How "open" about your dog nerdiness are you?

I practically lead two separate lives

I'm pretty open about the fact that I like dogs and do a lot with my dogs, but I don't tend to delve into just how much with most people (strangers, coworkers, etc.). But dogs are my main interest, and if people don't know that about me, then they don't know much about me. That said, I try really hard to not participate in dog conversations with people that are not also dog enthusiasts. Like my coworkers, for example. If dogs come up in the lunch room, I sit and listen and don't really chime in. Dog conversation with regular (ie: not crazy) people tends to frustrate me more than anything a lot of times, but I also know they're likely not going to take any of my advice and just think I'm a weirdo, so why bother unless directly asked. I won't give unsolicited dog advice unless it's truly warranted.

I post a lot of dog pictures on Facebook. Actually, that's pretty much all I do. But most of my Facebook friends are dog people, so at this point, I actually feel more weird about sharing family or other non-dog related things. I pretty much use Facebook as my dog people outlet haha. And I have custom settings so that sometimes when I know my non-dog friends probably don't need to see every photo I share, I can block my list of "non-dog friends" from seeing all of it.

But even among dog people, I'm less dog nerdy than they are usually. I'll never obsess over a sport I don't think. I'm mainly an active pet person with a lot of knowledge who likes to dabble in different activities and just enjoy my dog as a buddy in everything we might do. Be it walking, hiking, watching TV, playing fetch in a park or training. So when I'm with dog people who are even more obsessive about dogs than I am, I find the conversation interesting, but I often don't add anything in either as they know just as much and often more than I do. So, while I'm a dog person through and through (literally there is nothing that interests me more than dogs and dog stuff), there are times that even more crazy dog people make me feel like I'm not as much of a crazy dog person as I thought haha. But regardless, my closest friend is also a dog nerd and that's why we became friends. I think that for as much as I love dogs, it would be hard for me to be really good friends with someone who wasn't at least somewhat as much of a dog nerd as I am. And in order to become friends, I obviously made it clear from the beginning that I was pretty into dogs whether I meant to or not.

That makes more sense to me than people who just have two separate ones for solely posting different status updates to each one so people don't get sick of them or keeping their friend groups separate. Maybe I just don't care enough about social media or strangers, but I legit don't care if people know that some of my FB contacts are fellow crazypants dog people and I couldn't imagine keeping two different accounts for that reason. You can literally make statuses available only to certain friends& even create lists so you just click 'dog only' friends or 'coworkers' or 'family'.. That seems so much easier than signing in& out of accounts lol

Oh FB business things are SO easy. I literally click on my business pages (they show up above my groups on the lefthand side - I have a cello business page, too) and it posts automatically from that name. No logging in or out I can also click something to change it to post from my own name if I wanted to.

I've kind of decided 'Eh **** it.'

Everyone else has hobbies I hear about. I don't drone on and on about specifics to them but why not talk a bit about training and showing? I hear about Dad's hunting and step-mom's horses and sister's choir and other sister's akido. So why not?

My coworkers/work friends all know I show dogs. They all think I'm loopy getting a third dog and being single. I've been asked so many times 'So uh... why did you get a third?' I keep trying to explain how Summer is older and Mia can't compete and all that. Most people seem to think agility is cool if not a bit strange. Hey... at least it's not dog dancing, right? I've posted trick videos on my facebook too and had people at work ask about how I taught that and tell me it's so cool I can teach my dogs to do things like that.

I have Summer's High in Trial ribbon hanging in my office. I get a lot of people asking about it.

In theory I did this, too, to keep all the mushing stuff in one place off my personal page where people who didn't care about it didn't have to see it. But in reality I end up posting tons of pictures and stuff about the dogs on my own page anyway.

This is so me too. lol. As much of a dog nerd as I am, I often feel sooo out of place going to dog events. Like at Barn Hunt, I don't know, everyone was friendly and such, but some of the lingo or the things they talk about, I'm just SO not to their level, so I feel out of place haha. My dad and I giggled a little to ourselves when people were talking about their "bitches" Yeah, we're mature. I just genuinely couldn't be talking to someone about my 'bitch'. I know, I know, it's the proper dog lingo, but... I literally think everyone in my family would die of laughter if I tried to seriously talk to them about my 'bitch in heat wearing diapers'.

Little things like that. And I guess I'm not quite as 'serious' about some of the sports. With agility, I don't need or want perfect, so working with trainers who compete a lot and are really good can be intimidating to me.

For everyone who has two separate Facebook accounts for dog things and personal things... have you tried just separating your friends into different lists? I have a "dog people list" and a "everything else list" so that my personal friends don't have to hear about random dog stuff and my dog friends don't have to hear about random personal stuff (for the most part lol).

I honestly like this so much better. But like I said, mine is a business page, so I don't have to log in/out of my account at all to post on it. I also didn't have to spend any time sorting out my friends list - either someone likes my page or they don't

Yea I do this, too, but there are people following the mushing page who I don't even know, so I keep that going, too.

Oh trust me, you get over that. :rofl1: I thought it was ridiculous too, but you hang around with enough breeders and people who use it regularly and it doesn't seem so weird. I still pretty much never say it in front of non-dog people, but my husband and I use the word, and I will say it around other dog people. I typically only say "bitch" if I'm talking about an unspayed female who will potentially be bred - like "that was a really nice puppy bitch in that class", or "so-and-so has a bitch they want to breed when she comes into season", but I don't use it regularly to talk about any female dog - I would say "there was a really nice female Aussie in my new agility class".

DH and I still giggle about it though.

But I know what you mean. Super srs dog people are srs, and I usually don't feel like I fit in. I just drag my husband to all dog events so I have someone to talk to if I don't hit it off with any of the srs dog people. At 30 I'm also younger than a lot of them, which seems to create a barrier (though I'm not totally sure why)

Agreed. I have tons of FB friends from high school and college who I haven't spoken to in 8+ years. If they don't want to see my dog stuff, they can unfriend me or something - that's fine. I've blocked some of them because I got tired of seeing a million pictures of their kids (kids I know = great; kids of people I haven't talked to in 10 years = boring). I guess I don't care enough about what other people think of my posts to bother with two accounts or even separate friend groups.

My guess/in my limited experience (as a 25 year old that's been 'involved' in dogs for four years lmao) it's because so many people take up dogs for a short while and then bail, so for people who have been in the game for 30+ years it's not worth getting super involved with someone new, because they're just going to leave. That's what I've seen in obedience. :[

(I hope this post makes sense; I haven't had coffee and I just typed 'yes' to 'how many shoes are in a pair?')

I've heard the average time spent in dog sports is 2 years. I've been at my training place for about 2 years now and just now the last few months to a year are really making good friends. I think once you put a dog or two through people are more welcoming cause they figure you're not just going to wash out. Out of my two beginner groups of agility only me and one other person are still involved.

Yeah that's been my same experience. I got Elsie's CD and I stopped being invisible to the other club members. I don't think it was snobbery; it wasn't like they thought I wasn't good enough to talk to them or anything, it's just that they had no reason to think I'd stick around until then.

In my experience most people drop in the first 1-2 6 week sessions. I am not sure why- they realize it's going to be a lot more work than they thought? Or just cost?

And then around 6 months -1 year a lot dropped too.

Makes perfect sense. I actually said basically the same thing to someone on another forum who was wondering when she would make friends with people in her agility class. It's also easy to hang out with the people you've known for years instead of always putting in the effort to make friends with the newbies (I know I'm guilty of that at work, for example)

I've found my breed to be very welcoming at least. Once I met a few breeders at shows they all became my FB friends and comment on anything Watson related. Haha. So that's nice to feel included. Other than that, people didn't start to get friendly with me until I had stuck around for at least a year, unless they were other newbies (in which case they usually quit classes before I did).

I've had much better experiences making friends in classes vs trials. Nosework trials are pretty small, and people are chatty, but nobody has seemed interested in chatting with me. Conformation shows have been more friendly. I haven't done any other competitions yet.

to address the whole 2 facebooks thing is about me since I'm the only one that mentioned having 2 i think :rofl1:

it's not a popularity thing and it's not an embarrassment thing.
It started because my first main job was a dog walker/sitter for a small company and clients ALL wanted to be facebook friends (since we used our facebooks to post pictures of their dogs on the main business page). Which is fine, except my boss did NOT like the idea of clients on our personal facebooks (because who wants to see that their dog walker was out drinking or political statuses or whatever) and did not want the responsibility left on us to deal with lists, filtering statuses or whatever. But you post pictures of their dogs, you are in their homes, they wanted that connection and we got great feedback from clients about how much they loved it/it boosted client retention like crazy and spurred a huge bump in new clients so...we all made 2nd facebooks just for them.

From there, I started becoming more active on chaz and it seemed only natural to add chaz people to the one that is all about dogs already,you know?
hence the birth of the dog facebook lol which has grown to have more friends and be more active than my other one.

These days, I leave family and college friends on one, and dog people on the other. Simply for ease of "they are already there" plus I just...like it. I keep my other one logged in on safari, and my dog one logged in on chrome so there's no signing in/out.

The only real difference between one or the other, now that I no longer work as a dog walker, is that I deleted clients I wasn't close to...and my other one is now technically my professional one now that I'm in the cooperate world. Hence the dog one is more active and less censored lol oh and my dog one gets like 50 Merlin pictures for every 10 and update on his training/SD progress as most people don't know about his training status or my epilepsy.

I post what I like and do what I like via social media...but I must admit it is nice to not have to worry at all about lists or anything and kind of have an audience of only fellow dog people you don't have to explain anything to lol

I don't try to hide it, so most of my family, friends, and coworkers know I'm crazy about my dog, and am involved in rescue and stuff. They're interested and very supportive. Not all of them understand it, but we're all a bit weird in our respective ways, and enjoy in each others' passion for their interests/hobbies. I feel really lucky that my family and friends/coworkers don't think I'm crazy for wanting to quit my job because I don't get enough Smiley time. Hahah

I used to be worried what people would think, but the last few years I have been really opening up and letting my dog-crazy self come out.

I think it definitely weirds some people out, but those are the people who don't really matter than or need to be my friend. I want to only be friends with people who either like or at least accept my passions.

I do think I sometimes talk too much about dogs in daily conversations.. people will be telling me a story and somehow I will relate it to something dog-related and share that.