I Need to Socialize. Or, The Things I Do For My Dogs

When the pandemic started getting real, and lockdown hit, the biggest complaint lots of people had was that they missed other people. I couldn’t relate.

I don’t think of myself as an introvert, but I was positively giddy that it was literally against the law for me to attend a party just to spend my time nursing a single beer, and hanging with the host’s dog until I could sneak out.

I like some people, but I have yet to meet a dog I hated. Or one that made me feel bad about myself.

During the worst of the pandemic, a lot of people became lonely and got dogs to keep them company. Obviously, I didn’t have that problem. In March 2020 I had four dogs, a cat, a canary and five horses. I had almost too much company. Almost.

Even a year into the lockdown, I wasn’t talking to myself. If there were no people around and words were coming out of my mouth, I was speaking the animals. Does it matter that most of the time they don’t listen?Neither do most humans.

Since Dalai the Dane and Poppy the Brittany have transcended into “ancient dog” territory, I was thinking about adding a puppy to the mix long before the pandemic.  Jasper was four and a half; that’s the when I like to introduce puppies. He was no longer a puppy himself, but he still liked to play and would enjoy having a playmate.

By the time when Ruckus the eight-week-old Great Dane joined my pack in December, I had really thought the whole thing through. I was ready.

Ruckus came from the same reputable breeder as Jasper. I had my terrific dog school on standby for puppy classes. Also, by happy accident there were three puppies (two cattle dogs and a black and tan coonhound) at the stable that she could meet up for playdates. My friend Twinkle has Mighty the Great Dane puppy, who is two months older than Ruckus and always up for playing.

Ruckus also came almost everywhere with me so she’d be comfortable in the car and for long drives.

This puppy was going to be great with other dogs, used to being left at the barn while I rode, at ease in the car. I was pretty darn smug about Ruckus. I was so busy patting myself on the back for socializing her properly that I missed the big, giant elephant in the room. The Pandemic.

D’oh.

In California, Covid-19 was rampant during the winter of 2020-21. The hospitals were packed. Every day the number of infections and deaths from the virus – contrary to what some Fox News/ Newsmax hosts and a certain orange president would have you believe – rose exponentially.

So, while Ruckus went everywhere I did, we weren’t going very out very much. We went to the barn and she played with Mighty almost daily, but she didn’t meet a lot of people.

On a good week I’d see maybe eight people mask-to-mask. During the worst of the pandemic, the only people stopping by my place were delivery drivers, and they just tossed packages over the fence and ran away.

Ruckus wasn’t getting well socialized.

I’m particularly touchy about socializing Danes because of my dearly departed Murray.  Murray was a lot of things: gorgeous, devoted to me and an agility beast.  But a lot of people just he was just a beast.

It was completely my fault.

I was so terrified of Murray contracting Parvo, which is/was so out-of-control in Los Angeles, that his paws never touched the ground outside of my yard until he was fully vaccinated. This was not a good thing.

He became a somewhat fearful dog. He was dog reactive and terrified of children and men. The former because I am also terrified of kids, and the latter because even then I had no social life. (Sensing a pattern here?)

At his peak Murray was about 140 pounds. While that’s a medium sized Dane, it’s still a lot of dog. Especially when he was scared and wanted to get out of Dodge. I was lucky; his go-to was to run from his fears, not towards them. He once nearly dragged me into traffic because a woman wouldn’t believe that Murray was terrified of her five-year-old.

So I worked with him. A lot. I learned how to distract him. I learned how to keep his attention on me at all times. I learned that his love for agility gave him confidence and he became less reactive. He was always a lot of fun, but always being on alert was exhausting for me.

I never wanted to have an even partially un-socialized dog again.

When I got Dalai I took her everywhere. She went to the barn because there were only a few dogs and they were all vaccinated. As soon as possible we went to training classes. I walked her daily to the nearby Elementary School at the end of classes. (I was worried that I’d get called out as a predator: “Hey kid, would you please pet my puppy?” No one ever noticed which is a whole other problem…)

That was all great until the newest tenant in the apartment building next to my came with a sociopathic little kid. The brat would call Dalai to the fence and then throw shit at her.  Needless to say, in no time Dalai became a child hater. Unlike Murray, who would pull me into the street to get away from small children, I have no doubt that Dalai, if left to her own devices, would bite them. Even in her dotage, I never leave alone with people under 15.

By the time Jasper came along I had moved to my current place. The neighbor kids are great and willingly patted him every time they crossed paths. So did everyone else. Jasper is a little skitty when he first meets new people, but never, ever scary.

Now that things are opening up, Ruckus is going out and meeting more people. At six months, it’s a little later than I’d planned, but she’s getting there. She goes to dog school. She goes to Tractor Supply. To Petco. To Lowes.

The big test will be in a couple of weeks. We are both going to a horse show. When I’m riding, she will be with her buddy Olive in a pen. The rest of the time she’ll be with me. We’re staying in an Air B’n’b. I’ve warned the host, and have paid a dog fee. 

I figure by the time the weekend is over, both Ruckus and I will be completely socialized. Or at least as good as either of us are going to get.