Tips on How to Socialize Your Dog In Public

We love taking our dogs into public places to socialize, especially Home Depot! Home Depot is super pet friendly, and it is our go to place when it comes to training in public! Training here allows us to work on socializing, advancing obedience around distractions, and getting your dog used to loud noises! One of the major benefits of training here is when the weather is bad, you have a place you can go to walk and train your dog! If it is raining, snowing, too hot, or too cold, Home Depot is the perfect place for a walk!

You first need to make sure your dog can calmly and safely walk and train inside of public places. If your dog has socialization or excitability issues, we recommend coming here once they have mastered heel and they are doing well with their current training program.

If you need help creating a socialization plan please watch this video:    • How to Socialize Your Puppy---3 Cruci...  

We start off our Home Depot visit with making sure the dog is calm. We recommend this warm up heel walk to be outside in the parking lot. From there you can start walking your dog in front of the store and then work your way inside. The outside aisles are wide and usually the best places to start. How long it takes your dog to calm down in a new environment depends on their temperament and training level! When you are focusing on calming your dog down, take all the time you need! This typically takes a few minutes with a well trained dog, but can be your entire session if it’s your dog’s first time there!

Once they are calm, you can work on obedience. Remember, if your dog does not know obedience or or these commands are new to them, training in public can be too difficult! Working on obedience at Home Depot does require a certain level of trust and your dog needs to understand all of their commands around distractions. In this video we work on a variety of commands and some of them involve dropping the leash. Make sure you fully trust your dog before you drop the leash! If your dog is not ready for advanced obedience, you can practice leash obedience or just focus on a nice calm heel walk!

Another thing we love about training at Home Depot are the opportunities for socializing with people! The majority of the staff love dogs and often carry treats with them! Some stores even have a dog board of all of their favorite dogs that visit!

The goal here is calm and controlled introductions! If your dog has socialization issues, we recommend getting a professional trainer to help you and your dog overcome these issues safely!

The last reason we love going to Home Depot to train our dogs is getting them used to loud noises and other distractions! Home Depot has loud carts, saws going off, fork lifts, and tons of people! All of these make for a difficult, yet beneficial place to train your dog and get them used to environments they are not used to. As mentioned before, make sure your dog is confident and does not have any major fear issues before training them inside.
The end goal may be going to Home Depot one day, but if they have major issues, we recommend getting them exposed to easier environments such as parks or in the back of the parking lot! We want to make sure your dog is progressing through their issues, but need to make sure we are not over stressing them!

We hope you found this video beneficial! Many of our clients had no idea that Home Depot was pet friendly, and now they take their dog’s there weekly for some training and socializing!

Do you have any other favorite places to train and socialize your dog? Are you struggling with socializing your dog? If so, comment below as we would love to talk to you!

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00:00 Intro
00:23 Reasons Why We Train at Home Depot
00:44 Start Off by Calming Your Dog Down
01:15 Time For Obedience!
01:51 Work on Distractions and Loud Noises!
02:27 Socialize Your Dog!
02:46 Closing Thoughts