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When a dog greets someone, be it a person, dog or any animal.. they need feedback from that individual to gauge them, ideally wanting good feedback that makes them trust them first. As they get this information, they will grow in comfort and confidence and be ready to interact more and for more levels of interaction in return. In this moment of greeting, behaviours like jumping up, licking, looking at and sniffing are the dogs way of gathering information about the individual. The clearer, calmer the information we give them, the more comfortable we can make them. If they’re comfortable, they will relax and be ready for further interaction and engagement. If the dog gets unfamiliar information or information it has a previously learned negative association with then it will be less trusting and so react accordingly. Too many people make it about “saying hello” to the dog before allowing the dog to get comfortable by putting their hands in their face, intense eye contact, intrusive and invasive movements down to their level. Forgetting that the dog may not be ready for this. This is a quick fire way to create miss-trust in the dog and to break a relationship down. The way people greet dogs is typically so abnormal. We pat their heads and expect them to like it, speak to them verbally (something dogs don’t understand) and make ‘cute’ baby noises while making weird baby faces towards them. If a dog is always greeted like that by people then it will quickly learn an association of people (or at least of the individuals doing this) that is highly stimulating but ultimately confusing, triggering behaviour in the dog that mirrors this such as jumping up, mouthing or even evasive behaviour due to nervousness. Too many people assume that hyper arousal in a dog is happiness. Mistaking excessive licking for kisses, nervous weeing as submissive, jumping up and mouthing as naughty. Resulting in either egging them on because they think it’s cute or telling them off because they think “the dog shouldn’t be doing that” when it was the dog simply responding to the feedback it got and has received through prior learned experiences. See the same post in fb for further info.

When a dog greets someone, be it a person, dog or any animal.. they need feedback from that individual to gauge them, ideally wanting good feedback that makes them trust them first. As they get this information, they will grow in comfort and confidence and be ready to interact more and for more levels of interaction in return. In this moment of greeting, behaviours like jumping up, licking, looking at and sniffing are the dogs way of gathering information about the individual. The clearer, calmer the information we give them, the more comfortable we can make them. If they’re comfortable, they will relax and be ready for further interaction and engagement. If the dog gets unfamiliar information or information it has a previously learned negative association with then it will be less trusting and so react accordingly. Too many people make it about “saying hello” to the dog before allowing the dog to get comfortable by putting their hands in their face, intense eye contact, intrusive and invasive movements down to their level. Forgetting that the dog may not be ready for this. This is a quick fire way to create miss-trust in the dog and to break a relationship down. The way people greet dogs is typically so abnormal. We pat their heads and expect them to like it, speak to them verbally (something dogs don’t understand) and make ‘cute’ baby noises while making weird baby faces towards them. If a dog is always greeted like that by people then it will quickly learn an association of people (or at least of the individuals doing this) that is highly stimulating but ultimately confusing, triggering behaviour in the dog that mirrors this such as jumping up, mouthing or even evasive behaviour due to nervousness. Too many people assume that hyper arousal in a dog is happiness. Mistaking excessive licking for kisses, nervous weeing as submissive, jumping up and mouthing as naughty. Resulting in either egging them on because they think it’s cute or telling them off because they think “the dog shouldn’t be doing that” when it was the dog simply responding to the feedback it got and has received through prior learned experiences. See the same post in fb for further info.

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