Instead, you want the dogs to greet each other calmly and appropriately. Every time I’m expecting visitors, the scene is the same: I try to time it just right and get my dogs outside before my guests arrive.. There is no need for your puppy to greet other dogs on-leash. If your dog lunges, you’ll want to deliver a … Charlie is very friendly with other dogs on or off leash, however if he cannot greet a new dog when on a walk he gets anxious. Don’t panic When you see or encounter other dogs on the walk, remain calm. For those dogs who have not quite nailed politeness in their greeting skills, you can train some civility into them. If you’re calm, then your dog is calm — and the other dog will sense this. Lots of dogs simply don’t know how to deal with people in this situation, so ideally we want to teach our dogs to greet new people politely, whether in the house or out on the street. If Charlie gets too excited they should turn around and increase their distance between Charlie and the other dog. Dogs that pull on leash, strain, and whine to get to another dog “just to say hi” should not be going to a dog park to play with other dogs or be greeting another dog on while on a leash. If your dog is jumping on your guests or family members, and jumping on people or lunging at other dogs on walks, you can train him to greet politely by using patience and a few simple, but highly effective positive reinforcement techniques. If you actually wanted to teach your dog to pull toward other dogs, you’d do what many owners routinely do, which is to walk him toward other dogs while he’s pulling. I talked to the guardians about approaching new dogs slowly and only when Charlie was calm. If Fido leaps on everyone that walks through your door, you definitely want to check out our guide for how to train your dog to greet visitors nicely!. They also have harnesses that do the same. Head collars are great alternatives because they work by forcing your dog to turn away from his trigger if he pulls. That’s the source of a lot of conflict. Some dogs are simply never going to properly greet a stranger without added incentive. All this does is alert the dog to danger, and if their human does this a few times then the dog will make the association with other dogs and danger. Even if you allow pulling to “work” only once in a while, the dog will keep trying it; in fact, randomly disallowing it will just frustrate the dog… This may take some practice and you will likely need the help of other people. After a couple of lessons of greeting different dogs, you can start to make meeting the other dog the reward for eye contact or calmly walking on a loose leash, instead of clicking and feeding a treat before releasing your puppy to say hello. As part of this step, never allow your dog to lunge towards the other dog. The lyrics are true: it’s a small world. You want your encounters to be civil and controlled, so the early walks, while your dog is still a puppy, will be important for setting the ground rules for walking and meeting behavior. This sets the stage for an improper greeting. You will be rewarding the behavior you like with permission to meet the other dog. Your puppy should learn that seeing another dog leads to a treat from you and then continuing the walk without greeting the other dog. If your dog sits intentionally, either from a lack of social know-how, fear, anxiety, or as a dominant act thereby cutting off sniffing access for other dogs, this may be viewed as a hostile gesture and could set off a physical altercation. Another way this can be created with a young dog is in a group training class. If you’re not a fan of choke collars, that’s fine; there are other options. Again, expectation becomes reality. 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