Have a snippet of good-morning play with patient Game on the floor! Now that Game knows Chai well, she lets her crawl all over her while rolling on her back.
Sidenote: is my dog “socializing” (dog trainer speak for “learning to get along with other members of a certain species”) when playing with other household dogs/humans?
No! Family, friends and strangers are 3 distinct categories:
+ (Almost) every dog – even the most fearful one – will learn to trust human and canine household members.
+ Many, but not all dogs will make friends (human and/or canine) if given the opportunity.
+ Not every dog will get along with strangers (human and/or canine).
Having a multi-dog household or lots of human housemates doesn’t mean you get to skip socialization outings. That is, assuming that you want to have the most socially confident and at-ease-in-the-human-world dog your puppy is capable of becoming! Having other canine and human household members doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t replace experiences with strangers.
That said, genetics are a HUGE factor in who a dog is capable of becoming. So is their in-utero environment and the first 8 to 12 weeks of their lives which most puppies won’t be spending at their future home but at the place they were born.
Doing everything right once you’ve got the puppy doesn’t guarantee you a socially easy dog because the sensitive socialization period is already closing. It just nudges the dog into the direction of social at-ease-ness. How far in that direction an individual dog can go is still largely out of your control. If you hope for that social dream dog, you’ll still want to stack the deck in your favor to nudge as much as you can: head out there and socialize your pup in the way that is right for the two of you!
… end of sidenote!
In the morning, we practiced walking next to heavy traffic together with Game. Apparently, Chai knows how to make this look as if she had been doing it all her life! I’m happy and impressed with her!
They have certainly become friends! Sleepy after their morning outing.
We visited a corner convenience store in the puppy backpack Scarlett lent us. It’s starting to come in really handy for all the indoors training I want to do in places that don’t allow dogs (but won’t mind them as long as their paws don’t touch the floor)!
Chai in her (that is to say Scarlett’s and Nazli’s!) backpack.
Chai and Game also had another Las Islas UNAM adventure to be around people and dogs, run and have fun! There were SO many students today – and walking between them was no problem at all! Chai was neither magentized nor the least bit concerned. She was mostly interested in finding food scraps between the groups of people. Surprise dogs coming up from behind, like the Schnauzer, didn’t faze her either.
During the week, the campus is teeming with students! There are less dogs than on the weekend, but Chai had a good time meeting a few anyways!