Reddit reviews Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training, Vol. 1: Adaptation and Learning

This series is pretty good I think, but it's probably getting a bit dated now.

I recommend the following free books. After You Get Your Puppy on Ian Dunbar's free downloads page has an awesome chapter on teaching bite inhibition. The two guide dog school books have detailed schedules for socialization.

Ian Dunbar - Free Downloads and Dog Training Digital Textbook - you'll have to register for the site, but it takes 30 seconds

Guide Dogs for the Blind Puppy Raising Manual

Seeing Eye Puppy Raising Manual

Now about bringing the puppy home at six weeks, it's a little young, but it's not the end of the world. Most kennel club hobbyist breeders insist on minimum 8 weeks or older, but most professional working dog breeders disagree. Steven Lindsay in Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training, v 1 says:

>The ideal timing for this transition is 7 weeks of age, with a relative range of -1 or +1 (6 to 8 weeks). The 7-week marker is a long-standing convention among insightful breeders and trainers, but it is also supported by various empirical observations.

Seeing Eye guide dog school, for example, sends their puppies to puppy raisers' homes between 7 and 8 weeks. Guide Dogs for the Blind separates the puppies from their mothers at 6 weeks and sends them to puppy raisers at 8 weeks. Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind separates puppies from their mothers and littermates at 6 weeks and sends them to puppy raisers at 7 weeks. Guide Dogs for the Blind UK sends puppies to puppy raisers at 7 weeks. Guide Dogs Victoria sends puppies to puppy raisers at 7 weeks. The US Military places its puppies in foster homes at 8 weeks.

Here is the rest of Lindsay's analysis:

>A dog must feel equally comfortable in the company of other dogs as well as enjoy human companionship. Such social flexibility is in large measure contingent on early exposure and experience. The process of bonding and social conditioning within the context of the human domestic environment is referred to as secondary socialization. For most purposes, secondary socialization begins in earnest when a puppy leaves the mother and littermates to begin life with a human family. The ideal timing for this transition is 7 weeks of age, with a relative range of -1 or +1 (6 to 8 weeks). The 7-week marker is a long-standing convention among insightful breeders and trainers, but it is also supported by various empirical observations (Freedman et al., 1961).

>Firstly, this period is associated with increasing irritability on the mother’s part toward her young, coinciding with the decline of lactation and a growing disinterest in nursing. This disinterest is not shared by her puppies, whose appetites are as sharp as their teeth. Not surprisingly, maternal punishing activity peaks at around this time (Rheingold, 1963; Wilsson, 1984/1985). The mother’s job is done both nutritionally and psychologically, making 7 to 8 weeks of age a very sensible time for final weaning and the finding of a new home for her brood. Secondly, within the litter itself, agonistic interaction between the puppies has reached a peak, and although their aggressive play is not intended to hurt, the skills and attitudes developed by such incessant competitiveness does not beneficially serve puppies in terms of their future adaptation to family life.

>In addition to the foregoing observations, experimental study of the social development of puppies reveals that several motivational parameters associated with bonding and socialization peak at about this time (Scott and Fuller, 1965). For instance, distress vocalization and reactive behavior exhibited during brief isolation from littermates reaches its highest levels at around 7 weeks of age but undergoes a rapid decline through week 10. Also peaking at this time is a puppy’s willingness to approach strangers confidently and to investigate novel things with vigorous tail wagging. However, the strongest support for encouraging adoption during week 7 stems from the progressive potentiation of fearfulness and the simultaneous attenuation of social approach tendencies occurring at this time. This pattern of increasing fear and social avoidance forms a trajectory that culminates with the close of the socialization period sometime after week 12. These two opposing social dimensions (fear and attraction) optimally intersect during week 7 (Fig. 2.6). The balanced interplay of attraction and fear is fundamental to bonding and socialization in the broadest sense.

>From what has been discussed, puppies appear to be developmentally prepared to experience the most efficient secondary socialization during a short period around 7 weeks of age. However, this does not suggest that puppies younger or older than 7 weeks are unfit or unable to benefit from socialization. The critical or sensitive period hypothesis of socialization stresses that a short period of time, or window of opportunity, exists during which optimal socialization effects can be fully realized. It does not, however, state or imply that socialization occurring outside of these developmental boundaries is not beneficial.

>A reasonable objection against delaying secondary socialization until around week 7 might be based on arguments favoring an earlier starting point for socialization. Fiveweek- old puppies are more outgoing and less fearful of social contact than are 7-week-old puppies. It would appear to make sense, therefore, to initiate secondary socialization at an earlier stage in the socialization process rather than waiting. Certainly, it is a period when conscientious breeders should be providing daily and careful handling consistent with a puppy’s future placement. However, there are many benefits accruing from keeping the litter intact until week 7. These factors have already been discussed in detail, but to reiterate: puppies removed from the litter too early are at risk of developing adjustment problems of one sort or another as adult dogs. Adoption is a matter of timing. Both the extreme of adopting too early (before week 6) or too late (after week 12, with the emergence of increasing social avoidance) may compete with appropriate socialization or predispose puppies to develop social adjustment problems.

If you want to go overboard: Handbook of Applied Dog Behavior and Training, Vol. 1: Adaptation and Learning

Easy reading: Excel-Erated Learning: Explaining in Plain English How Dogs Learn and How Best to Teach Them