#145 - Q&A: Dog Sociability

This week’s episode is built entirely from your questions! And honestly, we love that. Listener Q&As are some of our favorite conversations because they give us a window into what real pet parents and pros are navigating right now. And this batch? Chef’s kiss.

We’re diving into the big topics you sent in about dog sociability: the difference between sociability and affiliation, what’s actually going on when teeth meet skin, and why a dog who once lived for the dog park now wants nothing to do with it. Along the way, we unpack why those labels you’ve heard tossed around (“mouthing,” “intentional biting,” “exploratory biting”) don’t always tell us what we really need to know.

If you’ve ever stared at your dog thinking, “Is this normal?” or “Why did that change?” — you’re in the right place. Keep the questions coming; they make these episodes richer, more grounded, and way more fun.

TLDL (too long, didn’t listen): 3 Key Takeaways 

1️⃣ Sociability is a pattern, affiliation is a moment – Affiliative behaviors happen in context, while sociability is about how often a dog seeks social interaction in general. One good interaction doesn’t mean a dog wants a playgroup, and that’s not a character flaw.

2️⃣ Instead of labeling the bite, look at the impact – Whether it’s “intentional,” “exploratory,” or “mouthing,” the questions that matter are: Is someone getting hurt? Is the human distressed? Is it developmentally appropriate? The labels are less important than the safety and support everyone needs.

3️⃣ Social needs change with age – It’s normal for dogs who used to love dog parks or daycare to outgrow them. Aging, physical changes, maturing social preferences, or simply “I’m over this” are all valid. Adjust your enrichment plan to the dog you have today, not the dog you had at 8 months old.

For the full episode show notes, including the resources mentioned in this episode, go here.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Allie: For lack of a better word, grieving the loss of who your dog was and accepting who they are now. I think one of the things that. Scares a lot of pet parents, is that their dog needed dog park daycare, something like that in order to not be a hellion. And they worry about, oh, but if I don't have this option, will my dog be a hellion?

And this is one of the reasons that we say so frequently that your enrichment strategy needs to be cyclical. Because if your dog says, no, I don't need to be playing with other dogs, my guess is they also have other changes that have happened and it it'll be a good idea to assess the entirety of their enrichment strategy at that time. They won't necessarily become a hellion if they don't do a thing that they no longer enjoy doing.

Welcome to Enrichment for the Real World, the podcast devoted to improving the quality of life of pets and their people through enrichment. We are your hosts, Allie Bender...

[00:01:09] Emily: ...and I'm Emily Strong...

[00:01:10] Allie: ...and we are here to challenge and expand your view of what enrichment is, what enrichment can be and what enrichment can do for you and the animals in your lives. Let's get started.

Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Enrichment for the Real World, and I want to thank you for rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts. 

[00:01:31] Ellen: this.

season's q and A episode, we're talking about dog sociability. I'm gonna guess no more than six times. Are we gonna say that word wrong? 

[00:01:39] Allie: I was just going to ask, do you always pronounce it sociability instead of sociability?

[00:01:44] Ellen: I don't know. I've never put thought into it.

[00:01:47] Emily: Hmm. 

[00:01:48] Allie: I'm just gonna keep letting you talk and I'm gonna just

[00:01:50] Ellen: Is it wrong? Are they both right? Have I heard it both ways?

[00:01:54] Allie: They're, you've heard it both ways

legitimately. 

[00:01:57] Ellen: Fascinating.

So our first question is, what's the difference between sociability and affiliation in dogs?

[00:02:05] Emily: Yeah, so. I think you have to think of it as like long term versus short term maybe, or like broad versus narrow. Because affiliation is a behavior or a set of behaviors that they do in a moment. So like if a dog is affiliative towards a person or another dog, it means that they are. Seeking social interaction.

They're trying to diffuse conflict. They're doing a thing to, in some way improve the relationship in the moment, whereas sociability refers to how likely it is that that dog is going to want to interact with another being. Usually we're talking about interspecific sociability. Nope. Intra specific sociability where we're talking about how dogs, how much do dogs wanna hang around with other dogs?

So we can talk about the sociability of an animal being like how often or how likely it is that they will be affiliative towards other, some, usually we're saying other dogs, but it could, we could be talking about dog, human sociability or interspecific. Sociability with dogs and other species, right?

[00:03:16] Ellen: in terms of. Affiliation. I tend to think of that in the ethological sense. So like what are the affiliation, pro-social behaviors that we're actively seeing in a unique moment, rather than how much do I see affiliation as a general pattern of behavior over time?

And sometimes we wanna say like, affiliation, is this animal's default across the board? Very rarely have I seen anything that wasn't affiliation towards another living creature of. But on the label of whatever creature we're talking about.

But I tend to think of that more very specifically in the social interaction between individuals, not what we might label an individual within an environment.

[00:03:53] Emily: Yeah, yeah. And I think I'm gonna guess at, because the person who asked that question said, bear in mind I come from the sheltering world, and, and these words get used a lot in sheltering. So I'm just gonna throw in. My own assumption about how these words are being used in context based on my own experience in sheltering.

So I acknowledge that I might be projecting, but I still gotta say it. When people try to make a dog interact with other dogs because they have seen the dog be affiliative to a specific dog in the past. That's often where things go sideways, because if we're not recognizing that that dog is highly dog selective, and yes, can be affiliative towards specific dogs in specific contexts, that does not mean that this dog is a candidate for a playgroup.

That does not mean that this dog is a candidate for adoption into a home with other pets. Affiliation can happen in. Highly specific context. And that does not mean that we should expect that dog to be affiliative in lots of other contexts.

That's not fair to the dog. It's not fair to the people who are taking care of the dog. It's not fair to the other animals in that dog's life. Affiliation in context does not mean affiliation in all contexts. So I'm just gonna throw that little salt into the conversation because maybe it wasn't the best idea to start volunteering in shelters when I was 11 years old before I had any tools for self-care.

And so I have a lot of salt about that, and I just thought that I'd sprinkle some of it into this conversation. You're welcome.

[00:05:33] Allie: You're making that sound like adults and sheltering have self-care tools

[00:05:37] Ellen: She brought the spice over.

[00:05:39] Emily: I'm bringing the salt and allie's bringing the chili peppers.

[00:05:44] Allie: told you.

[00:05:45] Emily: I love that so much. Together we're gonna make a salsa. I enjoyed that so much. 

[00:05:51] Ellen: And I think from the, like the private client side of it. Affiliation for me is going to dictate how that individual is allowed to interact with other individuals. So if I see a lot of affiliation with between the dog and a kid in the household, the level of management is going to be different than if I see a lack of affiliation or an agonistic set of behaviors towards the kid or towards the dog.

It could go either way.

The sociability. When I'm looking at that, I'm saying how much, or how little, or what does it look like to fill that dog's social cup? So does this dog thrive Going out and meeting new people in the world, is that fun for them? Is that an enriching activity for them or are they somebody that, Griffey is counted this way.

He would really like to meet you three or four times and you not acknowledge that his, he exists like. He is much better if he can check you out and do all of that. And you don't even know that there's a dog there. And then after that he might let you in his circle. But that's the difference when I'm looking at it with my clients.

[00:06:59] Allie: Yeah.

I use affiliative behavior, behavior to make decisions about should we move forward or not.

[00:07:06] Ellen: We talked about that in our episode about protected contact. So I will make sure that that isn't in the show notes.

the, the next question we got is a two part question. I'm gonna give you the whole question and then if you forget the second part, by the time we finish answering the first part.

We'll circle back. What is the difference between intentional biting, exploratory biting and mouthing, and then when is mouthing actually biting

Because

we're making salsa. 

[00:07:31] Allie: Because we're making salsa. This topic pushes many of my buttons. Let's start there. And I think it's from a long history of getting client intake forms that are wanting help with their dogs nipping, and they're describing level three bites to me, so.

[00:07:55] Ellen: For the listeners, do you wanna describe what a level three byte

[00:07:58] Allie: Oh yeah. To me I use Dr. Dunbar's scale 'cause that's what I've always used. And so a level three bite is that there are at least one to two punctures in the skin. No more, what is it? No more than half of the length of the canine or something like that. I usually just look at number of punctures.

Let's be real. Because who am I to know how? Big this canine tooth is, which is why many people use Sophia Yinz instead, and also habits die hard. Any who, so that's one of the reasons I have a, a hard time with this. And let's be, let's be real. Since we're making salsa today I hear this very frequently from professionals describing the exact same thing, not just pet parents who do not have.

A better vocabulary for the things that they're describing. So that's one of the reasons, this is a topic that pushes a lot of my buttons. For me, what was the question? What, when is it intentional? When it's it, when is it not?

[00:09:01] Ellen: What is the difference between intentional biting, exploratory biting, and mouthing?

[00:09:04] Allie: The other reason this topic pushes my buttons is because sometimes the answer is, I don't care because. For the average person, teeth on skin, regardless of intent, is a problem. And yes, I'm going to treat something that's like a, I'm trying to play with you and I'm biting at your hou, mouthing at your hands because I'm trying to play with you versus I want your hand to go away from me.

And I bit it because you ignored all of my other signals to tell you to go to put your hand away. Yes, I'm going to treat those differently. And so for that reason, intent behind the behavior matters. And also at the end of the day, the average person doesn't want teeth on skin in general. And therefore, I just have to figure out what the purpose of the bite is and who cares what to call it.

[00:09:59] Emily: I think the, the issue is that there are no agreed upon terms. So like we can talk about how we define those terms and how we differentiate them, but there is no consensus in our field or elsewhere on. What, how you classify these different types of, of teeth on skin interactions. So, one of the problems is like, why are you like, why do you care about this?

What are you going to do with the information? I think that's really where you need to start. You need to take a descriptive approach rather than a prescriptive approach to these assessments. Because the reason I'm saying that is. Like knowing that these are shelter questions, right? If you have a dog who is damaging, damaging humans, injuring humans, and you're trying to decide whether or not to put that dog out into the world, it really truly does not matter if that dog is damaging humans because they are over aroused, frantic, can't. Handle their lives and the way that they cope with that is damaging humans, or if they are using this as a tool to get humans to move away from them. Or if it's a medical issue, it doesn't matter because regardless of why these injuries are happening, you are putting out into the world an animal who injures humans. So from a sheltering perspective. I don't care. I, I could not care less. It is different when a family who has a dog, who loves their dog, who wants the best for their dog, who wants to remain safe, who wants to avoid litigation, who wants to avoid violating HOA policies, hires you as a professional to come in and help you with that problem, because like Allie said.

There's a, the, the treatment plan, how we're going to approach it. The unmet needs are very, very different in a dog who is intentionally biting people in order to try to make them go away or stop whatever they're doing, versus a dog who. Has this huge startle response. It's not intentional, but when, when they get startled, they, their startle response is to bite versus a dog who's overly excited and they mouth hard enough to cause injury, versus a puppy who's only causing injury because they've got needle teeth and they need almost no pressure to damage a human.

Right. So when we're in the home with a dog. Working with that family, then we need to have the nuance of like, how are we going to approach the situation? How are we going to work, move forward to help the, the dog and the family? And what does that, what are the unmet needs for everybody involved? What does addressing this actually look like?

Right? But. Sorry, with the exception of like puppies, needle teeth. I, I think I speak for all of us, but I'll just speak for myself and say I have incredibly strong feelings about putting dogs who enter humans out into the world because for many reasons, one is it's not fair to the dog. It sets them up to be punished.

It sets them up to have a lot of horrible experiences before. At the end of their life. So like we're not actually preventing the end of life, we're just kicking that can down the road and tor tormenting the dog in the process. It's not fair to the family who just wanted a family pet and they were in no way equipped to deal with this.

And now they have a ton of grief and guilt and fear and embarrassment and shame when all they wanted was a family pet. It's not fair to the community who now mistrusts shelter dogs and there's common public perception that shelter dogs are intrinsically dangerous or damaged because that's what we're putting out into the world.

It may be a, it may seem like a short term solution to save quote unquote. I'm using massive air quotes here because I've got lots of salt around this. It may seem like a win to quote, unquote save that dog. Yeah, I, I'm doing these like air quotes and I'm just imagining like salt just spraying out from my fingertips as I do this.

Like, like streams of salt coming out of my air quotes. But we're saving in that dog, quote unquote, salty, salty quotes like not, and not actually saving the dog, and also doing a whole bunch of long-term damage to everybody else in the process. I will die on this hill. I do not apologize. That is I, that is I, for me. Big, hard. No. So the context matters when we're asking these questions of like, what is the difference between all of these things? Right. And I personally use the, the, like, the different words when I'm talking about intentional biting. I am talking about a decision that is being made in the moment by the dog as a strategy for getting humans or another dog or something to stop what they're doing or move away. I am saying wait, what was the second one, Ellen?

[00:15:29] Ellen: Exploratory.

[00:15:30] Emily: I don't even know what exploratory biting is. Like to me, when I hear exploratory biting, I think of baby birds trying to figure out what their beaks are for. I have never used the word exploratory biting for dogs. I've only used that for parrots because they. They use their mouth beaks and tongues to explore surfaces when they're babies 'cause they don't know what things are yet.

So I, I just never use that word for, for dogs, but I do use unintentional to refer to the startle bites that happen, like where the dog gets startled, the dog bites, and then as soon as the dog's done biting, you see the look on their face. They're like, oh my God, what did I do? Whoops. Then the mouthing is, to me, it's very clear that the dog is playing.

The dog is Lucy Wiggly offering all of these a affiliative play behaviors, and then teeth happens on skin. And I've talked in the podcast how I'm totally comfortable doing a mouthing game with Miley because she and I have boundaries. We have rules around it. We there's like. It's highly contextualized, and I call that mouthing because to me it is an adaptive behavior.

It's not a problem. I don't mind her teeth on my skin in that context. And also she just doesn't put her teeth on people's skin in other contexts. So for me, that's what I call mouthing. But again, Allie and I worked in a sanctuary where we had lots of dogs who in. Play playfully would do level three bites because they were so overstimulated, so overwhelmed, so just chronically stressed.

They could not cope with their environment. And so even when they would try to play, they would bite way too hard. And again, not putting that out into the community, not gonna do it. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter why the person is in the hospital getting stitches, they're in the hospital getting stitches.

[00:17:24] Ellen: So I think if I was to sum up what the two of you said, because that's what I do, the first question is, is it problematic for the human? Because if it's problematic for the human for whatever reason, I am not gonna judge that this is problematic for you. I used to run puppy classes and people would be like, see, doesn't it hurt?

And I'm modern managing play and I got puppy teeth on my skin and it didn't hurt me. I was in my twenties. I had. Very thick skin also had been bit by our current definitions, bit a lot within a very normal adaptive thing between birds doing. Mouthy, let me explore the world with my third hand and all of the things, and I said no.

And then I looked up and I was like, Hmm, but it hurts you. So it doesn't matter. If it doesn't hurt me, it hurts you. So we need to keep your puppy's teeth off of your skin for whatever reason. So is there damage? Being done is another one. Again, it doesn't matter if it is totally adaptive and appropriate, if damage is being done, it's not okay for the second part of this party.

So we need to do something about it. Is it a problem for the human? Is damage being done? And then the third one I think is is it developmentally appropriate or not? Because like in terms of puppies, puppies get a lot more leeway with me than a grown adult dog who is fully developmentally past all of the different things.

They have gotten the chance to do their exploration with their mouth in. Put everything in there and wood chips and rocks and all of those things, and I don't have to worry about those things.

[00:18:57] Emily: Yeah, and to your point, I would say as of this recording, Miley is 11 months and four days old, and she asks to play the mouthing wrestling game way less frequently than she did when she was younger. And also when she does, the sessions are shorter and she doesn't. Put as much pressure on my skin. Like I haven't gotten a bruise from her in, in months now.

And I didn't do anything to intentionally decrease her behaviors. I was just using, like, using that mouthing game as an adaptive way to help her move through that developmental stage and on her own, because we put such good guardrails around that behavior and turned it into a very clear game with very clear start and stop cues.

It has just naturally decreased on its own as she's aging. So what you just described is, I think, a really important criterion to pay attention to, which is, is the dog, sorry, let me start over. If the behavior is developmentally appropriate, we should see the behavior decreasing as they leave that developmental period of their life.

So if you have a three-year-old dog who's still mouthing like a puppy, I would examine. Why that is happening? Because usually when you have an adult dog mouthing like a puppy, that indicates an unmet need of of some kind.

[00:20:22] Ellen: I did the same thing with Laika. She was able to put teeth on us, mouth on us did not care. The pressure was what needed to be moderated. So if there was too much pressure, it needs to be on a toy instead of us. And I used to play tug with my finger. I give her my finger and she would check on it. And she's very little.

And occasionally we still play that game and she's just laughing the entire time. But we acquired her somewhere between eight and 12 weeks, best guess. And Griffey, we acquired a little, like a year and a week old. And that from the start, because it was not developmentally appropriate for him to continue to put mouth on people.

It wasn't like it wasn't a big deal when he did it because sometimes he misses when we play T and all of those things and that's, that's fine. But like we never did the mouth he gave for him 'cause it was not developmentally appropriate for him at that stage to need that to be a part of the way that we interacted.

[00:21:16] Emily: This is a total sidebar that really is unrelated to this conversation, but I just need y'all to know that Miley has started doing a thing that's incredibly adorable when she's excited and she wants something from me. She does a little stress yawn. With my arm. Like she puts her mouth around my arm, but doesn't actually touch my arm and stress ons and makes this a like, ah, noise.

And it's the cutest thing in my whole life. And I'm pretty sure that she does that because it's like a, it's a callback to the days when we did the rat one. It's adorable. All right. I will hurt myself, but I just had to say that because it's a very cute like. Approximation away from the mouthing period in her life.

[00:21:57] Ellen: And our last question for this episode is very general. We get this a lot, and my dog used to love the dog park. Why doesn't he anymore? And my first question is, how old is your dog?

[00:22:10] Allie: The answer is probably two or three.

[00:22:12] Emily: One thing that I've mentioned that I'm, I'm currently going through with Miley because yes, everything that I talk about ties back to Miley. I don't apologize. I'm not sorry. But she was a super social puppy with other dogs. Loved every dog she met, wanted to be friends with every dog.

And then she went through her first big girl heat cycle and she came out the other side of it, deciding that big dogs were the devil. She still likes little dogs, but like big dogs, she, she gets agro about and we're working on it. We've got some skill building that we're doing, et cetera. But I can deeply empathize with the heartbreak that comes from having a dog who used to be super dog friendly and love the dog park and what feels like out of nowhere suddenly is not cool with all dogs.

And also it is totally normal for dogs as they age to become less sociable and more selective with their social circle. And that trend is not. Unique to dogs because when I was in my twenties, I was out five nights a week at shows. I had hundreds of friends. I was at coffee houses, hanging out with people I cared about like every night that I wasn't at a show or sometimes after a show, like, and now I have learned through trial and eval and through using a healthy mind platter to create my own enrichment plan that I can have one social event a month.

If I have more than that, it, it throws me off my routine and sends me into a little spiral. So humans also become less sociable as they age, and I think that's true for a lot of mammals. I think it's true for a lot of animals that aren't mammals. I've seen that in hundreds of parrots that I've worked with, that as babies.

They could be in the aviary, hanging out with all the other birds, and as they grew up, they started. Having feelings about sharing space with that many other birds, right? So. It's, it is sad. I can empathize because I felt heartbreak and I was surprised at how heartbroken I was, even though I do this for a living and I know that that's a thing, and I, I, I knew it was highly probable that my baji was going to be dog selective.

I still was hard, devastated. I was devastated by it. And so I, I can only imagine how devastating it can be for people who aren't in this profession and don't know to expect that, and they, they're surprised by it. Also like it's okay for your dog to have preferences and not be all about the nightlife, not be a social butterfly, not be a party girl.

Like it's okay for your dog to prefer to like hang at home with their books and a cup of hot tea in a nice weighted blanket with their person. They can, your dog can be an introvert too.

[00:25:08] Ellen: But I usually tell clients is, did you use to go to frat parties or did you use to go to nightclubs? And like a a, a large majority of people or large concerts or something. Large concerts are something that people tend to do a little bit later into life. But, and if the answer is yes, I usually ask them. 'Cause. My clients are not typically in their early twenties anymore, would you now? And then they laugh and say, absolutely not. And I said, it's the same for your dog, the dog park. Certain types of daycares are like frat houses, and then other ones are going to be, maybe your dog is more like a book club person now. Like, I want a few friends that I can get together. I don't have to worry about the fact if I'm having a bad day, that if I, if I snap, it's going to end up in a tussle. Because we all have bad days.

And the second part of that is the physicality of how they socialize needs to change with their physical, physical body at any given time. So if you are like, well, okay, that's great advice, but my dog is like seven. Think about how they're interacting with the dog park. How they're interacting with other dogs. You may have had a dog that really loved that rough and tussle and full body contact sport, and now we have arthritis and it hurts and we don't wanna do that anymore. But our friends expect that of us because we have six years of rough and tumble sports behind us.

[00:26:32] Emily: Yeah. That's a really good point. We were focusing on the period of life when most people ask this question, but absolutely as dogs age, their play style changes, their stamina changes a lot, a lot changes. Right. And I, another thing that you brought up that I think is, is worth pointing out is that how they interact. To tell each other. I've had enough can look or sound scary, but that doesn't mean it's maladaptive. That doesn't mean it's, it's conflict seeking. A lot of times the behaviors that we find alarming are actually conflict avoiding behaviors because they're the dog's way of saying, I've had enough, I, I need you to stop doing this.

So boundary setting. When dogs set boundaries with each other, it can look or sound really scary to us. But that doesn't mean it's bad. So if your dog has started grumping at other dogs, watch how the other dog responds and if the other dog is like, oh my bad. And stops doing it. That was a great, great interaction. That's something to celebrate, not something to fear. If your dog grumps at another dog and the other dog is like, how dare you talk to me like that, I'm throwing down the gauntlet, then we need to get your dog out of there because that's not a safe interaction.

If your dog grumps at another dog, the other dog's like, my bad, and your dog's like, no, seriously, I'm not done telling you off. That's an issue. You need to get your dog away from that other dog, and that is something that you may wanna work with a behavior professional to help you address teaching your dog how to say no thank you in more polite ways, and then drop it when the other dog. Does, does the thing that they're asking for, right? So these are situations that merit mindfulness and observation. But that does not necessarily mean that it's a bad conversation. So again, I'm gonna bring this back to Miley because that's what I always do all the time. The other thing I think I've, me mentioned in past episodes that. Miley experienced as she went through her big girl heat cycle is she became really resource guardy towards copper. She guarded objects, food places us as she's out of her heat cycle now and we've been working on. Developing some good skills about like, you don't need to be a jerked copper. He's not gonna take your stuff.

What we see now is that if she has feelings and then she'll immediately turn to me and be like, okay, I'm actually fine, because when I have feelings, I come to you and good things happen. But then other times. If she has feelings about something that copper's doing, she will grump at him. She gets her little hackles go up and she goes and she like runs over to him, but then she's super appropriate and she sniffs copper and he sniffs her, and then she like takes a step away and shakes it off.

So I'm not trying to fix that because she's allowed to have moments where she's like, you're making me uncomfortable. Copper and copper's like, okay. I'm sorry. And she's like, okay, cool. I just had to let you know. And he's like, yeah, all right. That's a great interaction. Right? And we're seeing that as they're having more of those interactions, she's having them less frequently and she they're less intense.

Right.

[00:30:01] Allie: I think too, in addition to like. For lack of a better word, grieving the loss of who your dog was and accepting who they are now. I think one of the things that. Scares a lot of pet parents, is that their dog needed dog park daycare, something like that in order to not be a hellion. And they worry about, oh, but if I don't have this option, will my dog be a hellion?

And this is one of the reasons that we say so frequently that your enrichment strategy needs to be cyclical. You need to look at it very frequently or maybe not very. You need to look at it frequently. And assess if it's doing what it needs to be doing for you. Because if your dog says, no, I don't need to be playing with other dogs, my guess is they also have other changes that have happened and it it'll be a good idea to assess the entirety of their enrichment strategy at that time.

They won't necessarily become a hellion if they don't do a thing that they no longer enjoy doing.

[00:31:07] Ellen: And the other part of that is it may just be different. So like, I need to play with dogs, but I need to play with my friends. Not all these randos, or I need to play with dogs, but you've been taking me to the dog park two hours, four days a week, and really like one day a week. I'm, I'm, I'm good. And so sometimes it's not, we have to scrap it all together. We need to look at how we're doing it and see if that's just the change that they need for different things. 

[00:31:33] Emily: Yeah, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can do some trial and eval to figure out what. What the Goldilocks zone of sociability and social opportunities is for your dog so they can Nope. So all of you can, can thrive, right?

[00:31:49] Ellen: I think the important thing to remember I don't think we've said it explicitly, but it should be something that we say explicitly is sociability is about multiple individuals. It is not just about your dog. So, if Miley ran up and scolded another dog, the way she runs up and scolds copper, I would not expect the same outcome from a bunch of different dogs.

It's okay because she and Copper have that relationship versus in my house, like it gets to scold, run up and scold once she runs up and scolds twice. Griffey's gonna be like you told me. And so that's the cue in our house that like she had to get it out of her system. You said your piece, and if you can't keep it together after that, then we're gonna take you and we're gonna go into a different room and you can, you can tell us your feelings, but you don't get to continuously scold your brother.

And so keep that in mind when you're talking about sociability, whether that's dog sociability with humans or other dogs, or dogs and cats, or. Birds. And birds and birds or dogs and birds or whoever it is, you're looking at the skillset of multiple individuals at one time to assess what is happening, what is appropriate, what is gonna be safe for everybody.

[00:33:00] Emily: Yeah, for sure. I think that's part of the, the journey is figuring out. What you have the capacity to moderate. So if your dog has started grumping at another dog in your household and you're like, I don't want to. Find out if my dog's gonna try to do that same grumping in the dog park, then that's a good signal to you that the dog park is no longer a good option for you and your dog.

Not because your dog couldn't potentially handle it, but because you don't wanna do that level of moderation like it's a, it's no longer a solution for you as a human. That's also okay. You can find other. Social interaction opportunities for your dog that don't require as much bandwidth and vigilance from you.

That's also great. If I started to say, fine, it's more than fine. It's great when you make that decision for yourself and your dog.

So in terms of sociability versus affiliation, ask yourself, what am I seeing? What is the dog doing that makes me think the dog is sociable or affiliative? Instead of asking, is this bite. Intentional, exploratory or mouthing. Ask yourself, what level of damage is the dog doing and what is the impact of that damage for the dog, the humans, the community?

What, how, how do we need to address this? What decisions do we need to make to make sure that everybody is best supported?

Instead of saying that your dog overnight out of nowhere has become less sociable, which may be true, ask yourself, what am I seeing? What behaviors am I seeing that makes me feel like my dog is less sociable?

And how do I need to adjust my enrichment plan to meet my dog's needs as they currently are, not as they used to be? So. I know that's a shock, but the recap of this episode for us is observe with your senses, not your stories. It's weird, funny that, that we would say that on this podcast. But, but that's, I think the, the take home lesson of all of the topics from today is just get really good and comfortable, good at, and comfortable with observing what's actually happening.

Setting aside the stories in your head and making decisions based on the behaviors you're observing rather than the stories you're telling yourself about what you're observing. 

[00:35:44] Allie: I hope you enjoy today's episode and if there's someone in your life who also needs to hear this, be sure to text it to them right now. If you're a pet parent looking for more tips on enrichment, behavior modification, and finding harmony with your pet, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Harmony training. If you're a behavior or training professional dedicated to enrichment for yourself, your clients, and their pets, check us out on TikTok and Instagram at Pet Harmony Pro.

As always, links to everything we discussed in this episode are in the show notes. Thank you to Ellen Yoakum for editing this episode and making us sound good. Our intro music is from Penguin Music on Pixa Bay. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps more pet lovers and professionals find us so they can bring enrichment into their world too.

Thank you for listening, and here's to harmony. Okay, it is just a q and a, so I just ask you a question, right?

[00:36:40] Emily: Yeah. That, that feels like how we do things, I think. I think that's correct. Right? Ally?

[00:36:47] Ellen: Ally has no

[00:36:47] Allie: I have no idea.

[00:36:49] Emily: look, we all showed up. We're in the Zoom session together. That's a win.

[00:36:54] Allie: Yeah, like I'm here. What more do you want from me?

[00:36:57] Emily: We're crushing

[00:36:58] Ellen: to talk. Um,

[00:37:02] Allie: Okay. You think that now?

[00:37:04] Ellen: oh my gosh. I'm gonna find it delightful if I just have to release an entire other episode of Allie just spewing complete nonsense because she just threatened you. Think you want me to talk, I will talk, but you don't want it.

[00:37:20] Allie: I'm. In the process of writing spicy things, so you don't want me is her