In my opinion, yes and no. I was having a discussion recently with a chihuahua clothes loving friend who was expressing his opinion that chihuahuas are more difficult to socialize than other breeds of dogs, and that when people find cute little puppy clothes for cheap and then doll up their chihuahuas in those clothes, it only makes it even harder to properly socialize these little dogs.
I understood what he meant, but I disagree with my friend and want to share my opinion here. I think chihuahuas are easy to socialize and that the key to doing so is to simply treat them like any other dog–even when you’ve gone to the puppy boutique and you dress your chihuahua up in cute chihuahua sweaters and other small dog clothing–and not treat them like the little baby-waybies that a lot of chihuahua owners see them as. Treating them like a dog and giving them a decent amount of exercise just like I would any other type of dog has helped keep my two chihuahuas balanced and very social with people and dogs of every kind, including the burly pit bulls I’ve been fostering lately.
You can probably hear a little Cesar Millan coming through in this post, but what the Dog Whisperer says is true: in western cultures, little dogs are more often treated like babies than what they actually are: dogs. I see it all the time amongst my friends and the friends they have: emotionally unbalanced owner is having some kind of emotional crisis (ie: a breakup) and decides to buy a cute little dog to fill the void. She buys the little dog, buys the cute little chihuahua clothes to go with it, and dresses him up in all these crazy little dog costumes and adorable puppy sweaters. On one level, it’s a beautiful thing we can do this and adorn our little pooches with our love like this. But it’s almost a perfect recipe for screwing the poor little dog up if this is all we do, and we don’t make an effort to also provide what the dog needs (exercise, discipline, and then the affection [again, thank you Mr. Millan!] so that it’s earned and is perceived by the dog as a reward and not as “oh, they love me… I can do no wrong in their eyes… I can get away with whatever I want! …etc).
I have seen too many chihuahua owners who buy all the little clothes for chihuahuas and dress up their chi pup and focus all this attention on the little dog, and then never take him for a walk (the fundamental dog activity that lets a dog feel like a dog). I see the cutest chihuahuas on the planet with their high fashion and their haute couture “chiwawa clothes”, but the little itself dog is a psychological mess: it wants to nip and bite people and other dogs, and the owner hasn’t socialized the poor little puppy and let him be a dog because she was so caught up in showering him with affection and dressing him up in puppy coats, and now this little dog now has no clue how to interact with others of his own kind. I don’t mean to be harsh here: I think most people like this truly love their dogs, but simply don’t understand dogs as an animal very well. They don’t know what a dog’s needs are, and so they don’t provide for those needs, the needs that–yes–even little dogs have, and so the dog only receives affection (physical petting, food, water, ect…) without ever having to work with it and earn that stuff the way he would in his natural habitat within a pack of dogs…who haven’t solely been showered with affection and dressed up in the latest clothes for puppies.
What does any of this have to do with socialization? It has everything to do with it: if an owner isn’t providing for his dog’s needs and is only dressing him up in the latest chihuahua fashion because he found some great puppy clothes for sale at the doggy boutique, that dog is likely to develop issues and become unbalanced, and unbalanced dogs have a very hard time being social with other dogs, both because they will tend to not want to socialize very much with other dogs, and other dogs will also not want to socialize with a dog that is exhibiting unstable behavior. “Nature attacks weakness;” it doesn’t befriend it, you’ll notice if you watch. And it has nothing to do with the dog wearing chihuahua clothes: it has to do with the state of mind the owner nurtured in that dog via the way he treated the little dog. Finding puppy clothes for cheap and dressing your chihuahua up in them can help attract people to your chi and help you socialize him by increasing the frequency of interaction, but all of this has to be carried out in the right fashion if it’s going to go well. Socialization is more about maintaining a balanced state of mind in the dog when meeting new people and dogs than it is merely finding everyone and every dog to interact with and plopping yourself in front of them, I think.
So you can make socializing your little dog much easier by working to keep him balanced. By giving your little dog what he needs–what every dog needs: exercise (a proper walk); with discipline (making sure the dog is following you, the leader, on the walk and not pulling and just doing whatever he wants to do but is instead following you and your lead); and then the affection, to reward the good behavior. The affection you give your little dog in those cute chihuahua clothes nurtures the state of mind he’s in, so it’s best to only ever give affection to a dog when he’s in a good, relaxed state of mind, who’s being sociable and not being a terror. If he’s being unstable or trying to nip, do not give affection because that will actually be nurturing that state of mind and making things worse for the dog, sending the message to him “I like what you’re doing. This is good: keep it up.” This is one of the biggest mistakes dog owners make when working with difficult dogs: giving affection at the wrong time, and if you can walk away from this article with having just learned this one piece, I think you’ve gained something very valuable!
I think chihuahua clothes can help you socialize your dog with people because they tend to attract more people to your little dog, but you might find an exception when it comes to kids: those cute, cheap puppy clothes might actually work against your intention of keeping a good relationship between the kids and the little dogs, because little dog clothes make your dog look even cuter and therefore more attractive as a play toy for kids to run up to too fast and try to grab them in that excited way that kids do. I know that chihuahua clothing is so damn cute, but you may want to factor this into your socialization “strategy” for your little dog if you find yourself in situations with a lot kids around, often! Anyway, I hope this was helpful, I hope you find some puppy clothes for cheap and use them intelligently when socializing your dog, I hope you learned something new here, and I’ll be back here again soon with more news from the adorable but responsible world of chihuahua clothes 🙂 haha, take care. -Michelle
