What happens if you over socialize a dog?

When a dog sees another dog on a walk and wants to play, investigate, or just say “hi,” the leash restricts their ability to do so. This is very frustrating for the dog. The resulting display is called barrier frustration, otherwise known as leash reactivity. The concept of over-socialization is gaining popularity, and it does sound like it makes sense, but this one falls firmly in the fad category. It is unfortunate because this myth makes things worse for dog parents: leash reactivity is exacerbated by lack of access to other dogs. All that will happen if a play-happy dog has too much dog play is that other dogs will become boring. Like eating your favorite meal for dinner every day, you will eventually become sick of it, and not feel an ounce of frustration if after months of this you were told you couldn’t have it. If your dog enjoys it, you really can’t have too much play. In technical terms, this is what we call abolishing operations: Take what is motivating the dog, or winning their attention, and give them enough of it to become boring.

We started taking him to dog parks and he was a bit hesitant with the other dogs, but now he loves it. Cue the big problem, he wants to meet like EVERY dog on the street. To the point he would pull like crazy toward them barking and howling in desperation to meet. This makes it seem like he’s a wild dog but he’s very good with others. His threshold to go nuts is like 10 meters. My question is did we over socialize him meeting way to many dogs and giving him the expectation that he gets to see and meet them all the time.

Daycare can be a great tool, but people make the mistake of over socializing their dog to the point where they get sick of it and become reactive or even dog on dog aggressive. They are pack dogs so they can learn to be a bully. The more you keep bringing them, the chances of them getting confident and picking up these reactive dog behaviors increases. Some dogs it takes weeks of that for them to become reactive, some less, some not at all. Fast forward a few months and now they are getting naughty report cards from us saying their dog went after another dog or is becoming fixated and barking at another dog etc. More socialization is not the key. If you have a happy go lucky dog, then occasional interactions is all they need, more than once a week daycare I think can turn these types of dogs to be reactive. Sending them to daycare 5 times a week might turn them into a puddle and be more fear reactive, you have to find the right balance for the severity of your dog. The bottom line is you do not need to overdo socializing your pet, you should take your dog out and get them accumulated to dogs, people, new places, noises, etc.

Overwhelming stressful exposure is harmful. Lots of good exposure is not. If your dog lacks impulse control and wants to run and greet every dog and human they see, and becomes frustrated and acts out if they can't, this is a training issue, not a socialization issue. Your puppy needs a lot of rest so you don't want to exhaust and burn them out. But continuous social exposure to sensory stimuli will, if anything, lead to habituation and satiation. In other words people/places become old news and less interesting to your dog so they focus on you more. Rambunctious players may overwhelm your pup causing stress and social behavior problems. If you have a breed that tends to be dog aggressive work with an experienced trainer on cultivating their dog socialization.