Waiting is a big part of all my dog walks, whether it’s my dog or a clients. Just hanging around, while they get ALL of the information from a sniff spot, or sniffing the air or observing something.
But I was thinking today how uncomfortable I can get if I’m just stood around waiting when there are other people around.
Not so much when my dog is sniffing as thankfully awareness of the importance of sniffing for dogs has grown.
However, there are many other reasons dogs like to stop on walks and I like to honour them as much as I can. On today's walk alone, my dog stopped because…
She was air scenting
She was taking time to decide which direction she wanted to go
She wanted to watch the person walking on the opposite side of the road
There was another dog walking towards us and she needed time to decide how she was wanted to handle the situation
All of these are perfectly valid reasons to stop. But I’ve found that just waiting around makes me feel a bit embarrassed. I assume that onlookers must think how silly I look, just standing around.
While I know I’m giving my dog time to do what she needs to do, I suspect to others that it just looks like my dog is also just standing around doing nothing. How odd that must look.
Sometimes I let my self-consciousness get the better of me, and encourage my dog to move along before she’s ready.
I know all of these beliefs I have on what others must be thinking are just my own thoughts and not fact, but I figure that if I feel this way, there’s probably others that do too.
Time to stop on walks is super important for our dogs. We live fast paced lives and we tend to sweep our dogs up in our rush to keep moving forward. But I suspect that losing the ability to stop, take in information, and take a moment to decide what they want to do with it, could be the source of many behavioural struggles for many dogs.
I encourage you to watch your dog on your next walk when they stop, and stop with them. If you haven’t paid close attention before, it may have looked like they stopped for no reason, but there’s always a reason. Consider what information they might be absorbing and allow them time to do it.
It probably wasn’t all that long ago that it was less common to see people patiently waiting for their dogs to finish sniffing on walks, but now it’s encouraged and normalised.
So I’ve decided that instead of worrying about how strange I look when I’m pausing on a dog walk, instead I will think about how I'm advocating to others that it's ok to just stop and wait with your dog, and play my part in normalising it.
Please join me in doing the same. We’ll be leading the way forward by standing still.
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