Proper Socialization for High Prey Drive Breeds

After 12 years and 1400+ dogs trained. I’d like to think I know a thing or two about dog socialization.

For ease of writing, this post will focus on dog-human socialization only.

I have evaluated hundreds of aggressive dogs. Hundreds. I always ask a few questions, but one of them is “how many people outside of your inner circle of family have physically engaged with and pet your dog?”

When people start counting on their fingers, I’ve discovered the core of the problem immediately. You see, when puppies are young, they are curious and also seeing the world for the first time. When you get your puppy at 8-weeks of age, just remember that their eyes have only been open for ~5 weeks (they are physically shut for the first 2-3 weeks).

For high prey drive breeds (i.e – border collie, Australian shepherd, German shepherd, heelers, Malinois, Dutch Shepherd, etc), in order for them to turn out as social as other low prey drive breeds (i.e – labs, goldens, standard poodles, rottweilers, etc), you need to bring your puppy into public places with you, and proactively approach strangers of all shapes, sizes, colors, heights, weights and ages, and ask them to physically engage with and provide a positive experience with your puppy.

By doing this, you are going to expose your dog to a wide variety of types of people, but ultimately this will build your dogs confidence around strangers. One of the most obnoxious things a dog can do is be a nuisance pet when you have guests over. Nobody wants to be around a dog that has no boundaries, no social skills, cant take social cues, is unreasonably nervous/anxious, and in general is stressful to be near. It’s just not fun. By proactively asking strangers to pet your dog and give them high-value treats, you are preventing your dog from being unreasonable around people that look like the person in front of you.

If you are an introvert, going out in public and asking strangers to help is probably your worst-case nightmare of a scenario! (We can do this for you in the board and train program)

Doing this task is absolutely essential to building your own puppy’s confidence around strangers. You should be targeting people of all types based on physical characteristics.

That means men, women, children of different ages, people wearing hats, sunglasses, hoodies, people of different heights, weights, body types, skin tones, and people who move differently. High prey drive dogs notice movement and novelty faster than most. If the only people who have ever touched them are the same five or six familiar faces, every new person becomes a potential threat or a potential chase object instead of just another human.

Start early and stay consistent. Between 8 and 16 weeks is the critical window, but the work does not stop there. Aim for multiple short, positive interactions every single day. Do not wait for people to approach your puppy. You approach them. Ask permission first, keep the interactions brief, and end on a high note while the puppy is still happy and engaged. A few seconds of calm petting and a treat is often more valuable than a long, overwhelming session.

Watch the puppy’s body language the entire time. Soft eyes, relaxed mouth, willing approach = good. Stiffening, whale eye (lots of whiteness), backing away, or intense staring = stop and create distance. Sometimes you’ll run into a situation where your dog is being unreasonable towards someone based on physical characteristics. It is 100% OK to ‘force the friendship’, as long as your dog has a positive experience. Even a neutral experience is OK. What we don’t want is for the puppy to wet its pants, express its anal glands, and/or react violently to the stranger. In the extreme majority of cases, forcing the puppy to deal with its unreasonableness is the best way to get over it immediately, and show the dog they are being silly for no reason.

Don’t let these ‘sunshine and rainbows’ trainers tell you that ‘forcing the friendship’ is somehow bad or mean. Its not. You simply cannot ‘ignore’ your way out of bad behavior or insecurities. You must approach it head on. Most times, a singular event with the thing they are nervous around will fix the problem. We don’t deal in absolutes in dog training, so there is a risk you could make it worse, but that only happens in less than a quarter of one percent of the time – aka, almost never.

High energy breeds will often want to jump, mouth, or bounce around during these meetings. That is normal. Explain to the stranger you’re sorry if the dog is mouthy but that is completely normal for almost all breeds of puppies and that its not actual malice or aggression. Jumping should just be ignored, as the point of the event is to have a positive experience with strangers. If you start correcting jumping (boundary setting issues), you might correlate the correction with the socialization which defeats the reason of being there!

Keep going past the puppy phase. Many high drive dogs start to tighten up again around adolescence (11–18 months). The same proactive approach still applies, just with more management and better impulse control skills in place. Continue introducing new people in controlled settings. Invite friends over. Practice on walks. Use the same criteria: short, positive, voluntary engagement with a wide variety of humans.

The dogs I see who end up reactive or aggressive toward strangers almost always share the same history: limited real-world handling by unfamiliar people during the developmental windows that matter. Genetics load the gun. Lack of proper exposure pulls the trigger.

Do the work early, do it deliberately, and keep doing it. Your high prey drive, high energy dog is capable of being social and stable around people. They just need more intentional practice than the average dog to get there.

For high prey drive breeds (listed above), your goal is to have no less than 1,000 complete strangers physically interact with your dog BEFORE they turn 10 months of age. The owner of GRK9, Jason, has a working Malinois that is arguably the most social Mal of all time, and has clocked in some 5,000+ positive interactions with strangers.

You simply cannot overly-socialize your dog.