Struggling so much with getting socialisation right because our town is full of shitty people who can't take no for an answer.
Don't get me wrong, there's of course good people, in fact, my neighbours are amazing humans, extremely knowledgeable on dogs/puppies, so polite if I tell them today isn't a good day to be saying hello. They have joined us in some training by practicing greeting slowly with treats and just hanging around me without invading her space until she became comfortable enough to approach on her own. We practice being her calm and ignoring people when I go out to speak to them.
But Ripley, my mali, is extremely shy with new people, if I'm holding her (we're waiting on her second vaccines so not a lot of ground time atm) she starts shaking when people approach quickly, and trying to climb my shoulders to shy away. If she's on the lead, she begins shaking and sits by my legs and clings to me. This is fine when people back off when I advise or even if they notice she's anxious which we then work on some calmness and rewarding sitting happily which has been going well.
But our outings are never so simle. We went out for a short stroll this evening and a drunk guy started yelling if he can pet my puppy, I said no sorry, she's nervous and we're training. He insisted it's okay and he's chill and friendly. I said I get that but she's nervous and I have to go, we started walking away, Ripley was shaking and standing away to the side and wouldn't follow me so I ended up resorting to picking her up (I believe this was my biggee mistake), which he took as invitation to approach me and come over speaking extremely loudly, he was telling me about his bosses rottweiler etc, stunk of vodka. I just said that's cool but we have to go, shes extremely nervous and we wont be saying hi, and then went to keep walking, he followed to go in front of me and said please can I pet her and threw her hands into her face to pet before I could answer. I pulled back and repeated "I have to go" and kept trying to walk away and he kept stepping in front to try pet her more and ask about her and how important socialisation is (yeah, which you're actively worsening) and I kept turning away. At this point she was shaking and climbing my shoulder to get away and had pooped on me a bit.
The other day we had a disabled lady run up to us and immediately start petting her in my arms and yelling about how cute she was and how she loves dogs before I even had a chance to process wtf happened. I pulled away repeatedly saying "She's nervous, please don't pet." and her caretaker? (seemingly idk) came up and stood in front of me so I couldn't keep walking away saying "Sorry she's crazy for puppies and babies" and also tried to pet her whilst I kept pulling back. I did then say I've to go back to work and somewhat politely pushed past which they calmed down then.
We've had one or two similar where people come up and go "Oh we HAVE to say hi!!" and try to fuss her but some tend to be more respectful but I can tell it does overwhelm her.
I'm stumped on how to handle this. I remain calm and don't obviously spin around or overwhelm her, I move slowly and try to remain confident so I don't increase how overwhelmed she is. I definitely need to work on being way more confrontational and stern and even just not replying to these people at all to begin with, I'm aware of that. I am actively trying.
She's building a lot of confidence with our neighbours, over the last week or so she's gone from hiding to approaching them with a waggy tail and respectfully playing, checking in on me frequently too, and she has no issue walking past people on walks or people being around us if they're ignoring her, she looks at them and keeps an eye but otherwise happily goes on her way and focuses on me; It's just when they approach with her as their target, even more so when they're loud, sporadic or extra tall. And understandably so! She's just a baby.
I prioritise going to quiet areas to socialise her but we have to cross through the high street briefly to get back home which is where the worse of it is.
I've owned malis before and none of them have been so shy around people, hardest part was getting them to be calmer around people if anything. I also trained dogs for almost 5 years but haven't really dealt with the people invading our space so much when socialising a puppy, I worked (and raised my other dogs) in rural Ireland so people were far more polite in towns and parks so it wasn't an issue when I was training puppies but given I worked specifically with leash reactive adult dogs, so I admit I'm less experienced in a puppy when it comes to this sorta thing. Good lord it is so much easier to tell people to go away when you have a grown dog. People see a puppy and they genuinely just bee line and expect a super hyper fun puppy. It's like their brains go to their ass when they spot one.
I'm worried this is going to lead to a people reactive dog and I truly want to avoid this, and we spend a lot of time with my partners family and we do want her to be comfortable settling around people and not stressed, I want her to be happy and comfortable whilst being comfortable fitting into our life.
We don't go out too much so I dont think I'm overdoing it, we practice a lot from our driveway of just watching dogs, humans and cars go by but we are making sure to put effort in to go out to quiet areas or a calm cafe (so far that's been good! people too absorbed in their own thing to stop and say hello) but this has so far been majoritly negative than positive due to these sort of interactions which is getting to me.
Any thoughts or recommendations are highly appreciated!
Right now my blood is boiled by peoples inability to listen and my own lack of confidence to just barge straight past and ignore blatantly. It's hard not to feel like a bad owner/trainer in these situations but tryna keep positive here.
submitted by /u/dontstealmeagain
[link] [comments]