SociaBulls: What Other People See

I overheard someone explaining our SociaBulls group as not so much a Dog Walk as a 'Dog Parade'.

Sure, the places we pick are fairly empty (for the city) so a group of 20-something dogs all walking together does start to resemble a pet parade.
The people we encounter are always friendly and curious. Today we had several people sitting back on benches complimenting each of the pooches as they walked by. One child even asked if it really was a parade.

We've even had police officers stop us a few times because they were curious about what we were doing. Once we tell them they are always supportive. Today one of the officers even helped block traffic during one of our crossings.

We've also gotten a lot of friendly people walking or driving by asking how they can join. My favorite was a woman who stopped her car on a busy street and rolled down the window to yell "If I knew you'd be out her, I would have brought my Westie!".
We are always respectful of our area and we always make sure to stay on our side of the path and to step aside for other people trying to get by. We also love showing people this side of responsible pet ownership.

To learn more about our group, join our Chicago SociaBulls Facebook page for more photos and updates. And check out the Hikabulls page where we first learned about the benefits of group walking and this link from the DINOs (Dogs in Need of Space) group to read the discussion and see if there is a group in your area.

You can also read about all the different types of dogs who walk with our group and why they walk: Honor (The Gift of Learning to Relax), Maria (Not Letting Age be a Limitation), Sophie (Finding a Safe Place and Building Confidence), Torre (From Learning about Pitbulls to Developing an Ambassadog),  Estelle (Waiting to Be Noticed), Franklin (A Small Dog in a Big Dog Group), Gordon (Learning to Be Social and Have Dog Friends),  Nabi (A Shy Dog Making Sense of a "People World") Sprocket (Teaching a Dog When it's not Time to Play), Lola (Living in the City with a Dog who Fears Strangers),  Zoe (The Dog who "Loves Too Hard"),  Izzy (Being a good pitbull ambassador while working with an energetic dog) and Maize (Being social with an unsocial pup).