15 OctEpisode 29 | A modern dog owner’s guide to sidewalk leash greetings
As much as we want our dogs to be social beings, the sad fact is that city streets are not an ideal place for leashed dogs to socialize. The close confines of the sidewalk can keep dogs from having enough space to greet each other properly, and leashes too often can become uncomfortably taught, leading a dog to think that even just the sight of another dog predicts yanking and choking. This episode addresses:
-Avoiding other dogs on the street
-Using the presence of other dogs on leash as a cue for your dog to pay attention to you
-Providing your dog with appropriate off-leash socialization opportunities
-Choosing which dogs you might let your dog greet
-Helping your dog greet other dogs naturally and appropriately
... and more
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Transcript:
Annie:
Hey everyone! So today we are going to talk about dog-dog greetings, specifically dogs greeting other dogs on the street, and I'm going to suggest how you can teach your dog to greet another dog well and all the things you need to keep in mind when deciding whether or not you're going to let your dog greet another dog.
But before I get into the thick of it, uh, I wanted to give my number one suggestion, which is don't do it. Don't let your dog greet other dogs on the street. That's it. Now the reason I'm not going to end it there is because I know that that sort of like a bummer piece of advice. People don't generally love the idea of shielding their dog from every other dog on the street. We like the idea of being able to walk our dogs and have it be a kind of social thing where they can say hi to the other dogs in the neighborhood and everyone's gonna get along. But here's some reasons why I generally advise against letting your dog interact with other dogs on the street.
First of all, I see a lot of crazy dogs at School for the Dogs, all of us trainers do. And a lot of those dogs are dogs who have issues with other dogs and, especially,those are dogs who have issues with dogs on the street, issues with other dogs at close proximity and in New York City where I am, and in a lot of cities, when you're having a dog greet another dog on the street, there's a lot that could go wrong. And I have to assume that it's the minority of dogs who have problems greeting other dogs or problems even just being on the street at all where other dogs may or may not appear or just problems being on the street at all, no matter where other dogs are.
I have to guess that it's the minority of the people with issues who are actually seeking the help of professional dog trainers and paying lots of money to work on this problem and really devoting the time and effort needed to help dogs get over some of these issues. I think the majority of people who have dogs who have problems being on the street around other dogs are just kind of pulling their dogs away from other dogs, yelling at their dogs, maybe avoiding other dogs or waiting until their dog does something inappropriate and then apologizing to the other person whose dog may be quite scared or hurt or who knows. But I don't think that most people who have dogs who are inappropriate on the street are truly dealing with the issue.
And honestly, that scares me because I think dogs can really get hurt. You know, they're not always gonna work things out in a way that we think is appropriate. I have heard of numerous dogs who have been bit by dogs on the street during what the owner thought was going to be an okay greeting. And, you know, if not actually hurt- your dog it might just end up scared or upset. And this is something I see with my dog Amos all the time. He's a pretty small dog and sometimes he gets startled and he's also, you know, he's older. He gets startled and scared by, especially big dogs, when they approach him impolitely. You know, sometimes maybe he's peeing and we both have our backs turned and next thing, I know some big young dog is putting his nose up into his butt. And that's not a polite way for a dog to greet another dog. And Amos gets a little riled up and nervous and anxious. And that's not what I want for him.
But even if every other dog on the street was perfectly lovely and polite, I still would suggest avoiding other dogs on the street. And I have a few reasons for that. First of all, especially when you have a puppy or you're welcoming in a new dog in your household, you really want to be the focus outside. You want to do everything you can to make sure that your dog is psyched about spending time with you. This is really what's going to keep your dog safe on the street more than anything else. And other dogs are not the only things on the street that can prove dangerous. But you kind of have your work cut out for you because if you're spending a lot of time with your dog inside, when you go outside, you are probably less interesting than everything else that's outside. Everything else is novel. There are lots of new things to smell and look at and see, and try and find on the sidewalk to eat. And other dogs, whether it's a dog, your dog know or a totally new dog they are certainly going to also be more exciting than you and letting your dog interact with that dog is going to only reinforce how exciting other dogs are, which is, sort of , aking a little bit of a bite out of the importance of you in that moment.
So actually one thing that you can do to actually, like, use the appearance of another dog to boost your dog's interest in you is use the the appearance of another dog, as soon as you see another dog, use that as a reminder to give your dog something good. Now that might be something delicious. I like to deliver treats outside-right by my knee, ‘cause that's kind of like where I would like my dog to be. But if your dog is already distracted by the other dog you might actually need to sort of show them the treats so that they know that it's there. And work at creating the association of every time I see another dog, my human is suddenly really awesome. Now it doesn't have to be a treat that you're giving in that moment. You could just start walking really fast. You are going to be a lot more exciting and interesting if you're suddenly sprinting down the street with a dog, with your dog or you can switch directions, which can also be a good way to keep your dog's attention and make the walk a little bit more fun for them rather than it just being about like, we walk straight ahead all the time.
If your dog likes a toy, you could use a toy in those moments. But, you know, a treat or even just your dog's regular food, if he or she is into it outside, is certainly an easy route to go to create the connection of other dog means really awesome thing happens by Jim's knee every time we're outside.
So if you can be consistent about that, what's going to happen is as soon as your dog sees another dog, he is going to be like, “Oh, better, better look back at my person. Cause I know what it means when we see another dog.”
And what you're doing also is not letting your dog develop the habit of pulling towards another dog. Now that pulling towards another dog is a total natural thing. Your dog wants to go towards that other dog, or I'm making a generalization here, not every dog wants to go towards another dog, but it's pretty common that they do, especially young, young puppies. And they're going to pull just because they're on one end of a leash and we’re on the other. In fact, I think we ended up pulling on leashes ourselves much more than we ever intend to simply because you know, you're at one end of a tether and someone else, a dog or whoever is on another end of the tether. You're pulling each other all the time. If there's any bit of tension in that leash at all, it means someone is exerting pressure in some direction. So often I think where I'm tugging at them without even meaning to, but that might cause discomfort no matter who the one is doing the tugging.
And the absolute last association I want my dog to make is another dog equals discomfort in any way. And I suspect that a lot of dogs who have issues with other dogs on the street, it stems from them making that connection. For instance, you know, if you have a dog who has like a prong collar on, which is certainly not something I recommend, but just as a visual, you know, imagine every time your dog sees another dog and pulls towards that dog, even just a little bit, you know, I suddenly my neck is getting these spikes jammed into it. Or, you know, even if you see another dog and you start to kind of pull your dog away from that dog, it doesn't, your dog doesn't even have to be wearing a prong collar, anything that's tugging at their neck and doesn't feel good, could end up creating that kind of association.
Now, I'm not saying that I don't want your dog to have social opportunities- I absolutely want your dog to have social opportunities. I think your dog should have a chance, ideally, especially a young dog to play with other appropriate dogs every day. You know, even just one dog, one-on-one dog play is usually the best kind of play. Um, but those moments on the street are not usually the best moments for play for the very reason that your dog is wearing a leash. Now, we're going to talk about exactly what a good greeting looks like, but a good greeting requires certain malleability of the body. And if you are constricted in any way, you know, I've heard dog trainers make the example., it's kind of like arriving at a party in a straight jacket, you know, you're not going to be able to move and interact in your most normal way. And that can, that kind of constriction can lead to you not wanting to go to parties at all. And for you even maybe forgetting what the appropriate way is to act when you, when you get to a party.
So while I want your dog to have good opportunities to play with other dogs, I really believe that on leash time is not the time for those kinds of interactions. Of course, it's also just often not safe, you know, leashes get tangled up, dogs jumping around on the street, you know, especially if you're on a narrow street or by a busy crosswalk, you know, it's just not a really wise idea. You know, there's a lot of hallway play dates that happen in New York City and I don't know how the building superintendents or management feel about that, but I think it's pretty cool that we have clients who have friends in their buildings and are able to visit each other and let the dogs run around in the hallway or in each other's apartments. I think that's a really excellent way for dogs to play in a controlled setting where they're not being, they're not fettered.
So how else can you avoid other dogs? Well, one smart thing I think is to teach your dog to be able to walk on either side of you and to be able to put that behavior on cue. So if there's a dog coming at left, you can tell your dog you want him to be on your right side. And that's something you can teach using a simple hand touch, teaching your dog to touch your hand on either side of your body and then eventually adding a cue to those behaviors.
You know, of course, you can also just let other people know that your dog is not going to say hi to their dog. You know, either say he's not friendly or I go to conjunctivitis a lot, “my dog has conjunctivitis, can't say, hi.” If you have a small dog or a puppy, of course you can just scoop up your dog. I do like to add a cue to that, to let my dog know that I'm going to be picking him up to sort of prepare him a little bit, to make it a little bit less of a shock. But you know, I have clients that go to much greater lengths than that. You know, I have clients who have yellow leashes, sort of,there's like a yellow leash movement that is supposed to be a signal to others that your dog needs some space, Dogs in Need of Space. It's called DINOS, I'll link to that in the show notes. You can even get a jacket on your dog that says, you know, please give me some space or I have one client who recently started putting her dog on a muzzle, I'm sorry, her dog in a muzzle. Because she didn't like people approaching her dog, which is kind of a different topic, but similar idea though. You know, if you have a dog then in a muzzle, you know, Joe Blow coming down the street with his dog is gonna probably be more likely to avoid you, which is going to perhaps make it easier for you to avoid letting your dog greet their dog.
But, you know, I think that once you are in the habit of not letting your dogs say hi to other dogs, your dog will pick up on that. And especially if you're working on making all those good associations about other dogs mean good things happens from my human. And like with my dog Amos, when we would walk down the street, he is not trying to have a social encounter with every other dog. He knows what we're doing. He knows the routine. And if you don't let your dog, you know, build up that behavior to begin with it's not going to be a hard hill to climb.
And another thing that I have found, I think makes it easier for dogs to keep their cool around other dogs on the street is having those regular encounters with their friends. That's something that a lot of people who bring their dogs to our Day School have said. Day School is like our daily half-day drop off training program for dogs. They say, you know, “now that he comes here all the time, he kind of has his buddies and he doesn't seem so interested in all the other dogs on the street.” And when you think about it kinda makes sense. It's like you have your friends, you know, you don't, you don't need to make friends with every person you see on the street. So, um, Day School is just one example of a way that you can give your dog an opportunity to have his own pals.
Alright. So what are you going to do if you do choose to let your dog greet other dogs on the street, perhaps some of the time. I hope not all of the time. Well, first of all, I suggest talking to the person that is with the dog. Now, I don't necessarily know if you should trust the person about their dog, but certainly it's worthwhile to say, “Hey, is your dog friendly? Can my dog say hello?” I think there is nothing to lose and much to gain. Now, assuming the person says, “yeah, my dog is friendly, “ then you need to check out the dog if you haven't already. You want to see a dog whose tail is up and wagging, who has a soft mouth and is not standing very stiffly. You want to see a dog who has a wiggly body, a relaxed body. What you don't want to see is stiffness. You don't want to see a tail that's tucked between the dog's legs, ears back. You don't want to be seeing the side white of a dog's eye – we call this whale eye or half moon, it’s something dogs often do when they're uncomfortable. Another thing almost every dog does when they're uncomfortable is lip licking. If you see they're a tongue going across their nose or a dog yawning, those are two signs that dogs are generally not into whatever's going on.
And so even if Mr. Whatits with his dog says, “yeah, yeah, he's totally friendly” I want you to see what the dog is saying. And, you know, it's something I find, especially when I'm walking with a puppy, although I don't generally allow puppies to say hi to any dog on the street, but often people will say, you know, like, “Oh, my dog loves puppies. It's fine. It's fine.” And you know what, most adult dogs in my experience don't like puppies, but I think most people think their dogs like puppies because most people like puppies. And we just assume that, therefore, our dog is going to like puppies too. But too often I've seen adult dogs, kind of like, slinking back, trying to get away from a crazy puppy that their person has decided they want to say hi to.
So you are going to see what you can read about that person's dog. Now, if you have any concern at all, if you see if you see any stiffness, or if you see over arousal, if you see a dog that's trying to, you know, get into play bow position, really trying to like start something, even if it's in a friendly way, I would avoid that dog as well. Because again, we're not looking for, you know, a playtime it's just neither the time nor the place.
Now, if you are going to let your dog greet another dog, I think the most important thing is that your leash be as loose as possible. Like I was just saying, just because we are holding a leash and there are on the other side of the leash, we are going to end up tugging them at some point, unless you are really focused on slack in the leash. And if you can keep that leash as kind of invisible as possible, you're upping the chance that your dog is not going to make any kind of association with being yanked or anything painful with another dog. Again, what we do not want is for another dog to become a precursor to pain in the neck in any way. So your leash, you know, obviously you want to have a hold on it, it's there for safety though, not for controlling your dog, so you want it to be as loose as you can.
Now, a good greeting between two dogs always has the same components. It's like a dance move that they innately know how to do. And the first part it's going to be that they're going to sniff each other's butts. So for this reason, you might kind of lead your dog in, in sort of a “C” shape from the side to the other dog’s butt rather than just letting them kind of collide head on this can help help your dog towards doing that natural thing that he is probably inclined to do anyway.
After a butt sniff, they're going to sniff each other's noses and then that's it. That's what a good greeting should look like. It should be that simple and that quick. And it really shouldn't take more than like about three seconds. We call it like the ”three second rule” because it's about as much time as a greeting should take, but also not that much can go wrong between two dogs in three seconds. Dogs give a lot of signals when they're uncomfortable, some of the ones I just spoke about for instance, and a normal dog is not going to progress from being nice and friendly to being totally crazy pants in fewer than three seconds. So it's kind of like a safety time limit that I feel good about suggesting.
So that's it you're going to have, but sniff, butt sniff, nose sniff, nose sniff ad then it's your job to get your dog's attention back to you. And I like to do that by kind of making myself a little bit extra exciting in the moment that directly follows the greeting. I want my dog to be like, “okay, goodbye dog. I need to be with my really awesome human now.” And that might mean giving a small treat again. It might just mean that we're going to run in the other direction in a really fun way. Or if I have a toy on me, I might bring out the toy, but whatever I need to do to kind of like up the interest in me is what I'm going to do immediately following that very quick little greeting.
So just to recap, when in doubt, do not let your dog say hi to other dogs on the street. And if you are going to let your dog say hi to another dog on the street, make sure to use your words, talk to the other dog’s owner and then read the other dog's body language as best as you can.
And I should also mention, of course, you should always be reading your own dog's body language. Does your dog want to say hi to the other dog? That is equally important information.
And I suggest using other dogs, the appearance of other dogs on the street, as a reminder, to get your dog's attention and to up the interest your dog has in you by making your walking more fun in that moment, whether you're giving a treat, changing directions, playing with a toy or something, but let the appearance of another dog, mean to your dog. “Oh, I need to pay attention to my person”
If you have any further questions about a dog greetings on the street, please feel free to get in touch and I'd be happy to elaborate. You can get in touch on Instagram, we’re at School for the Dogs on Instagram, send us a direct message that way. Or tag us in a story if you have a question. You can leave a voicemail or send a text message to (917) 414-2625.
Our Woof Shout Out today goes to a person. She is Mimi Reed and Mimi makes the really awesome treat pouches that we all have at School for the Dogs, they’re made out of this Sunbrella cloth. They have a French hinge. They're really great. The best ones I found and she hand makes them all herself out of Petaluma, California. We have them in our shop and also at storeforthedogs.com. But, um, she also makes jackets for dogs, like adoption jackets, kind of like, oh, I don't know, what would you call them- like buckling smocks almost. And she makes a lot of them for adoption groups who want to advertise that a dog is for adoption so they buckle them onto the dog.
But I know that she also does make them for dogs who are dogs in need of space. Often they're yellow, which like I was saying is kind of, uh, the color that people are trying to encourage people to know means a dog needs some room. But, she'll make it whatever color you want and she'll make it say whatever you want it to say. So, if you want your dogs to have a jacket that says, “please just get away from me,” go for it. And you can do it. She'll do it for you. Anyway, I've known Mimi for years and I am a fan of her work. And so thanks for everything, Mimi.
And our Fun Dog Fact of the day in the spirit of the autumn season, that according to New York dog registry records, New York City dog registry records, in the category of fruit and vegetable names, “pumpkin” is the third, most popular, fruit and vegetable name in New York City, not as popular, however, as the name's “Ginger” and “Olive”, but more popular than the runner up named “Peaches”, “Kiwi”, “Clementine:, “Mango”, “Coconut”and “Apple.” I found this on the website NYCEDC, where they have categorized not only popular dog names in general, in New York city, but also by these, kind of, kind of funny categories.
They have the four most popular beverage names. There are 422 registered dogs in New York City named “Bailey,” 71 named “Brandy,” 38 named “Guinness,” 31 named “Whiskey.” And they have famous people names. “Elvis” is the most popular, famous person name with 74 dogs registered in the city with that name. They have movie character names, “Simba” comes in first there. And, anyway, it's just sort of, fun, little charts to look at. I will post a link to this in the show notes. So Hi to all the Pumpkins out there and all the Elvises and all the Baileys, and of course to all the Gingers and all the Olives.
Links:
School for the Dogs Day School
NYCEDC: https://edc.nyc
