How to approach Nadi on the street if you are a dog

My dog has become less and less social as she gets older. She still likes me a great deal and I am happy about that but she doesn't really get excited about seeing people even if she knows them and has seen them before. Unlike other dogs she doesn't really like it a great deal if you pet her and she absolutely hates being picked up. She has shown levels of this throughout her life as she was never a cuddler like other dogs are. But now that she is older she mostly just gets away from you if you ever pick her up. She hugs on her own terms and will do so in bed or if there is a thuderstorm then she will sit very close to you because she is afraid. At all other points though, she would just prefer for you to leave her alone.

This isn't to say that she is mean, she is far from it. She is also extremely well-behaved but just like with old people, she has a certain routine and ways that she expects to be treated and when people or other dogs step out of this she really doesn't like it. She will pull to get away from other dogs for the most part and will bark at puppies who are extremely active even though the pups really do not mean her any harm.

The other day I saw a dog walking towards us whose owner has a lot more faith in that dog's street smarts that I do with Nadi and instead of just picking Nadi up straight away I decided to see what the other dog was going to do. Most dogs aren't going to attack other dogs unless they have to and I am just a few feet away to intervene if necessary.

This dog just calmly walked up and did the usual sniffy stuff, walked around a little bit, played the "i'm gonna pee on everything that you pee on" game, Nadi sniffed back a bit, and then both of them went on with their respective days. No attempt at playing, no growling, no mischief, just two calm dogs wandering the streets of Da Nang although one of them has a responsible owner with a leash.

As soon as this dog wandered off Nadi behaved as though he had never been there.

I like to think that dogs have some sort of "elder protocol" that they can figure out that this particular dog is really old and therefore shouldn't really be messed with. Nadi will soon turn 91 in dog years so yeah, she is getting up there in years and mostly never wants to play unless it is just me and her in the apartment and even then she will only play for 3 or 4 throws of the toy before she goes and lies down.

I actually hope to see this dog again because the way he behaved was just perfect. There is one other dog like this that is on our walking circuit and I look forward to meeting up with him as well. Some dogs will get all spastic whenever they see another dog and Nadi never likes these dogs. Other dogs are just too big and they can accidentally hurt her.

In Vietnam there are not a great many dogs that can just wander around because there are laws against that and there is also a really awful portion of the country that kidnaps wandering dogs to put them in the meat trade. I can think of nothing that would disturb me more than that so Nadi is almost never off the leash and even if she is, she is only a few feet away from me. It would take quite a few skinny Vietnamese dog thieves to overpower me when they are trying to hurt the only thing in this country that I truly care about.

Anyway, that was a dark way to end that. The point of the story is that not all dogs want to play and act silly, Nadi is one of them. If you cannot manage to control your foolishness then you are better off just staying away.