Having a dog who looks to you when she sees people is so helpful!

As the one who gets to decide what the end behavior looks like, you may need some help scanning through the options. There is one important piece that often gets completely ignored. You don’t want your dog to think that every human she sees is one she will get to greet. There are many reasons why you might not want your dog to greet someone. For starters, when you’re out in public with your dog, do you really want her to think that *every* person is to be greeted? But something else to think about is that you might come across a person who’s petrified of dogs or gives off bad vibes or has a dog who is dog reactive or fill in the blank. As you can see this is a pretty big piece and should be factored into your dog’s greeting behavior. Wait, but how do you do this? In very simple terms, you practice seeing people and not greeting them. And you can clarify things by naming the greeting behavior so that your dog knows when she gets to say hi and when she doesn’t. As always, I’m happy to help you with this or another dog training issue. Touch base with me HERE.