Hands down, the number one hope that all soon-to-be puppy owners want, is a well socialised puppy that can play with all dogs, go to the park, dog beach or to where your life together leads you.
For many of us, we grew up with a family dog when house blocks averaged a quarter acre or more. We rode our bikes everywhere and the family dog ran with us barking with excitement for the soon to-be-had adventure of the day, and dog parks didn’t even exist.
Fast forward 20-30 years and the picture is now very different, but our desires forged by our memories still want it to be the way it was!
Unfortunately, the quarter acre lots are now more like the size of a postage stamp and time poor, dual working parents means the family dog doesn’t exist as it did when were kids.
These changes are bringing with them many challenges for our canine companions not previously experienced by owners.
With tighter restrictions in place our ability to give our companions the freedom we once enjoyed diminishes.
Dog parks with designated small and large breed zones now restrict us to allowing off leash opportunity in a way we’ve not seen before. Our dogs by default are now forced to navigate a veritable mine field of often inappropriate social introductions and interactions.
I wonder: in our human world where so many people refer to themselves and ‘introverts’ why do we expect other mammals to interact socially so openly & forcefully, by the boundaries of a dog park fence? Why are we expecting all dogs to be ‘extroverts’, when like so many of US are introverts with only a handful or friends or less?
With that said how do we, the dog owning community of today, help prepare our puppies for life ?
Continue reading with Part 2 of our blog series on Preparing Puppies for Life – Click here