It always amazes us how people are willing to wake up early on a Sunday morning for a dog-walking club, but our club is continuing to grow! This week we explored a historical urban park complete with formal flower garden, duck-filled lagoons, grassland walking paths and bison statues.
We have finally decided to call ourselves the SociaBulls Dog Walking Club. Our club includes all types of dogs, including many bully breeds and mixes. While our club works to
help socialize dogs through pack walking, we also think it's important that people can overcome misconceptions and see how well pitbulls and all breeds of dogs can walk together socially. On this walk we actually ran into several people who watched in admiration, had questions about the group, and even some people interested in joining.
We were glad to welcome back
adorable Buddy, distinguished Torre (who has perfect attendance!), handsome Rudder who came for his first walk, and sweet, sweet Daisy.
Dude who is so great at posing (we think he should have a pose-off with Miss M!), mellow Buster who walked perfectly, and charming Buddha who came all the way from the suburbs to join us.
We also had brindle-beauty Lily, smiley Lola (
who shared her amazing vacation with us), demure Izzy who was so happy to show us her neighborhood, and gorgeous Natsu who was so excited to be with model-extraordinaire Dude.
We also loved hearing this from Lily's mom after her first walk:
"This was the first time my leash reactive dog was able to walk so closely with others (on leash) and have little to no reaction. It almost made me teary to see her make that kind of progress in one day. These pack walk is a fantastic thing and we look forward to doing it as often as possible!"
We also had sweet, shy Maize who has become so confident leading the group (she reminds me of a little Majorette!), finally being able to meet newly adopted little Pip with his great over-the-shoulder posing, and
dapper Billy posing so nicely in the formal garden.
From all of the club members, I only knew 1 person from real life, so it really has been so great meeting everyone and hearing about their experiences with their dogs. I've been especially intrigued with Maize's mom's experiences and dedication working with Maize that we will share in future posts.
We are excited to have everyone, and we never imaged our group would grow so big! At the same time, we would like to limit our walks to 20 dogs to keep things manageable.
18 comments:
This sounds so amazing, so happy ot hear its going well!
We had SUCH a great time. We ended up stopping by one of Maize's classes after the walk because it was right around the corner so she was SUPER exhausted on Sunday. A tired pup is a good pup.
I am in love with Humboldt Park. Wow, what a beautiful area. Maize is excited to walk with Izzy again, who knows we may have a budding friendship.
Love the name of the group! Glad it's catching on! (Though, great ideas tend to do that!)
wow, so much success that you have to have an attendance limit-- that's a true testament to this awesome community! way to go :)
Every one of these walks sound like such a great time. I love the name for the group!
Sounds like it is going really well! The name fits perfectly. Sophie and I still need to make it to a hike a bull hike!
It really was amazing. I could practically hear Lola's thoughts as she went from DOGS DOGS DOGS!! to ok, we're just going for a walk, I think I get this.
She was so relaxed by our water break that she lay down next to me and went belly up for rubs while surrounded by all these other dogs.
Love it!
I am there in spirit!!
Wiggles,
Calhoun
We love the idea of the walking club. Great way to socialize
Benny & Lily
Wow! It looks like you're getting a great turn out!
Darwin and I just did a walk with our friend Aileen and Juneau. While Dar and Joo know each other Dar can sometimes have an attitude on leash. So we did a walk this weekend and they both did great! We walked side by side so Aileen and I could talk, but both dogs reacted well to each other (twice Darwin jumped over at Joo to play with her and Joo barked at her - who wouldnt bark at a Great Dane surprise jumping at you). We think we're going to start doing this more often!
This is so cool. I wish we had a group here is the Pasadena, CA area! A great experience for all the dogs and people!
Great name! Wow, I am just amazed at how your dog walking group has caught on! Did all these people find out about it through your blog? Makes me wonder what else could be accomplished, with a bit of blogging PR??
I'm glad you're having such great success with it! :)
Congratulations! Are you guys carrying business cards for adoptable dogs from your favorite rescues? I'm getting them all of the time and they are much easier to carry than flyers. If not, you should inquire (less than $3 with VistaPrint).
So awesome to hear about these great stories from your walks!! By the way, love the Sociabull name!!
The pack walks and hikes with HikeABulls here in the Bay Area have been so helpful for our dog Roadie. He gets so excited around other dogs and has his moments of leash reactivity, that finding a way for him to be social on leash was key to his progress.
Keep it up and keep posting updates!!!
What a feel-good story. I must have missed your original post about the benefits of social pack walking, so I just went back and read it. Very informative and interesting.
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