[FryFry]

I took Leo to the dog park for the first time on Sunday. He's 10 months old now, and I figured now that he's big enough it's time to start socializing him more. At first, he ran away from the other dogs and would yelp if they came near him. Luckily, there was a dog trainer there. He told me to leave my dog alone and that Leo was just being very timid. After 10 minutes Leo started to slowly play with toys, and after 20 minutes he was chasing after other dogs. However, when people tried to go up to him and pet him, Leo would back away and bark at them. He's okay if the greetings with other people are on his terms, but if someone tries to make the first move, he gets very timid and barks at them. Eventually he started following the dog trainer around, and would play ball with him. When Leo first gets there, he'll bark at people and dogs, but after like 5 minutes of being there he somewhat mellows out. The dog park has 2 sides (small dog and large dog) Today, there was only one small dog. Leo chased after him and tried playing with him but after 10 minutes the people left, so Leo was all alone. There was a few large dogs on the other side. Leo sometimes went up to the fence and would somewhat growl and bark at the dogs on the other side. Then someone went up to Leo and tried to pet him, but Leo backed away and barked. I don't think it's an aggression bark, I think it's more of a "I'm unsure of you" bark. Is this normal? Will he eventually get better with other people and dogs? The dog trainer told me to bring Leo at least 3 times a week/1hr each time.