Why is interaction with other dogs important for your dog?

This shouldn’t be news to you. But it is important that we as humans are reminded of this simple truth. Dogs like wolves are highly social species. They remember their interactions and are strongly inclined to create bonds with other beings. They do not like to be isolated and they love interaction be it with you, or a dog, a child, or your other pets. They even try to interact and make friends with cats. A cat may not like that but the dog will still try unless he gets a punch from the cat. In short, dogs love interaction and playfulness and happy exhaustion of energy.

This sounds awful similar to a species known to us, HUMANS!!. Yes, we are like dogs in some ways. We are social beings, we love interaction with the world, we love playfulness and we like to exhaust our energy. However this is not being realized by most of us. Some how we are too busy for ourselves. Your dog doesn’t understand this, she wants to play and exercise all its senses.

A dog would ideally like to

• go for walk so it can smell what’s goin’ on in da hood;

• go for walk so it can find out who’s who by familiarizing itself with the local area and by supremely leaving his pee marks to alert the female dogs of his presence;

• go for a walk to feel fresh and to see this beautiful world;

• go for a walk and meet other dogs to say hello;

• go for a walk and find some female dogs;

• go for a personal interaction with the male dogs in the area to assess the competition;

• go for a walk and tackle a couple of wild dogs, unless you have a dog who is scared of every other creature walking around;

• go for a run, to exhaust all her energy; and if possible

• go for a swim.

All this is simply what a dog would like to do as daily activities. By interacting with other dogs, the dog will feel alive and realize there are other alive beings around him, who are interested in him and who wants to play with her. Socialize, romance and health that’s what a dog loves. We should be inspired by them and recall these are the things we love to and somehow use our dog’s presence in our lives to change and revive our lives, if somehow we are stuck.

Interacting with other dogs, makes you happy because he/she can exercise themselves fully. One is physical exercise and the other side is the sensual exercise. Sadly we are overfeeding our pets and making them exercise only the taste and smell sense only. Interacting with other dogs can make them exercise their entire make-up completely. You must have seen that the street dogs live in a whole another world. They have friends, families, fights and all kinds of games. They are more raw. Imagine your dog being lost on a street some day. How long will he/she be able to survive? Well, there is no guarantee. However, one can prepare the dog if the dog is walked around in the area, is familiar with the area, is aware of the dogs and danger zones in the area. If your dog is a total noob, then there are more chances of him totally panicking if lost or even in case when it runs away with leash.

We should never forget that dogs are social pack animals and descendants of wolves. Certain things are in their DNA, though we are training them in various ways but wouldn’t it be harsh to change their entire  way of life by denying them interaction with other dogs?

Some of the things you can try to create more interaction for your dog

• organise meets with other dogs within your family and friend;

• create interaction and make friends on the walking route;

• create weekly interactions and get together within the society complex;

• take them to pet boarding, pet hostels, pet clubs;

• register them for dog shows;

• organise regular swimming meets with other dogs.