Friday, 30 August 2019

Traumatized(?) at the dog park


Hi all, My 5 month old Shiba Inu, Yoko, went to his first dog park today, and things were going relatively well! It’s a small dog park next to a large dog park, so he was sniffing all the bigger dogs through the fence and he wasn’t getting overwhelmed at all. In the smaller dog park, it was him and an aussie poodle mix. The aussie poodle was playing fetch with her owner and Yoko was just chasing her around, enjoying his 3rd/4th dog interaction ever. This happened for about an hour, then the owner took off. Another dog came in, and they sniffed each other, then the owner took them to the opposite side of the park while Yoko stayed with me. 2 good interactions! Everything was going fine. Shortly after, a beagle entered the park, and sprinted straight for Yoko. Although not biting, or scratching, the beagle was just overly enthusiastic to meet Yoko. Yoko got overwhelmed with how excited the beagle was, and began the infamous Shiba cry. His tail and ears were tucked, he was screaming, and he was trying to run away. The owners called their beagle back and I was reassuring Yoko back on the bench. He stayed away from all dogs for the next half hour we were there. Didn’t want to meet any of the new dogs entering and didn’t want to sniff any of the larger dogs through the fence. Even while leaving, some of the larger dgs (very friendly) were running to the fence to sniff him again (he sniffed these dogs earlier) and he was too scared to approach the fence. I approached them and encouraged Yoko to come sniff them again, but he started tucking his tail. I’m really worried if this event traumatized him and if he’ll ever associate with dogs again. Should I try going to the dog park again soon? I was going to bring him to his first puppy play session tomorrow, should I still do this? Should I avoid dog interactions temporarily? And if I do, how long? I apologize for the lengthy post, and any advice/tips would be greatly appreciated.

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