This is relevant for puppies and for adult dogs – it can take quite a bit of practice and unpicking to teach. Its part of building up their skills to meet the world calmly.
Dogs mainly communicate with each other through their body language and eye contact – this means they can communicate across the street to each other (a bit like us being able to wave at someone at a distance), they don’t have to be right up nose to nose. Meeting other dogs and people will be taught in 3 stages:
- Ignore other dogs and people
- Say hi and move on (at a distance or up close)
- Play and then calm and move away
To teach this you need to
- Spend time outside – either in the garden, or on a short walk. Give your dog time to look around and watch things – just feed them little treats, very calmly, to associate that calm behaviour outside, watching and learning is a good thing. You can also stroke them calmly. If your dog stops and is watching something, just wait until they stop looking and then encourage them to come over to you, rather than dragging them along. All outside experience is about learning.
- Stand at a distance from other people/people and on-lead dogs and keep feeding your dog for calmly watching, or looking at them and then looking back at you.
- PUPPY: When your puppy encounters a person, dog or other animal start with building calmness by only having a 3 SECOND meeting. Keep it short, call them (or encourage them back to you) – feed them and then you can send them back to say hi again. Keep doing repeated short bursts.
- Meet only 1 in 3 people and/or dogs – let your dog watch the others, or walk past without stopping.
Here’s a brilliant article to explain more https://www.clickertraining.com/overly-excited-greetings
