Dogs in Paris

Jon and I went to Paris last weekend for his big birthday.  We met up with some friends (that was a surprise) and did loads of walking and sightseeing.  Paris is very dog friendly and most restaurants and cafes had dogs there.  We saw lots of dogs walking around town, sitting settled whilst their person was having a glass of wine or coffee. 

I couldn’t help but notice that all the dogs looked comfortable, happy and relaxed and this was clearly ‘normal’ for them.  I also noticed (don't judge me but I do notice!) that there were lots of entire males and there wasn’t one incident of ‘reactivity’.  No barking or lunging at each other, no owners apologising for being in each other’s space.  Everyone basically ignored each other and went along with their day.   The dogs were on lead and not showing any fear or frustration based behaviours.

I saw one dog play park, which was a small sand area where dogs were off lead playing with each other, and after watching for a few minutes, I also didn’t see any inappropriate interactions.  Some were happy to just sniff around whilst others were more playful and chasing around.  The owners were just sat or stood talking to each other. 
 
So what are we doing wrong??? Honestly, I would love to start a conversation about this. Dogs in the UK are struggling.  There are more and more ‘reactive’ dogs.  Dogs that cannot cope if there is another dog too close because they are worried.  Or they just ‘have to say hello’ type of dog that gets frustrated when they cannot interact.  This has always been an issue I have helped dogs with over the last 20 years I have been working with dogs, but the trend is still going in the wrong direction.  Yet in France and other European countries they don’t have the same behavioural issues.  I know it was a small sample size as I was only observing for 2 days, but I have done research previously and know this to be true.  I also know most European counties don’t neuter dogs unless there is a medical reason, yet I would suggest that most dogs in the UK are neutered.  We think the neutering dogs solves all problems, particularly aggression or ‘reactive’ type behaviour.  Surely this just isn’t the case.

I have been saying for a long time now that we are getting socialisation wrong.  We let dogs freely play with other dogs, teach them that everyone is their new best friend and don’t actually teach the manners of ‘just ignore’ type behaviours.  Yes, it is very important to give young dog lots of positive experiences of the life we need them to be comfortable with, which includes dog interaction, but it’s so much more than that.  We need them to be confident in their environment, noises, people, other animal etc, but this isn’t about interaction, this is about making it a neutral feeling.  Yes it’s there, or that noise happened, or the car whooshed past, but that’s ok, that’s normal and I don’t need to react.  Ignore or making  things ‘neutral’ in the environment to me is the big goal of raising a well rounded dog. 

​I would love to hear your thoughts...

Jo x