New clients, usually with younger or newly rescued dogs, often ask if we will socialize your dog with other dogs. At Rufus and Delilah Dog Walking, we believe safety comes first when walking a client’s dog. It is our priority to make sure when we return our client’s dog from each walk that we return them safely, exercised, and happy from the one on one attention. In order to achieve this, we like to walk each client’s dog in their own neighborhood. We focus our time and attention only on their dog and for their safety, we do not introduce any of our client’s dogs to any other dogs.
3 reasons we won’t socialize your dog with other dogs
- We have no way to know if a client’s dog will get along with the approaching dog. Even if a client’s dog is dog-friendly and the person coming towards us says the same thing about their dog, there is no way to guarantee they will get along.
- Dogs read our microexpressions. If they feel we are nervous about the approaching dog, they may react as a result of the messages we are giving either with our body language or by how we are holding the leash.
- Even though a client’s dog may get along regularly with a specific dog, there is no guarantee that they will always get along. We hear about this regularly at doggy day care how the same dogs get along 9 days out of 10 but on the 10th day for unknown reasons there is a fight. This also holds true in multiple pet households. My own two dogs, as much as they love each other, snuggle, and get along, they occasionally have skirmishes.
At Rufus and Delilah, we believe if you would like to socialize your dog with your other dogs, that is best done either under the supervision of the pet parents or under the supervision of a professional dog trainer or behaviorist who knows exactly what body language to look for to deter any incidents. The last thing we want to do is to call a client from a visit letting them know their dog was injured by another dog or caused injury to another dog because we allowed their dog to socialize with another dog.
Would you want your dog walker to socialize your dog with other dogs when on walks? Can you think of more reasons why you wouldn’t want your dog walker to socialize your dog with other dogs?