Thinking Ahead: Post-Pandemic Plans for Your Dogs

I've been getting a lot of questions of late about how to help prepare dogs for post pandemic times, when they will most likely be engaging with other dogs and people on a more regular basis again. Will this be difficult for dogs who've been kept 6 feet or more apart from strangers now for months on end?  How about the puppies who've grown up during this time and don't know anything but keeping their distance?  How about the therapy dogs who've been away from visits now for months? Will they need retraining to get them back on track to resume visits? While no one has a crystal ball where they can see what our "new normal" will be with regard to interactions with strangers in the near future, we can hypothesize what is likely to occur and how to prepare our dogs for that eventuality.

First off, let's go back to that post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about consent.  Covid-19 or not, our dogs need to indicate that they want to meet those new people or dogs.  If your dog is happily steering you toward someone, they likely do want to meet them!  Even now, it's safe for your dogs to meet new people on leash, as long as everyone is masked and remaining at a distance.  Six foot leashes can come in really handy now!  For example, Desi is my social butterfly.  He loves being petted by anyone, but really loves one of our elderly neighbors.  I will tell Desi, "Go say hi!" and then give him the length of his six foot leash to go visit.  According to the CDC, letting people pet our dogs is a low Covid-19 risk given that the virus cannot remain active on porous surfaces like animal fur. This is good news for therapy dogs as well; hopefully, outdoor visits can soon resume with everyone wearing masks and allowing the dogs to approach people on their longer leashes thus making it safer for all involved.

For puppies and adolescent dogs, however, this situation becomes more complicated.  Oftentimes, puppies and adolescent dogs require more management on our part to have successful introductions with new people.  If we aren't right there with them, they might jump up on someone, mouth someone inappropriately, etc.  Because of this, you will need to help your puppies and younger dogs get some practice with greetings on a long leash first.  Start with family members and others in your "covid bubble" to train your dogs now.  Spend a few minutes every day having people walk up, ask if they can pet/meet your dog, and then having you loosen up on the leash and give a command like, "Go say hi!" As your dog approaches the person to greet, they should discourage jumping up by moving away when the dog does so.  In this way, your dog learns that jumping up causes people to move away.  This works better than any "correction" on your part would have on discouraging the jumping up behavior. Once your dog has four feet on the ground, they can try approaching again.  Encourage people to pet your dog across the chest and under the chin versus on top of or above the head which can also lead to a dog jumping up to reach the hand.  When training the "Go say hi" command, it's fine to use treats.  Have the person pet your dog and give them treats for approaching appropriately.  Even if you ultimately will not be having strangers give your dogs treats, giving them during the learning phase will make the process go much faster and stick in your dog's mind as something pleasurable.  Once you feel confident that your dog won't jump up or mouth the people you've been practicing with, you are ready to try it in public IF those people are appropriately masked and approach you to ask about petting your dog.

Right now, people are starved for interaction. This morning on our walk, a grandparent was walking with two grandchildren and they commented excitedly about the "pretty doggies."  They were all wearing masks, so I asked if they'd like to pet Desi.  They were surprised but quite pleased, so I sent him to the end of his 6 foot leash to say hi, just like he does with our neighbor.  They loved on him and spoke to him so kindly, making me pleased that I had stopped my walk to allow this to occur.  And for those of you wondering what Ozzie was doing while this was happening?  He was behind me sniffing the bushes and decidedly uninterested in meeting anyone new, particularly little kids!  And that's fine, if he doesn't consent to the interaction, I don't push him to do it.

I will continue to help my clients and their dogs practice these "covid-19 greetings" on leash so that their dogs will at least be able to meet some new people in the future.  It may be quite a while before we can allow people to come up close to meet our dogs and we do need to be prepared for that.  Not allowing our dogs to socialize at all, however, is not necessarily good for them, nor good for those dog-loving people we encounter in public who are craving some kind of connection. We can't hug each other, but we can let them pet our dogs from a safe distance.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Desi and Ozzie on the lookout from our front porch for other walkers and dogs in their neighborhood!