When I tell clients that I advise they do not take their dogs inside a dog park, the response is usually “But how am I supposed to socialize my dog?” I will cover dog parks extensively in another blog post, so let’s focus just on what socialization should be for dogs.
The Oxford Dictionary’s second definition is spot on for what I tell clients: “The process of learning to behave in a way that’s acceptable to society.” My mentor used to use this funny example when he’d talking socializing to clients. He’d say “If I walked into Chili’s and my 3 year old daughter started walking up to every table and giving them hugs, that would be inappropriate.” Though by many standards of dog owners, that’s what we expect from dogs! Be able to go to a dog park and intermingle with each dog, go to a brewery and let strangers pet you. Why do we think we want that? Because it’s convenient and less confrontational in our lives to never tell other people or dogs “No?”
There are many times dogs are BEGGING their owners to just say “no” and because that hasn’t happened, we’ve in turn creatine reactive, superstitious, less than ideal behaviors in our dogs. I did it to Onyx. The signs were there that he didn’t want to be flooded by other dogs and I ignored them, and I’ve been managing him closely ever since.
Dogs are living in our world, so “acceptable to society” means that dogs have to learn to chill out around the constant stress and whirlwind that is our reality.
Try to change your mindset around socialization to this: 90% of dog socialization is neutrality. We want our dogs to be calm, mostly disinterested in other dogs and people. How do we create that? By showing our dog over and over that you don’t need/have to/ get to interact with every dog that passes you on the street, and the same is for humans.
Have you ever thought about why you cannot pet dogs that are training to be service animals or working dogs? Maybe just once you thought “psht, I am not going to mess that cute dog up if I pet him! Just let me!” Because how can a dog properly relax and focus on a job if they think every person the pass might touch them, whether they love it or hate it! Imagine going to the airport and wondering if every person you passed might strike up a conversation with you. Would you be relaxed? Even as an extrovert, I would absolutely hate that!
In my old neighborhood in Colorado there were many houses and I would guess 1 out of 3 homes had at least 1 dog. You know what that means- walking by dogs all the time. When we would head out for a walk, 90% of dog owners up ahead would cross the street to the other side before we were even 50 feet from them. It never ceases to amaze me… that with my calculation only 10% of dog owners thought their dogs could handle walking by another dog while both leashed up! I would guess many of those dog owners take their dogs to dog park and may not have any issues. What’s that about!?
So if 90% of dog socialization is neutrality, what’s the other 10%? That’s your pack: the other dogs at home or your best friends’ dogs they see all the time. It’s the exception to the rule where you’ve pressure tested the dynamics and you’ve put in the time to manage the relationship so it shouldn’t have problems moving forward.
This is one of the main topics I discuss with clients whether you have a dog with some reactivity or you just got a puppy and want to make sure this doesn’t become an issue. It’s something Magnus K9 can help with!