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Dog Beach First Time


Rainey
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Well Saturday was a LOT of fun with Scud, it was his first proper socialisation experience outside of puppy preschool which he has just completed. We did a lot of running (both me and him) along the sand and splashing in the water, he was off leash whenever there were not too many other dogs nearby but he proved to be a handful when they came closer and my normally great recall was not very effective when there were other dogs to play with.

To begin with, he was a pain in the bum with the other dogs IMO, very mouthy and occasionally growling, but the strangest thing he did was trying to roll over the other dogs onto their backs and then stand over them (dominance?). There was no aggression involved but the other dogs were upset by this and certainly told him off. After this I only let him interact with the dogs whos owners encouraged me to let them play together, everyone was incredibly friendly which made my day a whole lot less stressful. This one particular Jack Russell that Scud stood over started screaming at him with a high pitched bark which was a good learning curve for Scud because once again he learnt some boundaries from interaction and it put him on the back foot. Later, this nice old man came over with his two Malteses (?) and encouraged me to let Scud play with them because they are very good at telling the other dogs off.... This was a fantastic move and the man was indeed very correct as Scud played politely with them because they made it quite clear that they were not interested in any funny business. :thumbsup:

I suppose my question is in regards to the 'standing over' that my dog performed. Is this normal behaviour for an inexperienced pup? He's a Labrador btw, and a solid one at that, so he's generally stronger than a lot of the adult dogs (smaller breeds) and able to bully them if he wishes.

Edited by Rainey
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Hi Rainey,

you're right it is 100% dominance! I actually use that position with Mazza if he gets completely nuts, I roll him over and place my hand firmly on his chest and he immediately goes limp. It is normal IMO for some pups to try and assert dominance, especially if they are new to playing with others...it is good to hear he can be put in his place though, the danger comes when warnings from other dogs are ignored. It would be interesting to see if he tries this with fellow big dogs...he would be extremely bold if he did. At puppy pre-school Maz will get quite dominant with pups his size and under but wouldn't dream of trying it with husky's or GSD's they all seem to know there place, he still plays with them but in a much milder way.

Is Scud off lead during these times? Have you got some sort of plan for if things don't go quite right? There is alot of space at the beach for them to do a bolt if scared and they can be hard to grab if a fight breaks out and you dont have something to grab onto. I'm a bit of a fraidy cat...Maz always has his lead on when playing with others in public.

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Well we went to the beach with the hope that we could find a quiet spot to introduce Scud to the waves. My plan if things didn't go so well was basically to catch, distract with treats and hold, then reward after calm behavior. There were only two times where I had to scoot off after him at full sprint and I was only 5 steps behind when he caught up to the group of dogs. I basically grabbed him by the bum and let the other dogs approach him, whilst always repeating "gentle" in his ear. The other dogs lost interest and he sat in a quiet observe mode while I talked to him in a calming voice, explaining that he will be able to have more fun with the other dogs once he learns to play nice. After he was settled I slowly released my grip and rewarded, then encouraged him to chase me back over to our original spot.

The Maltese experience was a much more free play one. I stayed close but they really just ran laps around myself and the other owner, bouncing and wagging tails... he didn't try to dominate them even though they were about the same size as the Jack Russell he rolled over earlier.

Edited by Rainey
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I would love to take our dog to a dog friendly beach but would prefer to keep her on lead because I am not sure that she would have very good recall. Then I thought this might be recipe for a disaster if she was on lead and other dogs were off. Are there on lead dog friendly beaches available. Or can you take a dog to any beach?

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Thats why willow stays on lead wherever we go :( She would be useless at a beach off lead, because she loves people and other dogs.

Shes weird when it comes to other dogs tho. Some dogs, she does try to barrel over and stand over, yet small dogs, shes REALLY gentle with, guess she doesnt see them as a threat :hug: She met my friends 35kg bull terrier on the weekend, and he tried to hump her, the poor dear didnt know what he was doing!!!!!

And in SA, we have a wonderful dog friendly beach :cry: Not sure what the actual laws are, but i am sure you cant take them everywhere.

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