Wanta is only 6 months and I'm already seeing why so many of you have been emphasizing socialization >__>
Wanta has a very shy personality to begin with, evidence being her sister. Due to friends many times coming over, Wanta is well experienced with new types of people, and usually rushes towards them. But there's one thing she can't really handle: dogs
Whenever we're at the dog park, Wanta looks like a poor child on her first day at school. She's blatantly awkward, and even friendly dogs who want to sniff her frighten her. She's always been real jumpy.
But today, she did something she's never done: she started to bark. My theory is that she's experimenting. At stage 1 she didn't 'fit in' being puny. so now she's trying to be more 'aggressive'. When two other dogs came and growled at her (causing Wanta to run away in a mass hysteria/I carried her to safety and shooed away the other two dogs), I think Wanta learned that this probably wasn't the best tactic either (ah, awkward school days).
My guess is that I should keep doing what I'm doing? Maybe if I bring Wanta to the dog park more often eventually she'll learn the skills needed to fit in comfortably? Are there dogs that just stay -super shy/clueless- forever?
(From what I've learned from Chazhound thus far, Wanta's barking probably originates from her fear. This I see as a 'problem in seed-form', and thus what I'm probably trying to nuke. But Wanta, you can't get 'positive experiences' if you keep running away )
Thanks! :doh:
Wanta has a very shy personality to begin with, evidence being her sister. Due to friends many times coming over, Wanta is well experienced with new types of people, and usually rushes towards them. But there's one thing she can't really handle: dogs
Whenever we're at the dog park, Wanta looks like a poor child on her first day at school. She's blatantly awkward, and even friendly dogs who want to sniff her frighten her. She's always been real jumpy.
But today, she did something she's never done: she started to bark. My theory is that she's experimenting. At stage 1 she didn't 'fit in' being puny. so now she's trying to be more 'aggressive'. When two other dogs came and growled at her (causing Wanta to run away in a mass hysteria/I carried her to safety and shooed away the other two dogs), I think Wanta learned that this probably wasn't the best tactic either (ah, awkward school days).
My guess is that I should keep doing what I'm doing? Maybe if I bring Wanta to the dog park more often eventually she'll learn the skills needed to fit in comfortably? Are there dogs that just stay -super shy/clueless- forever?
(From what I've learned from Chazhound thus far, Wanta's barking probably originates from her fear. This I see as a 'problem in seed-form', and thus what I'm probably trying to nuke. But Wanta, you can't get 'positive experiences' if you keep running away )
Thanks! :doh: