06/13/2025
Let’s talk about it (not Moo getting constantly tangled in his leash lol that’s a whole other matter!).
Let’s talk about this situation that we came across on our walk last night. Moo was heavily socialized as a puppy! BUT there are still things we come across that can be scary to him. Today he came across this cone with caution tape attached moving in the wind. He started doing some growls and hesitant to move past it on the sidewalk next to it.
So we stopped our walk I let Moo walk up to it (as much as he was willing to do on his own) and I let him investigate how he needed to. I gave him the choice of approaching - I never want to force him to get close to something he is not confident about to avoid creating negative feelings towards it. I gave him some good boys and some treats for investigating this foreign thing at his own pace and preferred distance. Eventually he was his happy confident self and he moved on.
This post is to show that even though we have that early socialization it does not mean he is an impenetrable force with everything he sees. What it does mean though is he is confident enough to investigate it and knows how to investigate it when he is scared and figure out if it is actually something he needs to be scared of. It also means we have a strong relationship because he knows I am not going to lead him into a potentially dangerous situation.
