Timken Learns About Life In The Real World, Part 2a

Tim is an adult dog in need of socialization. No big deal you think? Just take him to Petsmart and dog parks and large gatherings of people and dogs and he'll be fine. Nope doesn't work like that, even though I have seen it time and again with other dogs in public who are obviously uncomfortable in such stimulating situations. But many people, even me probably a long time ago, thought this is all you have to do to socialize a dog.

Ideally Tim would have been properly and lovingly socialized as a puppy boy but as is the problem with many rescue dogs, this was not the case, so the repercussions for Tim is anything, any place, or anyone new or novel can be very disconcerting for him. Then couple that with the fact that he is a "soft" dog by nature. Our responsibility to him is that we set him up for success and be his advocates every step of the way as we go about trying to fill in the missing pieces for him of being a trusting socialized doggie.

This all takes forethought on our part. But all the forethought in the world does not guarantee we won't make mistakes in how we handle something. Part of fostering rescue dogs and being doggie parents is learning what works and what doesn't for each dog. There is no one way to do anything with dogs as with people. We are always tweaking and adjusting our ideas, beliefs, and actions when it comes to our relationships with the dogs in our life.

I will post three short stories of Timken meeting new people in new places and what worked and what didn't. The pictures are not stellar as I really had to concentrate and be in the moment with the meet ups rather than worrying about getting good pictures.

 Tim meets our chiropractor and his wife at the clinic. A Positive Experience!

Our wonderful chiropractor and his wife are animal lovers through and through. Dr Ray, (who also does chiropractic work on animals), and Mary are so supportive of our efforts in fostering. They love it when we drop by with the latest foster dog (and personal dogs) and they are very savvy to the fact that sometimes the dogs are nervous. When I asked if they would set aside a slot of time when we could bring in Tim for a socializing visit they were happy to help! We all planned to do this after hours so we could lock down the clinic and Tim could have a quiet and peaceful meet and greet with a very tallll Dr Ray and his his gentle wife Mary.

This is Mary who just sat down and did the exact right thing when Tim came over for a check-out. She did not reach out to pet him nor did she did talk to him and she didn't make eye contact with him. We were all very excited that he felt comfortable to do this and were all a bit giddy.

We had brought Sybil in with Tim and she had no trouble going to get pet by Dr Ray. Tim seems to be a follower so the fact that she was comfortable with new people helped a lot!

Tim is the type of dog who needs reassurance all the time. He goes to foster dad for a little reassurance then he was off to explore some more.

Here is Tim wagging his tail! We did not over stay as we wanted to leave on a good note. We will go back again and see if Tim will be even more comfortable with multiple visits.

My next blog post will be about the second visit which did not go well at all. Stay tuned!