The Benefits of Group Walks: Awaken Your Dog's Inner Wolf!
Dogs are descended from wolves. Everyone knows that, yet still I have to remind myself of that common factoid all the time. I see so many dogs everyday and each and every one of them have so much personality, character, and a joyful determination to love everyone and everything that I genuinely forget that they are derived from their stoic ancestors. I mean, how many fables depict wolves as the villain of the story? Does the menacing wolf from the Three Little Pigs or Red Riding Hood remind you of your dog? No way! So, you can see my confusion, right? Regardless of my thoughts on the matter, dogs are of course the direct descendants of wolves. And inside each one of our dogs lives a little, tiny wolf howling from the past.
So why does any of this matter? Because wolves live, hunt, and survive in packs and as descendants of wolves, dogs likewise greatly benefit from being a part of a pack as well! Here at Boston Fetch we encourage all our pups to engage in safe, fun, and confidence building group walks, as long as their parents feel it is appropriate. Your pup can enjoy some time outdoors with their best friends while feeding their natural hunger for kinship and developing a healthy pack mentality. But why are these things so important to the development and happiness of your dog? Let’s find out!
Feeding their instincts
Dogs, much like us humans, love flexing the instincts deeply encoded in their DNA. Allowing dogs to team up and travel together scratches that genetic itch by allowing them to safely simulate the habits and lifestyles of their hereditary ancestors. The exercise of this instinct encourages pack bonding, the development of social growth, and can vastly improve your dog’s mental and physical well being.
Encouraging confidence through positive reinforcement
For some dogs group walks can be intimidating at first. At Boston Fetch we carefully select and assess each dog for compatibility in a group setting to ensure harmony throughout the pack. This means that each dog can be the best version of themselves while learning the best behaviors of their fellow pack mates. By consistently allowing all pack mates to enjoy a fun, stress-free walk together they grow confident in themselves and their abilities to act appropriately in group setting. This positive reinforcement loop is the central mechanism that encourages all our dogs to grow into friendly and fun loving social creatures.
It’s a great alternative to the chaos of dog parks
Believe it or not, many in the pet care industry are not the biggest fans of dog parks and unstructured, off-leash play among dogs that are not familiar with one another. While some dogs of specific temperaments and backgrounds are capable of handling the free-for-all, wild west nature of a dog park most dogs find this brand of activity over-stimulating. This feeling of unpredictability can cause many, if not most, dogs to become defensive of their surroundings which leads to reactivity. But by structuring a dog’s play time around a shared activity, such as a walk, a dog is more capable of finding a comfortable spot in the natural order of the pack while accomplishing shared goals. Even my own dog, Ray, struggles greatly to maintain composure and confidence at the dog park, but is happy, content and physically and mentally stimulated on the path with his pack of pups
Introduce diversity to your dogs reprotare
Another reason I sometimes forget that dogs used to be wolves is because of, well… Henry.
How could something that looks like him have come from this?
Well, it happened! And regardless of how, I’m happy it did because Henry is an absolute joy! My point though - group walks are the perfect chance to introduce your dog, safely, to a diverse group of dogs of all shapes and sizes. Meeting a varied group of canines can help expand your dog's library of positive interactions with animals that would typically fall outside their normative experiences. Knowledge is power, even for dogs!
Keep your old dog young
We adopted Ray in April 2021 as our late dog, Cuyahoga, was starting to show her age. Our hope was that having a younger, more spritely personality around the house would give her a second wind - and I am proud to say it was a smashing success! We see this sort of behavior all the time in older pups and while it’s never a good idea to push a hound further than it’s limits based on factors such as age, health, and energy levels, we know being a member of a swift moving pack can lend energy to a dog that could use a pick-me-up.
Scared your dog might not be a good fit? We can help with that.
Not all dogs start as a great fit for a group walk setting. Some dogs may be reactive due to prior trauma, a disability, age, or a medical issue and it can seem like an impossibility to get them to enjoy the company of their brethren. That’s okay. As a society we often place undue blame on pet parents of dogs that have reactive behaviors, despite rarely understanding or empathizing with their plight - and that’s an awful thing. You may feel guilty, embarrassed, or ashamed that your dog - adopted, rescued, or raised from a pup - is reactive, but you don’t need to.
By way of an anecdote I want to tell you about my late dog, Cuyahoga. We lost her to a brain tumor in September of last year and she’s the whole reason I work with dogs. By the time we rescued Hogie she had passed through a number of homes, likely due to her propensity to attack other dogs, completely out of the blue, as soon as they met one another. She loved humans and children, but put another dog in front of this 80 pound brick of fur and muscle and it was bad news. Initially, it was fine because she was not regularly interacting with other dogs, but it quickly became a monkey on our backs. Walking her became a full contact sport when we had to share a sidewalk with another dog and over time it turned every outing into an anxiety producing carnival of shame and embarrassment. Me and my partner only spoke about Hogie’s behaviors in hushed tones and only shared our thoughts with trainers we were paying to help us diagnose the problem.
For a long time we felt lost and ashamed. We felt we had failed Hogie and that she would need to spend the rest of her life in isolation from other dogs. But overtime we figured it out, and the solution could not have been more simple. We exposed her to other dogs, in a controlled environment, on a walk, with a muzzle on, and everything fell into place. Within a few short weeks her reactivity was replaced by constant and consistent positive interactions with the pack as they shared and enjoyed their hikes. Hogie LIVED for those adventures with the pack and I’ll never get over how dramatically that improved her life. So much so that I began a brand new career working with dogs.
Some dogs may not want the company of other hounds, and that’s just fine. Just like humans, dogs can be introverted or extroverted. But if you feel like your dog would benefit from the comradery and companionship of their own pack, please reach out to Boston Fetch. We would love for your furry friend to grow and thrive with our pack.