Bowdu is very welcoming with new people whom we invite to our place. But out in public, he’s much more cautious.
People who actively call out to him typically get ignored. Especially men.
Even if the other party also has a Shiba. See how they silently maintain their pact of aloofness?
If lucky, a stranger might receive a cool, disinterested sniff. Bowdu would rather crane his neck than step forward.
This dog’s not gonna be your instabuddy, bro.
Had this myself this morning. Our neighbor Joe was meeting Mojo for the first time. He did the usually warning woo / chuff dance, then crane cautiously forward to just barely sniff his hand. Shibas are so different from labradors, it’s quite a contrast watching Risa just galoomph up to a perfect stranger and be all lovey dovey.
How funny! Silas has a serious phobia about people being in our house, bordering on “this needs professional help,” but he loves them (in his shy way) when they’re out. Socialization, in our case. We took him lots of places when he was wee, but we didn’t know people to invite over.
Tala is exactly the same and I’ve always put it down to her primitive/feral background and hence natural caution. Interestingly though most strangers for her when out and about have been Sudanese and now Vietnamese – so different ethnically from us. I have sometimes been amazed at how she will start wagging her tail and want to head over to a ‘western’ unknown girl. So it will be interesting to see what her behavior towards strangers is like when we move back to the Uk.
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