We should always see socialising our dog with other dogs as a form of positive reinforcement. With any form of positive reinforcement we are rewarding and reinforcing a certain state of mind and behaviour. We initially only want to reward a calm state of mind in our dogs. Not overly excited or anxious states of mind.

It is very important before allowing your dog to socialise with another dog, that you first wait until both dogs have calmed down, and have gotten past the intial excitement and anxiety, before allowing them to get together. The best way to do this is keep both dogs on lead and separated by distance, and work on getting your dog to calm down, either by sitting or laying beside you. Once both dogs have worked through their excitement and anxiety, and are in a more balanced state of mind, then we can allow them to socialise.

If we don't adopt this attitude when socialising our dogs, and do allow overly excited and anxious dogs to socialise, we are creating and intensifying triggers that switch the dog into this state whenever our dog sees another dog. This state of mind also has the potential of creating challenges for dominance between the dogs, and is the usual reason why dogs fight, or over the top bullying starts.

This is one of the reasons I am not a big fan of off lead dog parks (also one of my major concerns about puppy preschools). Too many dog owners are allowing their dogs to rush into these areas when the dogs are overly anxious, and therefore creating the very big possibility of trouble between dogs. A dog that rushes into a group of dogs displaying overly anxious or excited behaviour is a target for trouble, or can create trouble by trying to dominate the other dogs.

By rewarding our dog by socialising when being overly anxious and excited, we are reinforcing anxiety in our dogs which therefore creates a trigger to switch the dog into this state of mind. This trigger switches on overly anxious and assertive behaviour when our dog sees another dog. This can lead to problems in other situations, such as when taking our dog for a walk and it sees other dogs. This trigger to become anxious, is switched on. This anxiety triggers assertive body language and state of mind.

Just as we don't reward our own dog until it calms down, the same goes for socialising with other dogs.

Always see dog socialising as a reward for being calm and in a balanced state of mind.