Following on from my topic of last week when I stressed that although a child of just ten years of age can be such an accomplished gymnast it would be totally unacceptable to expect her to cope alone with venturing far from home. The two situations and her ability to cope with them are completely unrelated. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss the problem of believing that attending weekly classes for 'Socialisation' usually leads dog owners along the path of believing the impossible is possible. As humans "seem" to benefit from social interaction, surely dogs do?.

The problem is our understanding of socialisation?  We are happy to socialise because our group or pack is far larger than a dog's would be in its natural world. Your "immediate" pack consists of family and friends in you address book, those people that you buy birthday presents for and those you put top of your Christmas card list. Because we can communicate over vast distances, we tend to stay in touch with more people and our social circle expands, therefore we have become accustomed to social situations. We know if we go to a large celebratory affair that there will be many  people there  but they are unlikely to present any danger to us, so we can relax. No dog would understand this. We know that a dog's natural pack is never very large and any strange animals are seen as a threat to be dealt with, for every pack member's safety.

I happened be in a train station and as I stood on the platform there was a mix of strangers, none of whom I intended being social with, just as they wanted to keep to themselves too and as I turned towards the waiting room I dropped my bag and some things fell out and scattered around me.  At which point two young men, dressed rather tatty, with holes in their trainers  raced towards the items and began to pick them up. One of the young men showed exceptional turn of speed in preventing my tube of lipstick from disappearing over the edge of the platform. The male commuters in suits didn't even look.

All of this happened within 30 seconds but the sight of the smiles on the faces of my rescuers as they carefully handed me my property stayed with me for the rest of that day, especially the sincere way that they expressed their pleasure at helping me, following my thanks to them.

I'm sure many of you will have had similar experiences and we all know the saying that we should never judge a book by its cover, however, a dog will not be familiar with that adage. Our dogs make similar judgements every day, they have to make immediate decisions based on what they perceive as danger and then, react accordingly. They naturally prefer to stay in their comfort zone and that means away from those that they don't know, thus ensuring their safety.

I would like to finish with the thought of what might happen to you if you suddenly started to rush from person to person in the local shopping centre, (as puppies do at "socialisation" classes) shaking their hands and generally getting in their face, telling them that you wanted to be 'friendly'. The outcome would probably be one of at least three possibilities. You could find yourself pushed to the ground, you could find an unusually large exclusion zone around you as others scatter from your presence or there would be two people in white coats who would gently remove you to a place of safety.

It really is time to accept that what is socially acceptable for us and our children does not also apply to our dogs.

Jan Fennell

24th November 2011