%title Puppy questions
%date 2009-11-05 01:09:44
:diary:livejournal:fossils:

For those dog people out there, I've got a question.  Within the last few days, Zephyr's started getting more and more afraid of everything out doors, to the point where I sometimes have to block the entrance to the deck long enough for him to do his business in the back yard, lest he run up and whine at the door.  He was leash-trained with 'heel' (well, sort of ^^), and would run with me for about a block or two, but now just tries to hide under ever car we pass.  Is this a phase, permanent, or something else I should be worried about?  He's seven and a half weeks old, which, I've heard, is the beginning of the "fear imprinting" phase, but I didn't expect that to mean that he would start being afraid of things he wasn't before.

Secondly, I know this is a very important time for socialization, but the vet-nurse flat pretty much flat out told me that I wasn't to socialize him with other dogs until he got his third distemper/parvo vaccine, which won't be for another six weeks.  This seems like it would cut out a lot of that learning period and possibly leave him unpredictable around other dogs.  Is this the case?