erin;2254699]Loki was not given a full 12 weeks with his mom and litter mates. He is nervous, neurotic, and fearful. I've spent years training him (with a professional and then on my own) and he is pretty normal now but still extremely quirky (he doesn't like changes to his schedule, hates storms and loud noises, has no social skills with dogs)... This is typical of dogs who do not stay with mom long enough. Some dogs do fine, but you won't know if your dog will be one of the lucky ones so you should definitely try to see if he can stay longer. Maybe offer to pay for his food and take him on weekends when you can be with him 24/7. It's important for him to have human attention but it's just as important for him to be with his mom and litter mates. Usually once they are weaned the mom stops cleaning up after them, which is why people try to find homes at 6 weeks. Even if he could get 2-4 more weeks with mom that would be better.

[QUOTE]

First let me say Erin, I have great respect for you but what I am about to say is a little different or a little tighter then what you said.. (oh dog trainer and an owner of an aggressive unsocialized dog here. Masive reaing and study behind me.)

First 12 weeks is to late to get a dog socialization is from 8 weeks to 16 weeks and then it is done.. you can work with a dog but as you know it going to be an up hill battle. 100 people, places, things, sounds, and dogs all different by 16 weeks to have a hopefully well adjusted socially smart dog and if you have a dog born with shy or fear concerns a boat load more then 100 of everything is needed... oh and I have taken a 7 week older and done it with great results not a yorkie though.

You have one more fear period to get them through before they are set and stable and in that period a lot of things can blow apart a dog but if well socialized by 16 weeks you can hopefully get them through that too.

Anything before 8 weeks being taken away from mother and litter mates, the dog does not learn enough about getting along with other dogs.

12 weeks is for yorkies and small breeds that can run into hypoglycemia concerns and that why with yorkies we need to hope that a breeder is up on the social skills before we get them as we have only 4 weeks to cover everything without over loading a dog.

But the studies are now showing that socialization to sound to avoid phobias should start as soon as the puppies and hear... so at birth.


I would also like to point out that if the mother has fear concerns like people and is unsocialized or is afraid of sounds it would be better to pull the puppies long before 12 weeks even at the 6 week mark and socialize with stable dogs.
I prefer in the big picture to get a puppy in the 8 to 10 week period and run socialization full steam until 16 weeks and passed that to the first year.

I can snag the social developmental and fear stages chart if you need to cross check what I just said.

JL