How to teach a dog to greet other dogs politely?
Melba Hoppe
2025-05-20 13:14:37
Count answers: 3
Appropriate on-leash greetings are crucial for dogs to interact politely with each other.
A calm, confident, respectful dog will not be approaching copious amounts of random dogs for no reason.
Not every dog wants to say hi and they need to respect that.
For some dogs, it is ok for them to say hi to dogs once in a while, once in awhile means saying hi to only 1 out of every 10-20 dogs.
If your dog is insisting on saying hi to every dog they see then they might be friendly, but they are not being polite.
Even if your dog is friendly, saying hi to every dog is a big red flag to an impolite greeter.
Appropriate On-Leash Greeting includes both dogs consenting to the interaction, short and sweet interactions, dogs greeting with loose body language, and initially turning to sniff each other’s butts.
If one dog does not want to interact a polite dog will see this and continue walking without stopping to say hi.
If you are unsure if your dog is about to have an appropriate or inappropriate on-leash greeting you should air on the side of caution and opt not to stop and say hi.
Michele Kuphal
2025-05-20 11:37:58
Count answers: 6
It starts with developing their ability to listen to you and accept your guidance even when they’re excited and want to do something else, which gives you the ability to teach them right from wrong in any situation. If your dog won’t listen to you reliably at home, or without much distraction around, they’re never going to listen when they’re SUPER excited about another dog. The most important things to teach are: Your dog’s self-control and your dog’s ability to listen to you, even when they don’t want to. Once you have a good training foundation, and your dog has learnt self-control and how to listen even when they’d rather do something else, you can start teaching them to greet dogs calmly close at hand. This means you can closely monitor their behaviour and step in if they make a bad choice, to teach them what is and isn’t appropriate. As they get more practice, they develop the habit of greeting nicely and eventually, you can trust them to greet new dogs politely, even without you right there.
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