Oh yes, I am a Minnesota dog and I love winter, but when today when I howl at you about break the ice, it has nothing to do with the frozen stuff! We have a three dog family, we have a lab cousin Lena, and we also have several friends in the neighborhood. It can be a lot of fun to have friends over to play in our fenced yard or stay with us at our place while their humans are away, but what is the best way to break the ice with that territory issue? We find it to be a walk!
Some dogs can be real territorial about their house or yard, other dogs can sense a territory and are afraid to enter. With Katie, Bailie, and I, we all have different feelings depending on the dog, so what is the best way to invite a friend over without any issues. To break the ice at our pad, the rule is to always go for a walk with the newcomer before they enter our house or yard.
It needn’t be a long walk, just around the block is fine, but it is a great way for us to check each other out, do some sniffing together and then be relaxed enough to hangout as friends.
Last year our old pal Buddy was staying with us, but he doesn’t care much for other dogs, and cousin Lena was going to be staying with us as well. When Lena arrived, Mom ventured out with all four of us together for a very short walk after which everybody was fine with each other. We have to be on long leashes to get any kind of photos when we are walking as Mom can barely hang onto us let alone try to snap a picture!
The most amazing get together we had was our own “private dog park”. We were out walking while Buddy was staying with Katie and I. On our walk, we ran across our friend Cody who had his cousin staying with him. We all wanted to play, so after walking together towards our house for about ten minutes, we all went into our yard and had a great time playing. Even Buddy, the dog that doesn’t like dogs had a good time!
Introducing dogs to each other on neutral “walking grounds”, is a wonderful way to help ease any territorial issues before attempting to add one or more dogs to your yard or house.
Don’t forget, tomorrow, Tuesday at midnight, #DogWalkingWeek will turn into a pumpkin, so enter soon!
Celebrate National Walk Your Dog Week, #DogWalkingWeek with My GBGV Life (thatβs me) and Cascadian Nomads.Β For all the furry details click here, or if you already know what you need to know, enter the blog hop below and fill out the widget to enter the giveaway! Just a reminder, you have until the 7th to enter this blog hop, but if you accept the challenge to walk every day, you must enter in the widget as well. The giveaway is open for entries until Tuesday and you have until next Sunday to share #DogWalkingWeek successes!Β Happy walking!
This is really excellent Walk Your Dog Week advice, Emma. We also use dog walks as a way to calm down when we are a bot over excited about seeing our friends. Once the pack is strolling along together, the dogs forget to bark and go crazy about seeing each other. Peace is indeed found on a walk, in more way than one!
So very true! It also helps when my sisters and I have tension, we go walking and problems solved.
We do this, too! I also used to walk them with my friends and their dogs all the time when we lived in Oregon. It was one of our favorite activities. I really want to move back soon.
Walking with friends always adds extra fun to a walk.
We always meet up with our park friends but sadly it was a wee quick walk today as it is grey, miserable and raining. Not the best start to the week. Have a marvellous Monday.
Best wishes Molly
Well, you will appreciate your next good walk even more I guess.
A walk is a great way for dogs to get to know each other!
Wags (and purrs) from Life with Dogs and Cats.
It’s amazing what even a short walk can to to calm everyone down and set the right tone.
those are great tips and also important for when introducing any new dog to your home
Introducing a new dog can be real stressful and if just one of the dogs is uneasy the whole pack will be off, so take a walk and then go home.
What a great idea!
Thanks π
Could not agree more!
It’s simple and seems obvious, but humans often don’t think about doing it and end up with trouble.
I love walking with other dogs, you are right its one of the best ways to have dogs bond with each other. Love Dolly
It worked well for all of us at BlogPaws π
Great post! We are usually excited during our first few minutes of the walk and then we get into our groove and enjoy our surroundings!
Sniffing together somehow calms us and makes us more comfortable with each other.
We agree. A meet and greet walk the majority of the time ends with positive results
Lily & Edward
Of course, there are always exceptions, but it seems to us to be the best way.
Great advice Emma!
Thanks!
Y’all always look so happy on your walks!
Take a seat in your scratching tree before you read this…we love to walk, anytime, anywhere. One of our favorite things to do! It is a bummer you kitties don’t walk well on leash usually.
We always always run into so many dogs while we are on our walks. The huskies love to meet and greet!
α¦ husky hugz α¦ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
My sisters like to, I’m too busy looking for critters π
I think walking the dogs as an introduction is so important! That is one of the “tricks” I use as well for introducing new dogs, especially if they will be staying with us or visiting us for awhile. The walk is a good way to help shy/stressed dogs feel comfortable because you can keep the dogs side by side vs. having them meed head on right away.
We started doing that when we started watching other dogs and it is a miracle cure really. They are on neutral grounds and they can sniff and do the natural stuff together before coming to the yard or house.
This is such great advice. We always take all the dogs for a walk before allowing them to play in someone’s ‘territory’. Gives everyone plenty of time to check each other out and get past the initial excitement.
Exactly, a simple solution that often humans don’t think of.
That last shot is great, looks like your own doggy day-care. And I couldn’t agree more with your assessment. Anytime we’re meeting a new four-legged friend or hosting one, the first order of business is to get the gang together for a walk/run to the park.
Yep, it gets us all in a good mood and some time to hang out together before entering the “territory”.
That is a great idea for introducing new friends. A social walk and sniff-a-thon is always a great ice-breaker. β₯ XXOO Bentley
Once Kilo is better socialized I can’t wait for park play dates and group walks.
I’m not such a big fan of other dogs but on walks I like them much better.
This is so true! One of our friends has a new puppy and we walk together on Saturdays. We couldn’t go this Saturday and our first grade friend who is the new puppy’s mommy was quite disappointed. “But Dash and Lilly are Sadie’s FRIENDS” she kept telling her mommy. “She wants to see them!” She is so right! And they all behave so well together on their walk. Now if Sadie comes to the house for a sleepover, we are ready! Great post, Emma! your doodle friend, Dash
Even friends that come over more than once get a quick spin around the block with us just to be on the safe side.
Emma that’s another great reason to walk your dog, you can find friends and really nice people! And sometimes it happens that we get our own dog park. Like you!
That was a lot of fun…an impromptu party of sorts.
Your private dog park is awesome! Wish we had one.
That doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is a blast!
That is excellent advice Emma – when they walk together like that, it’s just assumed we’re all in a pack together, so we all get along.
Exactly! It always works with our friends.
That’s great advice. We don’t have many dog friends these days, but we used to a lot more. Hopefully we will again so we’ll remember this for sure.
We don’t have too many these days either, but when we do the pack walk is always a great idea.
There is nothing cooler than finding/meeting a friend on your walk. Sometimes we time it just right and Harley gets to roll around the grass with Mila! They are great friends who don’t see much of each other during the week, so when we’re able to get together on a Saturday morning, it’s loads of fun.
Friends are much more special when you don’t see them very often!
Yes but how can kitties break the ice? By sharing a chair?
Purrs
Actually, we did have a kitty stay with us for a couple days last summer, my cousin Bowie. We just opened he carrier door in the room with the litter box and water and let him work it out with my two kitties. They all got along fine, no fights or anything. They didn’t hang out much together, but it went much better than we thought.
I really love this advice Emma, and think it’s something that would be perfect for Shiner. Sometimes, she gets along great with other dogs. One thing I do notice is that if they come to her house, she is very territorial. My brother brought his dog over last year and I tried to introduce them in the yard and she was just being too grumpy for it. If we are not on our property and there are other dogs, she’s usually OK.
For us, our yard is part of our house, so a nice walk first might really help out Shiner.
We love all your dog walking pictures! We didn’t know you were a Minnesota dog! Our sister lives there too. Glad you got to hang with your friends and everyone got along. Sounds fun. xo Chloe and LadyBug
We moved back to Minnesota from Europe in 2007. Mom is from here and we love it. Lots of great places to walk and we love all the seasons.
I just went walking with my pal, Mango… but mostly I like to do my own thing… like sniffing the grass haha
We walk with two or all three of us, but we each do our own thing too.
Great advice and pictures.
Thank you!
The snow picture was from last year right? Right? We had a hard frost up at the cabin a couple of days last week. Winter will be here too soon. π
We’ve had several cold, real frosty mornings, but no snow yet, so yes, it was last year.