Catching up on your lovely posts :) we visited Portland this winter and also found the local dog culture a little… ruff lol. I’m convinced there’s a correlation between “Dangerous wildlife dogs might encounter in a place on a daily basis vs. average training level of that place’s dogs.” Places like Portland and LA certainly prove my theory true ;)
I made a similar shift towards embracing kindness in these interactions. Getting off social media has certainly helped! Luckily my ladies are pretty dog social so the stakes are lower because I can mostly let the interactions happen. My partner and I just moved to a cute neighborhood in Denver and plan to live here for a while, and I’ve decided to be really proactive about building community. Like you said, those small connections with other dog owners go way further than yelling. I’m planning to hang flyers/make Nextdoor posts about casual training meetups at the local park throughout the summer. A lil relationship building can have a major ripple effect
The wildlife point is honestly a great one! And does make some intuitive sense. I could totally see a version of Past Me, who has not had the salient personal experiences I've now had, growing up in a place like our neighborhood here and just ignoring all the leash signs without a care, because everyone else seems to do it and also what could go wrong? It's definitely been good practice to balance taking things seriously (because after all these years with Scout, there *are* things we can't just be laissez faire about) while also practicing what I preach / who I aspire to be re empathy.
Catching up on your lovely posts :) we visited Portland this winter and also found the local dog culture a little… ruff lol. I’m convinced there’s a correlation between “Dangerous wildlife dogs might encounter in a place on a daily basis vs. average training level of that place’s dogs.” Places like Portland and LA certainly prove my theory true ;)
I made a similar shift towards embracing kindness in these interactions. Getting off social media has certainly helped! Luckily my ladies are pretty dog social so the stakes are lower because I can mostly let the interactions happen. My partner and I just moved to a cute neighborhood in Denver and plan to live here for a while, and I’ve decided to be really proactive about building community. Like you said, those small connections with other dog owners go way further than yelling. I’m planning to hang flyers/make Nextdoor posts about casual training meetups at the local park throughout the summer. A lil relationship building can have a major ripple effect
The wildlife point is honestly a great one! And does make some intuitive sense. I could totally see a version of Past Me, who has not had the salient personal experiences I've now had, growing up in a place like our neighborhood here and just ignoring all the leash signs without a care, because everyone else seems to do it and also what could go wrong? It's definitely been good practice to balance taking things seriously (because after all these years with Scout, there *are* things we can't just be laissez faire about) while also practicing what I preach / who I aspire to be re empathy.
As always your writing hits home ❤️
As always, your kindness and support keeps me motivated to share 💛