[PennysMum]

There's recently more hesitation about keeping puppies completely isolated because early socialization and exposure to "scary" things when they are still young and quick to adapt is so important to their emotional, behavioral and social development, but there are ways to do provide a puppy with some exposure to the bigger world without causing as much risk to their health than walking them down a city street. At the vet hospital where I work, we typically tell people that they should be allowing their pup to interact with adult dogs with known vaccination histories-- the dogs of responsible family members or friends-- and that it is all right to allow the pup to explore the owner's fenced yard as long as unknown dogs do not have access to it. No parks, no pet shops, and no walks in areas where unknown dogs have walked. It obviously isn't as completely safe from parvo as keeping the puppy 100% indoors and isolated from other dogs until they are fully vaccinated, but the social development of the puppy is very important to their life-long well-being, and unfortunately the most impressionable period in a dog's life falls before 16 weeks of age.