Today’s topic is why socialization is like a restaurant. Socialization is something essential that you’re going to need to do with your young dog. If you’re waiting to socialize your two-year-old dog, you’re a little bit too late. Before I give you some tips for socialization, I should probably start by saying what I feel socialization is and then go into a little bit of depth about that.
Two Things
I feel that socialization is your dog’s ability to do two things. One – pay attention to you and the other members of your family. The other thing is to ignore other animals, other people, and other things as much as is necessary. That’s a little vague. So here we go into making it a little bit more detailed.
So I feel that socialization is a lot like a restaurant. When I go into restaurants with my friends and family, I pay attention to the staff that’s going to seat me. I pay attention to our server and anybody that’s going to come by the table. Any hostesses, busters or any people of that nature. But then, as I think about the people at the tables around me, sometimes I’ll end up talking to them. But, oftentimes, I don’t talk to them at all. Even though they might be a few feet away. What I am doing is I’m focused on the people that are at my table if everybody would keep their cell phones away! (a little bit of a joke there)
Attentive To Each Other
We’re going to be at the table together and we’re in a massive pack of other people that are doing the same thing that we are. But we’re being more attentive to each other than we are to everything else that’s happening in the room. And that’s what I feel that dog socialization should be. It shouldn’t be, in my opinion, how well your dog plays with other dogs. Because in nature if you’re a dog of one pack and you want to play with another pack, that generally doesn’t always work out well for you.
But domestic dogs aren’t terrible at it. With wild dogs, it’s lethal if you go out and play with another pack. Domestic dogs can do well with it. There still are fights from time to time, whereas your dog will do well with the members of its pack. Which is really what you’re trying to show the dog how to do. So socialization is like being in a restaurant. You could compare it to what most people or what some people think to do, which is take their dogs to a dog park.
A Rave
When I think about that, it’s nothing like a restaurant. It’s more like a rave. It’s like sending your dog to a place where there will be other dogs that maybe aren’t so well at socializing. And maybe other dogs are aggressive. Maybe the people there don’t have so much control of their dogs. It can lead to some problems. Now, I don’t want to tell you that a dog park is a terrible idea, but I see it producing more problems than it’s fixing, after all. In my opinion.
Whenever I get a dog, I get the dog for myself. So that way the dog can enjoy me and I can enjoy it. And if you’re using the dog park primarily for socialization and to get your dog’s energy out, it can become problematic. Then your dog is going to start thinking that the dog park is the most important thing. And shouldn’t that be you?
What You Should Do Next
So what’s an excellent way to go about socializing a dog? Well, I guess you’re not going to be surprised when I tell you what I’m going to say next. Take your dog to a restaurant with a patio and learn how to teach your dog to ignore the other things that are going on around outside and past the table. Teach your dog that being at the table together with you is a great thing to do.
Now, there’s a lot of other ways that you can go about socializing you dog but this is just one of them. But consider this. Shouldn’t socialization be like a restaurant, or should it be like a rave?
I hope this was helpful. Feel free to go to my YouTube Channel for more content or find tips just like this right here at www.longoriahausdogtraining.com.
Happy Training!
