Audrey and I went for our usual evening walk and met the white Spencer-looking dog down the street again. And again She was a bit hostile towards Audrey but they were fine. Her owner, one of my neighbors, asked me "She's a Lab right?" To which I replied, "No, she's a Field Spaniel." And then we walked away. C'mon, a Lab, really? Is that going to be the most common guess?
We continued on down the street and the recent trend is that the 2nd half of our street is over run by people letting their big fat labs and little white terriers loose in their front yard (ie: the middle of the street). So we turned around and started coming back home.
Another of our neighbors was talking to my Mom so Audrey said Hello and acted quite friendly. There were tons of cars in the street and we noticed there was a lot of bustling at our next door neighbor's house. We heard the wailing of trumpets, violins, and guitars and singing of a Mariachi Band and we naturally went to investigate.
Audrey's initial reaction was to bolt, but I held her leash close and we huddled next to the next door neighbor's fence and she got comfortable enough to sit with me and we listened to the Mariachis play for a while.
After that we walked on down the street and much to our excitement the Mariachis were done playing and started walking toward their van to pack up. Their van, conveniently, was parked right across from our driveway. We stood and watched them drink their waters and smoke their cigs and I asked if we could say Hello. I told them my dog was just a baby and quite shy and they should all say hello to her.
They were all super friendly and whistled and baby-talked to my beautiful Cocker Spaniel. Audrey on the other hand flipped out about the giant harp, trumpets, cellos, violins, and of course, their Mariachi outfits. After a lot of flipping out and nearly escaping out of her collar, I picked her up and allowed them all to pet her. They were very nice and she allowed them to pet her.
As it turns out, my family knows the main trumpet player so he came into our yard to say Hello to my Mom and Dad and I guess Audrey figured since he was on our yard he was less scary. She went up and sniffed his outfit, his trumpet, and his hands but balked a little when he bent down to pet her.
I think she did pretty well considering a Mariachi Band full of strange outfits, loud music (they played a little of the Harp while they were packing up in the street), big men, and large instruments would probably initially freak out even the most stable of dogs. Well, most dogs anyway, Mackenzie was raised with the Cornell Marching/Pep Band so she's used to pretty much everything musical/instrument-related.
Overall, it was a really great socialization opportunity that I imagine a lot of dogs never get to experience. I love the Valley. :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment