Maybe this is going to be your first pup, the one you have waited forever to get. Or, maybe this is the pup to replace your aging hunter looking at his last field seasons. Either way, you should be prepared for what surely will be coming down the pipe. Because you are a sincere, dedicated to the new dog person, you will have done all your homework. You have selected the breed and the line in that breed, and you have waited patiently for your pup to be born. Then you checked in with the breeder to make sure the dam and her pups were given the best possible care.

Trying not to be a pain in the breeder's butt, you ensured he allows enough time for primary socialization of pups with mother and each other, and that he did a complete job of secondary socialization with adequate people contact. And you made sure he has challenged the pups physically and mentally so the pups will be able to cope with whatever life throws at them. Everything should be perfect.

However, there is another thing you should have done. If at all possible, you should make sure the pup has an olfactory imprint of you before it reaches the age when fear develops. Fear is not present in newborn pups, it develops slowly at first, starting in the fifth week. It increases gradually during the sixth week and then really escalates in the seventh to reach a level state by the tenth. Therefore, as the potential owner you should have gone to the breeder during the fifth or early part of the sixth week and got right in there handling, fondling and cuddling the pups, especially those you favor as possible keepers, making sure the "possible" pups get a good smell picture of you firmly imprinted in their developing brain.

The smell imprint of you and the low fear level will become instantly associated and your smell will be forever associated with low fear, low anxiety. To the pup, from then on and for the rest of its life, your smell will always mean "nothing to fear here" and smelling you will always be a positive reinforcement. This is the initial step in bonding, setting up a whole load of rapport between you and your dog. And rapport between you and your dog is most of the battle won right up front. Training will be just that much easier. It really doesn't matter how many people the pup of your choice smells during this critical time because he can easily accommodate them all. Obviously you don't take the pup home at this time, that will come in four or five weeks.

Though the first visit at the pre-fear age is the most important time, another visit or two will strengthen the imprint and have the pup (now a narrowed down choice) associate a visual cue and a sound of your voice with the imprinted smell of you. The pup will know you, be comfortable with you and the trauma of leaving his home for yours will be minimal.

If you don't believe the smell is important and permanent, think of the smell imprints you have. Who doesn't smell Yardley's Old English Lavender and associate it with a visit to Grandmother? Every Grandmother I ever knew used that soap, and smelling it even forty years or so later will take you back to when you were two or three years old and there was Gramma. This is how potent it is in people, and a dog gets a whole lot more through his nose than we do.