Proper Dog Socialization or How Trinity Would Be The Perfect Foster Sister

Proper socialization is very important for everyone. Whether you have 4 legs or 2, we all need to interact with things that are out of our comfort zone. Dog's, in my opinion, are very high on the scale of proper socialization. They need to be desensitized to be around all types of things such people, animals and especially dogs.

Trinity playing with all her friends at our training center

 I was very lucky to have such a well socialized dog. Trinity loves all types of dogs and people. Of course it does help that she had a great dog mommy to show her how to do this. Although she still enjoys chasing her kitty sisters. But I understand that not all dogs are as perfect as my baby is (I'm a little biased). An incident that happened over the weekend really got me thinking about this.

She loves to play!

Zach and I went over his parents house and our friend came over with his small dog, Pancake. My father-in-law's dog, Lady, was adopted after living with her 8 siblings in foster care for 4 months with out being with their mom. Unfortunately, Lady doesn't have very good social skills and dislikes new people and dogs coming into her home. Which caused a problem when Pancake came over. She ended up getting out of the house and pounced on him scaring the crap out of him and my nephew. I was inside with my niece and all I heard was yelping and people yelling.  Lady's quite a fat large dog and doesn't understand that is not the way to greet other dogs. Trinity, on the other hand, knows that to greet others you have to smell them and then if they like you, a play bow is the way you initiate play time. You don't just force your way on to another dog.

She's got an 'only child syndrome'. (Sirius Republic collar shout out!)

But I do know that it's not all the dog's fault. As their parents we need to train them, socialize them and if need be, to desensitize them to things that cause them to be scared or react. So I ask myself. What happens if I had not taken Trinity to puppy kindergarten? Or allow her to play with all types of dogs at the dog park? Would she still be a wonderful dog whom has wonderful doggie social skills? She still has many things to work on, but that's nothing training can't fix. I feel confident that Trinity would be an awesome foster sibling (bucket list here I come!) and would be ok with having another dog in the house. Even though Trinity's ok with it I still have to convince Zach, er??

"I like to socialize with my Auntie!"

I do know that when you adopt a dog not all are perfectly socialized. So, how do you work with your dog? Did they come well socialized or did you work on their issues?