Days 50–63 Key Puppy Behavior:
7–9 weeks 7 weeks: Has total hearing and visual capacity
Will investigate anything
8 weeks: Is fearful of sudden or loud sounds and
movement
Is cautious of anything new in the environment
The period of behavioral refinement is characterized by progression from
unfettered curiosity to a more nervous evaluation of the stimulus created by
the pup’s environment. This reaches its height around eight weeks of age
and persists to about ten weeks of age.
This stage is an important milestone in a puppy’s life. He reaches full
visual and hearing capacity, and his brain is physically mature. This means
that the brain is ready to perform its physical processes and the pup can
start learning to respond to your wishes as long as the learning process is
taking place in very small steps. However, this doesn’t mean that he’s ready
to be treated as an adult dog. He is still emotionally very immature.
This age is sometimes termed the “fear period” because the pup is very
susceptible to long-lasting effects if he receives a bad fright during this
time. At five and six weeks, a puppy can be severely frightened and in a
relatively short period of time bounce back to his normal, happy self again.
However, during the eighth week, if the pup receives a bad fright, it may
take weeks for him to return to his normal behavior in the same frightening
situation. He may even carry the fear all his life. A loud, rough person, a
spanking, or an abnormally sharp noise are examples of frights that can
cause such a reaction. Thus, shipping a puppy to a new home by air freight
during the eighth week could have a lasting bad effect. But don’t think that
you have to go to the other extreme and be overly protective, keeping your
pup in seclusion. Let him have normal experiences.
Puppies at this age also become hesitant about new and different objects
and situations. During the preceding period (five to seven weeks), the
puppy usually approached the unfamiliar fearlessly. Now, at eight weeks,
the pup is noticeably more hesitant in his approach. He may go back again
and again to the same area or object as though he doesn’t trust his initial
judgment.
An example of this caution is seen with retrievers—the five- to sevenweek-
old puppy will splash in shallow water or happily bounce into heavy
grass, cattails, or whatever is in his path. But during his eighth week, this
same pup will start to be suspicious of water, even a shallow pond, or a pile
of rocks, and he seems to think that diving into a patch of weeds is
unthinkable, at least not without a lot of sniffing and investigating first.
However, by the end of the ninth week, this very pup is returning to his
previous crash-bang self.
This is all another normal and important part of the socializing process, a
continuation of sorting out the multitude of smells, sounds, and sights to
determine what is important.
