My friend, Lupe the blue Dane, had invited me for a playdate with him on Nudgee Beach but because of my back ouchie and the vet saying I’m not allowed to play for 2 weeks, my humans had to call his humans and cancel at the last minute. Lupe lives far away from me and his humans had to drive a long way in the car machine to come to the beach…so my humans felt very bad but then Hsin-Yi had a great idea: maybe Lupe could stop at our house on their way back from the beach and we could have pizza together! I still wasn’t allowed to play with him but hanging out together would still be fun! 
I was very excited when they arrived – I had never had a doggie visitor in the house before! As soon as I heard the knocking on the door, I ran to grab a toy – every doggie knows that the correct way to welcome guests is with a stuffie!
Oooh, there was so much wagging tails and waving paws and twirling bodies…two excited Great Danes in a small room is like a doggie tornado! 
(Note: male humans should stay away from our tails – or cover their trouser fronts with their hands!)
Actually, although I was very excited and happy to see Lupe, I was also a little stressy and unsure. Can you see all my hackle hairs standing up in the photo above? Hee! Hee! Even though I knew Lupe well, it was still a bit stressy having a strange doggie in MY house. I wasn’t sure I liked him walking around sniffing MY things and playing with MY toys!
Usually when 2 stranger doggies are meeting for the first time, it is always best to let us meet on neutral territory – for example, in the park or in training class – this makes it less likely that we will feel stressy or grumpy towards each other. Even if the stranger doggie is coming to visit, it is best to always meet on the street outside first and then come into the house together.
It is also always best to let stranger doggies meet off-leash if possible, so that we can decide ourselves what personal space we need and say hello in the natural doggie way, without humans interfering. When humans are holding our leashes, sometimes they get stressy and then they pull the leashes tight, which makes us doggies start to feel worried and stressy too – this is why many doggies that meet on leash end up getting grumpy with each other. If humans must keep us on leash, then they must try to keep our leashes loose all the time.
In my case, though, it was OK because I have met Lupe lots of times before and played with him before – plus my humans know me really well and they know that I am quite good with strange doggies coming to my house, even if I feel a bit stressy about it. Back in Auckland, I had Cinnamon & Lexi and of course my boyfriend, Ombre, come to visit me – and even our neighbour’s Boxer, Lester, just turned up on our doorstep one day asking for a playdate (Hsin-Yi says: that was a very ignorant owner – you do not show up on a strange dog’s doorstep with your dog and just walk in when they open the door! She meant well and she was lucky that Lester was still quite young and Honey is very tolerant – otherwise, things could have got a bit ugly! But I can tell you, when he ran in and started jumping on Honey’s face, her growls were for real! )
Well, so I followed Lupe around the house and gave him little growls to make sure that he knew who was boss…
That's MY toy!
.
...and that's MY bed!
.
Lupe was very polite and submissive to me…well, we all know that girl doggies are always the boss!
But then Hsin-Yi gave me a Telling-Off for growling and being rude to guests and said that I had to be a good doggie host and share my things with Lupe. She even said I had to let him try out my beanbag bed! 
WHAT?!*@#!!
.
Humph! 
Sometimes being a “good” doggie is so hard!
FINE! You can have the ball - I don't want it anyway - so there!
.
Well, at least I got good cuddles from Lupe’s humans to make up for it…
Lupe’s house has wooden floors so he has been used to them since he was a baby puppy – and so he wasn’t scared of walking on them at all – he was just running around all over the house!
Lupe also hadn’t learnt the “Not-Allowed-In-The-Kitchen” rule but Hsin-Yi said that the rule didn’t really apply to doggie guests (huh?! ) although she was strict about the “Not-Allowed-On-The-Furniture” rule – Lupe is allowed on the sofas in his home so he kept trying to make himself comfortable here too! Hee! Hee!
.
Don’t worry - Lupe’s humans had brought one of his beds for him so we were soon both quite comfortable on our beds together…
.
Then we both heard a word we understood…
Did somebody say...PIZZA?!
.
But oh! The humans said the pizza was not for us! It was only for them! Mean, greedy, piggy humans! But Lupe’s humans were very nice – they brought a big beefy hide chew for us each to have while the humans were having their pizza…
..mmmm…yummy…
These were really good chews – usually when my humans buy me anything from the pet stores, it is gone in 5 seconds – even bully sticks! With our big jaws, us Danes can crunch through anything easily. But this chew last ages…my humans were very impressed!
.
And then after dinner, the humans took out a big box and said they were going to play a game called Cranium.
.
Hsin-Yi said this is like a ‘brain game’ for humans – although as far as I could see, it was not like our doggie ‘brain games’ at all because there were no treats to be found anywhere in this game!
Do you see any treats, Lupe? No, neither do I. This is a stupid game...
.
There were just little plastic bits and lots of cards which made the humans do very silly things…ooh, until they took out a tub of soft purple stuff which looked like it might be a yummy!
But the humans didn’t eat it – they just kept trying to make funny shapes with it and laughing a lot…
These silly humans! And I thought they were supposed to be the smartest of all animals? Don’t they realise they are supposed to EAT it, not make shapes with it? But when I tried to show them, Hsin-Yi gave a yelp and snatched it away from me…I didn’t even get a lick! And it smelt so yummy too! I’ll bet it was delicious…mean, greedy, piggy Hsin-Yi was probably just keeping it all for herself! Humph!
By this time, it was getting really late…in fact, Lupe was so worn out from all the excitement, he had already gone to sleep!
Time for one last group photo with the self-timer before the guests leave…I’m quite good at posing for photos when my human is holding the camera machine but I still need a bit of practice when it is on self-timer…still, I was better than Lupe, though. Look at the silly boy – shaking his head just when the camera machine clicked – that is definitely not his best angle! 
.
Well, I had a great time with my doggie visitor and Lupe says next time, me and my humans can go to his house for dinner…I can’t wait!
******
Hsin-Yi says: For those interested, here is a very good page about raised hackles and what they mean in a dog. Just like mounting is not always about sex or even dominance - and a wagging tail does not always mean a friendly, happy dog - raised hackles is not always about aggression. It is a sign of arousal, triggered by adrenalin, and is a “fight or flight” response. Although the most common reasons are fear or hostility, many dogs raise their hackles simply because they are feeling unsure about their environment or they are simply over-excited (Honey is one of these). Hackling can also be like us humans getting goosebumps. As with all dog body language signals, it is important to read the whole dog to get the full picture (ears, posture, tail position, mouth tight or open and relaxed, stiffness of body, etc) and not just one part of the body.
