With all the experience Lindsay Loves Pets has walking dogs, we’ve observed a lot about how they interact. Canines are social animals with a clear pack structure. That’s why dogs sniff… each other when they first meet, to determine where they belong in the pecking order. A dominant male smells different than a fertile female than an aging pack leader. Until they can smell each other, they don’t know how to treat one another. And then, like magic, they know where they stand, whether to play or growl or ignore. Learning this process is critical to a dog’s development and good socialization, which is why it’s so important to allow them to interact with a variety of dogs or all sizes and ages and breeds. Context and experience matters to kids, whether they have 4 legs, or 2.