Normal life has been put on hold with the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic taking over the world these days. But what do you do when you have a new puppy in the midst of all this?

Socializing your puppy is critical during those early days. While it's critical before they hit that 12 week mark, it's also important to CONTINUE socializing puppies properly through the remainder of puppyhood and adolescence. But how do we do that with a pandemic going on?

First and foremost, make sure you are following whatever restrictions are in place in your area. Depending on where you are and what day it is, restrictions will vary.

While meeting your puppy's needs during this time is going to be challenging and not ideal, there are many things you can still be doing to help your puppy as much as possible.

Normally, we want you getting your puppies out and meeting as many people (safely) as possible. While there are no indications that puppies can contract the virus, you certainly can if you are taking your puppy out in public. So, these days we have to be more concerned about YOU picking up something dangerous than we have to worry about your puppy.

So what do we do now? If you can find ways to get your puppy out and SEE and SMELL people from a distance, then they are getting some form of socialization even if it's not ideal. Can you take your puppy to places where you can watch people from a distance?

Depending on where you live and what restrictions are in place, perhaps you can go to local parks or grocery stores or places people are still going but keep your distance. Watching from the far end of the parking lot or sitting somewhere in the park where you can see other people out walking but from a safe distance away. While they say a minimum of six feet, err on the side of ten or more feet.

If you are not leaving your home at all, can you watch people from your front porch or front yard or front door even? If you are in an apartment building, a busy neighborhood or other place with lot of traffic, your pup will still get a chance to see lots of people. Your pup will just have to watch them and not interact at this point.

If others are out for a walk, can you sit in your front yard and watch them go by? If you are in a neighborhood, most likely more people are home than usual so there might very well be more activity to see how than they would normally see.

When we talk about socialization, we often really meaning exposure to lots of things as well as meeting people. Can you find ways to expose your puppy to new sights and sounds and smells – but again from a safe distance?

Any friends with cows or horses or chickens or other animals that you can bring your puppy to see from a safe distance?

Can you find a safe place to go where your pup can hear water flowing or trains going by?

Can you find places for your pup to walk on different surfaces they might not find at home, such as grass, dirt, mulch, rocks, or pavement?

Can you find places to hang out and watch life go by? Again, from a safe distance where you are not touching or handling things that might transmit the virus. Even if that means staying in your car and watching from there without stepping outside.

While in person is a more authentic experience, how about playing videos on your computer so your dog can hear horses, cows, chickens, sirens, trains, thunder, people, kids, dogs barking and lots of other sounds they might hear in their lives going forward?

While you can't take your puppy to the kids' soccer games for a while, find some videos online you can play so they can hear the sounds they will once soccer games resume.

If you are at home, do you have any Halloween costumes you can haul out and have family members wear? While not “new” people, even the exposure to familiar people wearing different things can be very useful. Think of the puppies who are born in the spring or summer and never see someone bundled up in winter gear until several months later.

Provide as much novelty as you can within whatever boundaries or restrictions are in place at the moment. Rearrange things in the house. Bring things out that have been stored away. Create obstacles that your pup can climb on and over and crawl under.

Create a “fort” in your house like kids would (even better if you have kids!) with chairs and blankets. Or create obstacles to climb over by placing broom handles across some stacked books (just climbing over not jumping for young puppies!) or other obstacles.

Haul out some things in the back yard that you can use. Things to sniff and climb over and walk around and crawl under and run around. Move them to other parts of the yard if they are normally there. Haul things out of the garage temporarily that your pup might not see if they are normally packed away.

While your puppy might not get the chance to get face-to-face with new people right now, there are ways to at least simulate the experiences so they are not entirely deprived of these exposures.

Do the best you can to give them as many safe experiences as you can. And continue it through puppyhood and into adolescence for as long as we need to be vigilant about this virus. They will be that much better off once we can get back to some of our normal activities in daily life.

Do the best you can and your pups will be that much the better for it!

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