Socialisation: is it the ‘be all and end all’ of creating resilience in companion animals?

Few puppy or kitten owners get through a first vaccination visit at a veterinary practice without hearing the term ‘socialisation’. The owners of older pets may hear veterinary staff or dog trainers, suggesting that the owner takes steps to ‘socialise’ their pet. Yet, what do these terms, being applied to animals of very different developmental stages, actually mean? Are they interchangeable? And, if ‘socialisation’ is a process associated with the early development of the puppy or kitten, is it impossible to improve the social and environmental skills of older animals? These questions are perennially pertinent to pet owners, but possibly more so this year as veterinary practices continue to meet the young dogs and cats that have joined family homes during the spring/summer of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, and as many more puppies and kittens join families amidst the COVID-19 social disruptions of the autumn/winter of 2020.

McMillan (2016) suggested that social animals that form strong relationships and are integrated most strongly into group living are most likely to survive, reproduce, and raise offspring to reproductive age. McMillan also suggested that animals that fail to conform to the social norms of their species may be ostracised by con-specifics (animals of the same species), leading to reduced levels of safety (e.g. from predation), and reduced hunting/foraging success, potentially resulting in their mortality. Sociality, hence, provides benefits such as mutual protection; whereas, social isolation may represent a danger. McMillan suggested that if individual animals are unable (whether as a result of individual circumstances or species-specific preferences) to associate with their own species, there can exist a strong motivation to create a social bond with an alternative social species.