Dog-Sniff-Dog World

Being new to our neighborhood, we are just learning how very many dogs are all around us. The weather was nice this weekend so we decided to take our little pup for a stroll around the block. We've lived in four different neighborhoods in our pup's five years and never have we seen the number of dogs as in our new one. Maybe it was the fact that everyone has been cooped up all winter and at the first sign of warmth decided to take part in the stroll fest. In what would have taken about 20-30 minutes to walk around ended up taking over an hour for all of the times we stopped to talk to fellow dog owners/new neighbors.

I have never seen my dog so excited to sniff one new friend after another. He probably met close to ten new friends on Saturday, then another five on Sunday. What scares me is that every single one of them is a large breed. We have not run across even one other small dog in two weeks. Andy isn't intimidated by large dogs, but I just keep thinking as they socialize that any one of those dogs could have our shihtzu's head for a mid-day snack. You just never know if one of them might turn aggressive.

I love that our little pooch is having so much fun socializing, though. One thing that cracks me up about other dog owners....they always ask the dog's name first (that is, if they ask your names at all) and conversations are almost always centered around the dogs. Socialization, breed type, grooming, etc. So funny! It makes me wonder if walking around with a baby stroller is going to be similar. Baby's name, age, sleeping schedule, etc. Probably. I guess we all have to start somewhere.