My puppy is nearing 4 months old and she’s been with us for about 3 weeks. I know we are in her critical window of socialization so I’m concerned about her fear of other dogs.
We’ve done two sessions of puppy class and at the end of each class we do controlled play. All the other puppies love playing with each other, but when it’s my puppy’s turn she cowers under the bench as soon as the other puppy gives her any attention. Luckily, there was a really calm puppy today and she did end up giving him a little sniff back but then ran away and hid.
She has no problem with the other puppies during leashed class time and enjoys watching them while we are training. She just gets super scared when the other dogs have the ability to get close enough to sniff her.
We will continue puppy classes but they only meet once per week. How do you go about finding friendly dogs for good exposure? We don’t know anyone here with a dog that would give her a positive experience. She did have a foster brother that was like 70 pounds and she loved rough housing with him so I just assumed she’d love other dogs too.
My last dog was extremely reactive to other dogs so I know I’m projecting some anxiety on making sure she doesn’t end up that way too.
submitted by /u/RandomOrchid1
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