Black Labrador Tanya sees the world as a dangerous and scary place.
Tanya’s owners thought it would be a fabulous idea to bring her to doggie day care to “bring her out of her shell.”
This first day of this little experiment, the day care staff reported that Tanya dove under a chair and holed up there for the duration. Despite their best efforts to integrate her into the swarm of boisterous dogs, Tanya tucked her tail and skittered back to the chair.
Her owner’s insisted that she try another day at the facility. Maybe she would have better luck with a different group of dogs.
The second day, the staff called Tanya’s owners and asked them to collect her. Tanya, they said, was miserable.
Tanya’s owners despaired. “What’s wrong with her?” they wanted to know. “What can we do to help her become more sociable?” The family has a number of friends and relatives with dogs. They wanted Tanya to enjoy company as much as they do. “How did we get the one and only Lab in the world that ISN’T happy-go-lucky?”
I had to advise them that Tanya will never be a party animal.
Like people, some dogs are quiet and more introverted. As we know from Todd Conquers Little Porter, breed is not always a prediction of a dog’s personality.
With patience and desensitization, we could help Tanya relax more in the presence of other people and dogs, but trying to change her basic temperament is not possible.
Her owners needed to accept Tanya as the sweet, yet timid dog that she is.
The happy ending is that we discovered Tanya is fine one-on-one with a smaller dog. We introduced her to a friendly Pug and the two dogs played gently, and happily, with each other.
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