How to Teach a Dog to Greet Other Dogs Calmly in 9 Simple Steps

Training your dog on how to behave when approaching other dogs is crucial. Without the proper training, some dogs could come too eagerly, making other dogs react unfavourably. Poor canine manners and incorrect greetings can hinder your dog’s socialization and cause fights and harm to both people and canines.

Some dogs instinctively know how to interact with other dogs and may not require additional training from you. But if you’re here, you’re probably one of the many dog owners with a dog that behaves aggressively or intimidatingly towards other dogs.

 Make sure your dog is entirely ready to meet new dogs. Before working on approaching and greeting other dogs, you need to start with the fundamentals. If your dog has aggression tendencies, jumping on visitors or other dogs, or undesired habits. Your dog needs to be able to concentrate intensely on your commands above all else.

Here are the steps to teach dogs to greet other dogs calmly

Basic Good Manners

If our dogs receive basic good manners training, their daily tasks are more accessible. Basic etiquette training frequently aims to educate your dog that she highly praised “sit” as a good “default” behaviour—the best response to provide when she is unsure of what to do—which is very helpful when teaching polite greetings. Additionally, most manners lessons formally instruct warm welcomes to people and offer guidance on how to help your dog behave appropriately around other dogs.

Meet Someone Who Has a Well-Behaved Dog

You’ll require a well-mannered practice dog whenever you’re prepared to begin training your dog to greet. Find a friend with a canine companion who is well-mannered, attentive, and obedient even in the face of chaos. The last thing you want to happen during your dog’s greeting training sessions is for it to become tense and start to fear other dogs.

Dangerous Interactions

Although “socialization” is frequently used, it refers to a particular stage of a puppy’s development. You can teach mature dogs new tricks; they don’t necessarily need to interact with other dogs to be content or happy. Letting your dog greet every dog it encounters could result in behavioural problems down the road.

If you let him approach another dog, your dog runs the danger of getting hurt or ill. One of the main worries is that those unidentified canines are unvaccinated or unwell with an infectious illness. Additionally, it’s impossible to predict whether their temperament will mesh well with your dog’s. They might be in training or have had unpleasant contact with other dogs in the past. Your dog might attack a dog if they approach it. This could hurt your dog, but it could also make him anxious all the time or make him reactive to other dogs.

Teaching Watch

One of the most useful commands you can teach your dog to help them ignore distractions while out for a walk is “watch.” The more difficult command for your dog is to watch. Still, it instructs them to focus on you and disregard everything else around them. You are teaching your dog this command teaches them to trust you, your ability to control the situation, and how to look at you. Before you start attempting to teach your dog how to welcome other dogs correctly, they should be very familiar with this instruction.

Creating Space

Even if your dog is friendly, putting as much distance as possible between you and another dog if you encounter one in the street is a good idea. The dogs will become calmer and less fixated on one another. 

If you can, move to the opposite side of the roadway if a dog is coming your way or provide room for another dog and its owner. You can cross your dog to the other side to place your body between your dog and an oncoming dog; moving across the street is impractical if you’re in a congested area. This makes room if the other dog lunges. That distance can also help your dog stay calm and focused on you while you’re first educating him to ignore other dogs.

Know which type of dog your furry buddy is friendly with

Even dogs who get along with other dogs don’t always enjoy playing with them. Only three criteria, including size, activity level, and play style, can influence play-pal preferences. Some dogs have breed or size preferences; if your dog has ever had a poor experience with a particular breed, they may always associate that breed negatively.

Allow a short greeting

Allow the dogs to sniff each other once they are close enough. “Watch” will be helpful after the dogs are near one another because it instructs your dog to look to you for more direction in the scenario. Many people like to teach their dog a command, such as “say hi,” that signals when it is okay to smell another dog. Any aggressive behaviour, including barking, jumping, pawing/slapping, or jumping, should be immediately stopped. Give the dogs a little window of time to quietly smell each other if they are already doing so.

Approach other dogs on a loose leash

By pulling and gripping the leash to reach out to another dog, you risk sending troubling nonverbal signs and diminishing the chance that the interaction will go smoothly. Additionally, it makes your dog more aroused, reducing the possibility that the encounter will be fruitful.

Regular practice

Repeat these steps repeatedly until your dog shows the ability to maintain good behaviour even after a few minutes of interaction. One to three weekly training sessions on greetings can give your dog a fantastic introduction to polite greetings without undertaking this as a daily practice. You might ask other well-behaved dog-owning friends to bring their dogs over as your dog develops greeting skills so you can restart the training with a different dog.

You can teach your dog how to greet other dogs politely with some practice each week. However, it’s vital to remember that dogs, particularly unfamiliar canines, don’t always need to be greeted.