Dog friendly dogs!

A common situation many dog owners face, on a daily basis, is their on lead dog being harassed or frightened by off lead dogs running over, followed by owners shouting, “It’s OK, my dog is friendly” or another dog owner and their dog coming right up close so they can say “Hello” because their dog is sociable and “just wants to say hi”.

Having a sociable dog is great but it doesn’t mean that just because they are sociable, they should be in other dogs faces, especially if the other dog is nervous or even reactive.

Socialisation is the process by which puppies learn to relate and act appropriately to people and other animals. That doesn’t mean they should interact with every dog they see. Quite the opposite in fact. Socialisation is exposure to – not get to meet and play with every dog they see.
It is not the job of other dogs to teach our dogs sociable behaviours. 

Many sociable dogs just want to play and when they can’t, they may pull or whine or begin to lunge towards the other dog. Quite apart from being sore and unpleasant for the handler, it can often set the greeting off on the wrong foot.

Imagine someone you don’t know, coming over to you, screaming HELLO in a loud voice, running at you with arms outstretched… worse still, you are tied up….

Those of you that follow my page will know I have been doing some work with Freya, a young German Shepherd. She is fabulous with other dogs and has a lovely temperament. 

We are working on a couple of things with her. 

• She has not been out for walks before
• She is worried about having a harness and lead put on 
• She does not like feeling restrained on lead
• She can be a little nervous of new people

Although she is fabulous with other dogs she can be a little over enthusiastic in her greeting! If we allowed her to fly in, it could tip the other dog over into panic and cause an unwanted reaction, setting the meeting up to fail.

Instead we take time to teach dogs that they can look at other dogs, but they can also choose to move away or not go close to greet them.

Here is a short video clip of Freya meeting one of mine. Freya wanted to pull over and go in all guns blazing, a bit like the woman in the image above. She was desperate to play and began whining, pulling, lunging and running in circles!

She does turn away but still keeps trying to pull over – apologies if the video makes you dizzy! She has worked herself up and you can see a stress lip lick as I try to move her away.

We introduced another dog later on and she is still too over aroused to meet.

You can see Freya in the distance, bouncing about on the lead while Jack chooses to move away. He even takes time to have a pee!

When we introduce dogs for the first time, it is essential to go at their pace – much better to give them the freedom to choose – approach, maintain distance, move away or sniff/do something else!

In the following clip you can see Freya in the background, trying to come closer but Jack looks, sniffs and chooses to check in with me and move away.

Slow positive steps are much better than flying in and things going wrong. We need to set dogs up for success.

Freya needs to learn she can walk past other dogs and that she doesn’t always get to meet them up close.