Greet and Meet - Dogs are not human!!

When meeting a dog to be "dog polite" you have to think the opposite of how us humans say "Hi" to someone we want to greet.

If we see someone we move forward, smiling maybe waving and start talking with our arms often flying about as if driving our excitement - this is fine for humans but not good for dogs! In fact it will either excite them or scare them, neither of which will make for a "dog polite" meeting and may result in a bad moment for both of you!

So to meet a dog first rule is "No touch No Talk No eye Contact"! No touch - as dogs don't use touch to greet each other with a paw shake! No talk - dogs don't use words to convey their emotions - ever heard a dog say "Hi I'm Max great to see you" :-) No eye-contact - this can be read as a challenge by a dog, anyway even a human can read your eyes to see if you are friendly or not! Follow this rule and a dog will give you respect and not anxiety or over-excitement, neither of which is a balanced state for a dog to be in.

To invite a dog to come over to you - lean back a little not forward, this says you are happy for them to come into your personal space. If they are all "so-excited" then ignore these antics they are trying to manipulate you to get your attention! Then allow the "dog greeting" - "Yes" I'm afraid that is the "sniff thing" :-) Once the dog has done this and is calm/submissive then add in a touch (stroke) but don't reach over their head or bend over them as this is a dominant approach and may incur a dominant response - remember it takes at least "two to have a dominance situation"! If you really must be "ever-so-human" then speak away but keep the tone soft and calm.

Even if you regularly meet the same dog don't change your ways as a dog does not change how they understand us, still go for the rule above it will just be much quicker before you can directly interact.

So don't greet a dog in the way you would a friend else you may get more of a response than you bargained for, not necessarily aggressive but probably over-excited with all that jumping up which can put us owner/trainers into a set-back after all our hours of work!

Think Dog...Greet Dog.....Meet Dog...they really don't need your paws all over them and that constant "Chit-Chat" to know you like them they will know from your energy and if they give you calm submissive respect then they like you!