Buddy'sParents
12-30-2006, 03:47 PM
Ok, so Buddy's socialization was halted with his parvo when he was a young pup, but after he was cleared, we began right away.
We took him everywhere with us, to dog parks, pet stores, we let anyone and everyone pet him and we introduced him to new situations, etc..
But lately, he's been jumpy.
The day after Christmas we were at a rest stop on our home from visiting family. We took both boys out on their extended leashes to get some walking in and to relieve themselves.
Buddy was so engrossed in sniffing the ground that he didn't see, nor possibly hear the young boy who had sort of approached (he was about 10 feet away) and asked if he could pet our dogs. Buddy suddenly startled, his hackles raised a bit and he barked and took a step back. I quickly walked away with Buddy while hubby stayed behind with Banzai and let the boy pet Banzai.
Buddy has always been a people-dog. He just loves attention. But, lately, it seems he gets scared of situations so easily.
I don't want to put Buddy in positions in which he feels he needs to defend himself, nor in positions where he will get startled. But we were simply walking! And I know it was a new area, we had visited this rest stop before, but never gone out to walk where we walked before.
We no longer go to the dog park as it just proved to be an unsafe venture (Buddy attacked too many times and Banzai once- we're done with that). We go on walks and we play with them, they still go to the dog/pet stores with us...
Any thoughts?
We took him everywhere with us, to dog parks, pet stores, we let anyone and everyone pet him and we introduced him to new situations, etc..
But lately, he's been jumpy.
The day after Christmas we were at a rest stop on our home from visiting family. We took both boys out on their extended leashes to get some walking in and to relieve themselves.
Buddy was so engrossed in sniffing the ground that he didn't see, nor possibly hear the young boy who had sort of approached (he was about 10 feet away) and asked if he could pet our dogs. Buddy suddenly startled, his hackles raised a bit and he barked and took a step back. I quickly walked away with Buddy while hubby stayed behind with Banzai and let the boy pet Banzai.
Buddy has always been a people-dog. He just loves attention. But, lately, it seems he gets scared of situations so easily.
I don't want to put Buddy in positions in which he feels he needs to defend himself, nor in positions where he will get startled. But we were simply walking! And I know it was a new area, we had visited this rest stop before, but never gone out to walk where we walked before.
We no longer go to the dog park as it just proved to be an unsafe venture (Buddy attacked too many times and Banzai once- we're done with that). We go on walks and we play with them, they still go to the dog/pet stores with us...
Any thoughts?