It’s quite a common occurrence to find people looking for social events and doggy meet ups online, because they believe they need to ‘socialise’ their dog. For humans, to socialise means to go out with friends, have fun and enjoy a great time. But for dog’s it’s something very different.
Socialisation in the canine world means that dogs learn to interact appropriately with the typical life experiences they are going to encounter. It’s important to realise that appropriate interaction doesn’t necessarily mean saying Hi to everything – it’s equally important to know how to ignore something – be it a human, dog, cow, big pink fluffy teddy bear or any other distraction.
So when we throw our dogs into a big doggy free-for-all, we could actually doing them far more harm than good.
While dogs are social animals, what often gets overlooked is the fact that to a dog, their human family is their social circle (along with any other resident dogs). They’re the ones they chill out with, have fun with and live day to day with. When we take our dogs to a social event, what we’re asking them to do is quite unnatural – we’re throwing them together with a group of strange dogs and expecting them to get on.
Like kids in a playground, there are those who want to play quietly, those who want to run around and go crazy, those who pick on others, some who are the life and soul, and still others who are introverts and just want to have their own space.
As humans, we would soon become very uncomfortable if every human we encountered in the street bounced up to us and gave us an enthusiastic hug while talking loudly at us, whether we wanted them to or not. But this is what a social event can be like for our dogs.
Throwing all these different characters into one confined social situation can be an overwhelming experience, where shy dogs just become more scared and boisterous dogs learn to over-bearing and impolite towards others. To the untrained eye it might look as though our dogs are having a good time, but it is easy for subtle signs to be missed. One or two bad experiences can have a lasting impact on our dogs and how they interact with other dogs for the rest of their lives.
Teaching your dog good social skills is about more than just running around together.
Instead, we encourage you to build your dog’s social skills through carefully managed interactions with other dogs and focusing on building one or two strong relationships. It’s important that they learn to respect other dogs, listen and respond to social cues and learn to NOT say hello if it is not appropriate to do so.
Here are our top tips for successful social interactions for your dog:
- Plan a period of short 1-2-1 interactions for your dog, ideally in a quiet, neutral location with enough space that you can move away if necessary
- Choose a dog that you know is calm and well-mannered to encourage positive interactions
- Be aware of canine body language and know the signs you should watch for to indicate when they need a break and your should interrupt them
- Encourage calming activities such as sniffing or scatter feeds so that your dog learns to be with other dogs without interacting directly with them
- Keep it short and controlled to begin with – a good rule of thumb is for every minute of play, you should make sure your dog has 10 minutes break to calm down and relax in their own space
- Remember – your dog doesn’t have to be friends with every dog they see. If they don’t want to interact, we should advocate for them and politely tell other dog owners that or dog doesn’t want to say hi