Hello everyone! I've been reading these boards since before we got our puppy, and it's been a tremendous help for me and my husband as first time dog owners. I'm writing about our French Brittany... hopefully I won't get chased outta town for this. She's 7.5 months old and we got her at 8 weeks. I realize now we did a terrible job at socializing her and I'm hoping to learn what steps we can take now to fix what we did, er, did not do.
We had a friend bring his dog over a few times when she was younger, and we took her over to his house. She'd be nervous at first but then would settle down and play like crazy. We don't know anyone else with dogs so we didn't do "puppy play dates" or anything. We've taken her on lots of trips with us, including a stay at a dog friendly hotel and she did great. She loves going places with us but we just didn't introduce her to enough new situations with dogs and now she's become very fearful.
While out on our morning jogs, we pass the same few dogs on leashes and she's pretty good. She gets alert, I'll stop and encourage her to sniff something off the path and let her be engaged in exploring until they pass us. No idea if this is the right thing to do, but if we don't do this, she tries to lunge at them. She's wagging her tail while she does this but her body language is very tense and it seems to me like she is very unsure of herself.
We run into people walking their dogs off leash fairly often and they never have any control over their dogs. They start shouting at their dog and waiving their hands around but the dogs always run straight up to little Joon. She of course panics and is at the end of her leash, trying to get away. If I'm able to calmly position myself in between her and the dog and tell the dog to BACK OFF she will stand behind me and peer between my legs. If there are two dogs off leash, then all bets are off and she is scrambling to get away while i'm trying to prevent her legs from getting severely tangled up in her leash. She looks very panicked in these situations and I don't know how to help her. The "dog walkers" always get angry with me about it and I'm like WELP MAYBE DON'T LET YOUR DOG OFF LEASH IF THEY ARE NOT UNDER VOICE CONTROL. Not EVERY dog LOVES it when strange dogs run up to them, especially when they are on leash and the other dog is not. But I realize it's not my business and I try my best to get away from the situation and continue with our walk. She calms down quickly after these episodes and it doesn't seem to effect her afterward. Today I took her for a walk in a different area and she did the exact same panicked-pulling-gotta get out of here dance when we passed a statue of a dog, and then the same thing when we passed a fire hydrant she hadn't seen before.
So basically, I know that I didn't introduce her to enough new situations while she was younger. I'm hoping to fix what I did and I realize it may take a long time, and I'm prepared to go slow. If anyone has any tips for me going forward how to handle these situations I'd really appreciate it. Any exercises I can practice with her when she sees something that spooks her? How do I handle uncontrolled dogs and angry owners, when I've got my own crazy pup?
If you took the time to read all of this, THANK YOU!