Being Social with an Unsocial Pup

While our SociaBulls group is not a 'magic feather' that will instantly turn your pooch perfect, we have been hearing that it has been helping people continue to work on things they've already been working on and help supplement their pooches' socialization.
We have been especially interested in hearing about Maize, a sweet shy pup that was started on our inaugural walk, but also struggles with severe leash reactivity. I had never realized how difficult leash reactivity was, until walking one of our rescue dogs and feeling hopeless about going anywhere in a city filled with dogs. So we were very intrigued by Maize's story, knowing how dedicated her mom is working with her, and hearing how she is learning to be social with an unsocial pup.
Spoiler Alert: Maize was part of a confident 'Pitbull Trifecta" on our last walk!

Maize’s Story

 The dog walking group has given me new found hope. As it turns out there ARE ways to be social with other dogs even if your dog is leash reactive! I used to drive by dog parks or walk by dogs socializing in the park and lower my head in frustration and maybe even a little bit of jealousy. I have 2 leash reactive dogs which makes city walking where there are tons of dogs around difficult at times. This used to be something that was hard to admit or talk about.  I didn’t know anyone else who experienced the struggles I have faced in the past 3 years. 

 Prior to adopting my staffie mix Maize it was me and my pug. Although he’s been leash reactive (only in a 1-2 mile radius of our home) for years it was never a big deal. Since he is a small dog people tend to dismiss any reaction and come straight up to him and oooohh and awww over his extremely flat face and bugged out eyes. When my Maize came in to my life I had just lost a 9 year old golden retriever in a break up and my heart ached for her. My neighbor informed me of a dog that had been abandoned at the grooming salon where he worked. She was left by her owner who no longer needed her and was moving. She was being financially supported by a rescue and was staying at various groomers homes. When I first saw her walk down the courtyard her head hung low as she sauntered towards me. This was not a physically abused pup, just a young girl who had a couple of litters, no socialization and no self esteem.  I thought to myself, ‘I’ve had two dogs before I can totally handle this!’ I had no idea what I was getting myself in to.

 What is leash reactivity?

My experience with leash reactivity is a reaction that it happens out of fear and as part of mimicking her pug brother. I don’t think Maize was ever socialized as a puppy and the combination of having no self esteem and living with my leash reactive pug she could only help but follow her pack leader. 

 I'm no expert, but in my experience with leash reactivity, I see the behavior as actually built-up frustration. Two dogs see each other across the street; one dog gives a hard stare or bark; the other dog lunges forwards and feels the pull of the leash on the collar or harness. In this case, the lunging dog then becomes frustrated that it is restrained and unable to approach the other dog. When this repeatedly happens over and over again, the dog begins to equate the pull of the harness or collar as being retrained and becomes reactive towards this restraint. When on walks together, as soon as Pug would start to lunge, so would Maize and then all bets were off.  Maize would also lunge at everything, not just other dogs. She was so scared and confused and had no coping skills that reacting was the only outlet for her. The solution to this problem has been learning some great redirection tricks and then being able to practice them during the SocialBulls Walking Group.

  

What Socialbulls does for us- The Trifecta

 What has been so amazing about our experience with the SocialBulls Dog Walking Group is that Maize can walk with 15-20 other dogs. She is usually in the lead so sometimes she doesn’t realize who is behind her until she turns around and even then there is usually no reaction from her. This past weekend was particularly amazing. We went to Humboldt Park and Maize and I walked next to Izzy and her mom. Izzy is an extremely well behaved pup who has amazing focus, which then helped Maize to feel more at ease and more confident in her socialization and walking.  Not only did we walk next to Izzy we also walked behind her and at the end of the walk Maize was walking next to Izzy AND Lola. The three of them easily strolled through the park together and I nicknamed them the 'Trifecta'. 

 The amazing part of the group is that dogs never meet face to face so I don’t have to worry about the other dogs and their owners because we are all there for the same reason. I think I have also benefited from SocialBulls because I’ve been able to meet other people that have the same passion for their dogs as I do and everyone seems so kind and understanding. Maize has come a LONG way and I think the key is to keep her active with other dogs just like this group!

It has been so great to hear how well Maize was doing, and we were so proud to see how confidently she was walking with her new friends. And while the group isn't a magic formula, it has been great having so many like-minded, supportive people working towards a common goal. Tomorrow we will have a recap of our walk, including a new way to sign up. Next week our walk will be traveling up north to the North Shore Channel trail.

How to Be a Tourist with Your Dog: Upstate New York

I think Miss M secretly dreams of being a water dog, so we are always very interested in seeing our dog friends who actually are aquatic. We loved reading Corbin's tour of Upstate New York complete with gorgeous lakes and scenery, war reenactment fields, local art, dog-friendly dining, and a dog-night at the ballpark (where Corbin even got to go on the field!). Read more about Corbin, here:                              
I didn’t realize how many dog friendly things there were to do in our area until we adopted Corbin.  Either these dog friendly things appeared out of nowhere, or I was just completely oblivious to them in the BC times (Before Corbin).

One of our favorite things to do with Corbin is to visit Lake George, which is about 45 minutes north from our home.  We have a boat, so it makes it easy to enjoy the beautiful scenery.  Since we spend most of our time on the boat, we often miss out on the great hiking trails and camping areas the Adirondack Mountain’s offer.   Even if you don’t have a boat, most of our favorite places can also be driven to or hiked to.  Lake George is approximately 22 miles long.  Of course, boating is fun in the summer, but when winter comes and the boat is packed away, there are some really great places to go skiing just a few miles further north from Lake George.

 All of the camping sites in Lake George are dog friendly, except for the island camp sites.  The islands have a very strict no dog policy – dogs have to stay 500 feet away from any island, even if they’re on a boat.  One of our favorite camp sites is at Shelving Rock.  There’s a beautiful waterfall that you can get to after an easy hike.  Shelving Rock also leads into one of our favorite bays, Log Bay.  Corbin especially loves it here because he can touch in most areas.  He also likes to hang out in his float and enjoy socializing with everyone walking by.

 Lake George also has a dog friendly beach right in the village.  Corbin gets to visit the beach after non-swimming boat rides.  There’s also a large park across the street from the beach which is great for picnics and a good game of fetch.  About a half a mile from the dog beach is a great dog store that Corbin enjoys going into for some free treats.

 Aside from Lake George, one of our favorite places for a nice long hike is the Saratoga Battlefield.  There are over 9 miles of trails and 9 stops throughout the way to learn about the history of the land.  You can also drive to each of the 9 stops if you’d like.  There are often reenactments which makes it very interesting.  As much as you try, the volunteers who do the reenactments never leave their character.  They’re often building a camp fire and cooking food or washing laundry. This photo is Corbin at the Neilson Farm.  This home was used for quarters of the American staff officers in September 1777.

 Our area has lots and lots of doggie daycares.  Corbin enjoys his daycare days when we have a busy week and we know we’re not going to have a lot of time to exercise him.  If you visit our area, one of the best places to go that is not dog friendly is the Saratoga Race Track.  The track runs from the last weekend in July until Labor Day.  The big race before the last racing weekend is the Travers.  Often horses from the Derby, Preakness and Belmonte come up to run in this race, which has been known as the 4^th leg of the Triple Crown.  

 Aside from the track, Saratoga is a very dog friendly town.  It’s a classic town with Victoria style homes and shops.  The town is full of Art and there are over 20 unique horses painted by local and national artists. 

 Most restaurants and stores allow dogs and our favorite dog boutique, Sloppy Kisses, is located right on Broadway in Saratoga.  There are also many restaurants in Lake George that allow you to bring your pooch along in their outdoor seating.

 Lastly, one of the events we most look forward to every year is Bark at the Park with our local double A baseball team.  It’s a night where you can bring your dog to the ball park and enjoy a game.  Since baseball is one of our favorite sports, and Yankee stadium is 3 hours away (also, they don’t have a dog night like the Mets do!), we really look forward to our outing with Corbin.  This year, Corbin was invited onto the field to do some tricks with other dogs.  He lost to a dog that could jump through a hula hoop!  This year was the first year we set up a booth for our dog rescue.  We ended up with one new foster family and a handful of people that came to our adoption clinic the following weekend!

Oh, and Corbin would like to add that I completely missed the best attraction in upstate New York… him!

You can read more about Corbin's adventures, and his many foster siblings, on his blog here.
We have been getting so many great posts, but we would like to wrap up our contest and have all posts submitted by September 16.
And as an added incentive, Sirius Republic is donating 2 collars and we will have a random drawing of all the submitted 'How to Be a Tourist with Your Dog' posts to have 2 collar winners. Winners can chose from a standard collar, or an 'Adopt Me' collar to promote your foster or adoptable dog as modeled by Levi. And we will still be donating money to the rescue of choice for the 2 posts with the most comments.

In case you missed them, you can also read our other Tourist with Your Dog posts showcasing New York City, Austin, Florida, Portland, Richmond, Seattle,  Kansas City, Nashville, Alaska, and Chicago. And you can read about roadtripping with 4 large dogs, boating to the Bahamas with a pit bull, specific tips for roadtripping with a large dog (NYC to rural Tennessee), Chicago Dogs Sidetrip to Harbor County, and Destination "Dog Mountain" in Vermont.

Living European with Dogs: Old-fashioned Toys in Parks, Inspiration from Paris

 One of the best things we learned from our summer travels, was that even though it is fun to get away, we can still recreate some of our favorite aspects of our trip on an everyday level. And include the pooches. Our trip helped us recognize the importance of slowing down, and one of our favorite things to do in Paris was sit in the Luxembourg Gardens surrounded by gorgeous flowers, cheese and baguettes, and children playing with old-fashioned toy boats in the duck pond.

 They rented the boats by the hour and used a wooden stick to help it set sail. The excitement was being able to run to the other side to catch the boat and launch it again.

 We spent several hours enjoying the gorgeous park scenery and the nostalgia of the old-fashioned toy boats.

So we decided to try it at home. Even though we don't have cute little toy boats, we remembered the nostalgia of flying kites. So we picked up a brightly-colored kite from World Market and headed out with the pooches to the park.

The dogs were enamored with the kite, especially the tail. And it was fun watching their expressions whenever the kite came near them. Another fun part, the kite attracted a group of children who came to play with us and meet the pooches. The kids had fun playing with the kite and letting Miss M give them smooches, and our outing became a 'community' event.

Dog Training: Bad Dog Manners

 Some of E’s favorite stories are hearing about “feral” Miss M. When I adopted Miss M, she was a true city dog; she had been found as a stray roaming the mean streets of Chicago. Like many urbanites, she had attitude.

I joke that she was raised by wolves because I had to teach her the ways of the household. I couldn’t leave her alone and even had to take her into the bathroom with me. If she got frustrated on walks she would try to grab her own leash to walk herself, which often resulted in me having to bellyflop on top of her to put her in calming position. Which is embarrassing when people see you are lying on top of your huge dog.

Despite her poor manners, she is very treat-motivated and took well to training. It was really the down-stay command that changed our lives. We went through a lot of training, but I eventually trained her to be a respectable dog.

Though I think if she wasn’t an only dog, and she had a positive dog role-model, her progress might have been quicker. We joke that Mr. B came ‘already trained’, but we think a lot of his progress was seeing Miss M as a positive role-model. We had forgotten how when we first adopted him he would lunge and bark, toy guard, and rip apart an entire baseball mitt in one sitting. Which is hard to imagine considering how protective he is of his pink stuffies

We really became aware of this as we've been fostering Levi. Everyone saw the video of A Night with Levi and how he is so crazy;  he is kind of like that guy at the party running around with underwear on his head. But in this second week we have noticed a lot of changes in the little guy, and he has started imitating our pooches. He learned to wait nicely in his crate for breakfast and dinner, sit at corners, and walk nicely in a pack, just by watching our pooches.

 Do most people notice in multi-dog households the other dogs just pick up the good habits? And does anyone have good tips for teaching 'only dogs' good manners?

SociaBulls Dog Walking Club Does Historic Urban Park

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.

How to be a Tourist with Your Dog Series: Destination "Dog Mountain" in Vermont

We were quite excited to see this week's "How to Be a Tourist With your Dog" post showing a unique dog-destination in Vermont. Read about artist-created "Dog Mountain", its fantastic annual dog party, and the reflective "Dog Chapel" covered with letters--the only of its kind in the world. Though sadly, this free refuge for dogs and owners has fallen on some hard times. Read the complete story, contributed by Nan, below:

P.S. Nan was the first person in real-life I ever knew who owned a pit bull!

While planning my recent trip to Vermont I decided to peruse travel books and magazines to help me find some unique adventures because I had been to Vermont many times before.  I picked up a copy of Yankee magazine and was intrigued by an article called “Retrospective” about a Vermont artist whose subject matter was dogs.  Stephen Huneck, the artist, created Dog Mountain… 150 acres of trails and ponds for dog lovers to have fun with and bond with their pets and “Dog Chapel,” on the grounds, for owners who had lost their beloved pets to find closure and healing.  When I realized that the annual Dog Party at Dog Mountain was taking place weekend I was going to be in the area I knew the  drive to the Northeast Kingdom (as this northern part of Vermont is called) was going to be worth it. 

When I arrived many dogs were already racing around with wild abandon and others were jumping into one of the ponds chasing balls and each other.  This was definitely not the “show up fashionably late” crowd, but rather the ”let’s get this party started” attendees.  It was so funny to note the similarities in the dogs’ behavior to children’s at a birthday party…running up with an exuberant greeting trying to get a game going and then running off with tail and tongue wagging to the next adventure (ok, so maybe the similarities end at the tails). The acreage is at the end of a long, dirt road so there was no risk of traffic and dog parents seemed very much at ease enjoying their dog’s freedom.

 The chapel was a mixture of reflections and sadness, but also joy and smiles.  The dogs running in and out looking for their owners and each other certainly helped to keep the atmosphere light.  The messages on the walls are touching and I was surprised by the tears that unexpectedly rolled down my cheeks.  I didn’t see anyone else crying, so I quickly put on my sunglasses, but in the gallery a little while later a man told the sales person he never comes to the chapel without crying. 

Certainly, most of the day was spent laughing at the dog antics, the parade and the contests, but one sad note is that Dog Mountain is having financial difficulties. When the economy took a downturn and Stephen and Gwen, his wife, had to let employees go, Stephen went into a deep depression.  It ended with him taking his life and Gwen left to cope with the business and bills alone.  Gwen would like to keep Dog Mountain open and free for people and their dogs to enjoy, just as Stephen had envisioned it would be for many years to come. Ironically, one of the last prints Stephen was working on was titled “Bring Your Dog To Vermont”.  The full story can be read on their website:  www.dogmt.com.

 I purchased two small prints while I was there, hoping to contribute to a better financial outlook.  There were no pushy sales tactics and the woman I spoke to about the Two Pitties in the City blog I was going to submit the pictures to seemed genuinely grateful.  She did remind me that they are the only Dog Chapel in the world. You and your dog might want to see it for yourself, especially if you can make the annual party.     

We would like to wrap up our contest and have all posts submitted by September 16.
And as an added incentive, Sirius Republic is donating 2 collars and we will have a random drawing of all the submitted 'How to Be a Tourist with Your Dog' posts to have 2 collar winners. Winners can chose from a standard collar, or an 'Adopt Me' collar to promote your foster or adoptable dog as modeled by Levi. Not only does Sirius Republic have amazing collar designs, but we love how they are so dedicated to supporting the pitbull community, and Jennifer even rescued her own Elderbull!
And we will still be donating money to the rescue of choice for the 2 posts with the most comments.

In case you missed them, you can also read our other Tourist with Your Dog posts showcasing New York City, Austin, Florida, Portland, Richmond, Seattle,  Kansas City, Nashville, Alaska, and Chicago. And you can read about roadtripping with 4 large dogs, boating to the Bahamas with a pit bull, specific tips for roadtripping with a large dog (NYC to rural Tennessee), and Chicago Dogs Sidetrip to Harbor County. 

Pooches: Choosing Foster Dogs

From all the photos we've shown, it probably looks like we just took Levi in and threw him into our mix. But there were really a lot of behind-the-scenes events to make sure that all the pooches would be happy together. We know all dogs have some levels of dog acceptance and dog tolerance, and we had to take that into account when adding another dog into our home, especially since our dogs are aging, space is at a premium, and we don't have a backyard.
Here is the behind-the-scenes of how we made it work:

Dog Tolerance

While Mr. B rarely cares about other dogs, we know Miss M is a complete alpha. Like we wrote in our earlier post about gender issues, it seems male dogs can take Miss M's bossiness much better, so we're partial to submissive males. We had been keeping an eye out for males when we saw Levi at New Leash on Life needed a foster home.

Having Proper Dog Introductions

Even though we liked Levi, we knew it was really up to the pooches. We had to schedule a proper dog-to-dog introduction to see how they got along. We took the pooches to a neutral sidewalk, and walked them by each other to gauge their interest. The eventual idea is to see how they react with a couple of walk bys, then try to get them to walk as a pack at the end.  Twenty-six to Life just wrote a really good post about how she does dog intros (and she has handled a household with a German Shepherd and 3 pit bulls of varying ages).
During our intro Levi had very bad dog manners and kept getting in the pooches' faces and trying to play with them. While I never would have expected it, Miss M completely ignored him and wasn't bothered by his rude intro. Could it be because she also suffers from poor dog manners? With her acceptance, we knew we could take the next step of testing him in our home.

Monitoring Home Interactions

Even in our home we've been careful with the 3 dogs to make sure no one becomes possessive. Each dog is fed in their own bed to make sure they don't food guard. We give out treats separately, and we monitor toys to make sure there aren't any squabbles. None of the dogs are really resource-guarders, though Mr. B does get a little sad if anyone tries to take his pink stuffed toys:

Levi is still learning dog manners. He doesn't understand it's impolite to shove your face in another dogs' faces, luckily, our pooches are being very tolerant with him. He is also learning good habits by watching our dogs: he is learning to wait for food, wait to be excused from the crate, and to lay nicely without rolling around. We also bought this fantastic Adopt Me collar from Sirius Republic to advertise his 'single status' to anyone he meets. 

These are the steps we took to make sure all the dogs were happy in our home. Any other good advice for integrating foster dogs into your home?

The Pooches do Humboldt Park in 10 Pictures

One thing we realized from our travels this summer was that there are so many parks and amazing places in Chicago that we still haven't explored. Inspired by Neptune & Levi's park in St. Louis, we decided to explore our own nearby turn-of-the-century park: Humboldt Park.

 The park is over 200 acres, with a beautiful boat house, lagoon, butterfly and bird gardens, a small beach, tennis courts, several baseball diamonds and whole host of other things including wide open spaces with walking paths. We've been to Humboldt Park a number of times to play tennis or grab something to eat at the Frittura trucks, but we got a whole different perspective when we took the full walking path with the pooches. 

We sat and the pooches posed for pictures in the beautiful Formal Gardens and in front of the lagoons. While Ms. M and Levi are naturals in front of the camera, Mr. B still needs to work on not blinking at the wrong time.

Beautiful Humboldt Park is going to be the location for this weekend's dog walk and we hope to visit it in future dog walks. There are so many places to walk, that one walk would not do it justice.
And if you are interested in joining this week's dog-walking club, please be sure to RSVP by Thursday.