I definitely lean towards letting the dog make the call. Dogs are perfectly fine with human companions, and this can be a completely fulfilling life for them. There are behaviorists out there that actually promote this. If I had to choose: would a dog spend 5 hours with a human they love or another dog they love, I’d absolutely choose human. I bet, so would most dogs. Tons of problems come from dog daycare and parks and so on – this so-called “socialization” is not always all its cracked up to be.
Tig is quite happy sniffing snout then tail, and moving on. She rarely wants to play, and I would never, ever encourage or force her to. Mort loves playing with other dogs, but will completely ignore them if there is a toy anywhere in the vicinity (he without a doubt prefers interacting with a person and a toy over any dog, bar none, no question).
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