“IT’S OK – MY DOG IS FRIENDLY!” THAT’S NOT HOW IT SEEMS TO ME!

First published on positively.com and reprinted with permission

Picture this: You are walking with your little girl. A family appear up ahead, and the fairly large boy whoops with joy at the sight of you two, races towards you, jumps on your child - who is now screaming - and rolls her over, grinning inanely. While you frantically try to extricate your precious little one without actually harming the boy, you hear a distant cry from the boy’s mother: “It’s ok! He’s friendly!”

Your response is probably unprintable.

And if you were the mother of the rowdy boy, would you really think it ok to let him bounce all over other children, on the grounds that he’s friendly?

So let’s turn this around now, and substitute pet dogs for children.

You have a super-friendly, waggy dog. He lurves other dogs. You know that he doesn’t want to start a fight. And if you try and keep him on the lead when he sees another dog you’ll get singing and dancing  - as he pulls your arm out of its socket. So you let him do his own thing on walks: diving on dogs, body-slamming them, chasing them, trying to roll them over in play.

And dogs all love to play, don’t they?

Because you’re not afraid of him, you expect his victims to be equally unafraid.

Really?

At the Other Extreme

On the other hand, perhaps you are blessed with a dog who is afraid of other dogs, who barks and growls, lunges and prances, when he sees them approach. You’re probably anxious because you fear that if he ever gets to the other dog he’ll rip its throat out. So you make sure you keep him on lead, and avoid other dogs as much as possible.

His way of carrying on is baffling to you, because you know that your dog is a perfect peach at home, brilliant with the kids, and a pleasure to have around. You may be pleased to learn that your dog is most probably not at all aggressive - just afraid of strange dogs, and doing his best to keep them at a distance.

Both these extremes are normal, just at either end of the bell-curve - instead of the middle where we automatically expect our dogs to fit.

But just like with children - you get the dog you’re given, not the one you wanted!

Your dog’s character is part of him and is why you love him. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t influence how he feels and help him to tone down his responses.

Whether over-friendly or under-friendly, your dog needs a little help to interact with the rest of the world and lead a less stressed life. (If your own friendly approaches always resulted in tears and screaming, that would be pretty stressful for you too.)

But What Can I Do?

Strange as it may seem, both problems can be treated the same way.

Distance is very important to dogs. Both these dogs can see a dog at a great distance and not react. It’s when they trip a certain proximity that you are going to get the undesired noise and kerfuffle.

What you need to do is reward the state that you like when you see it, and just before the calmness changes into vocalising and leaping, encourage your dog to turn back with you and get a little more distance. Your own calmness is essential to the success of this game, so relax your hands on the lead, smile, say “Let’s go!” cheerily, and slow down.

Your reward could be a tiny piece of tasty cheese or hot dog. All the time your dog is calm and not shouting, keep posting these delicious morsels into his mouth until he stops paying attention to the other dog and starts paying attention to the source of these goodies instead. Success!

If yours is the friendly dog, you can now ask the other dog’s owner if their dog would welcome a game. Maybe they will, then your bouncy dog’s reward for being calm will be the opportunity to interact with a strange dog. Maybe they won’t, in which case you can reward your dog with a toy-game or more food while you head away.

If yours is the fearful dog, you can congratulate him on his bravery, and his reward will be increased distance from the object of his fears. So you turn and head away.

Repeating this time and again will gradually elicit the calm response in your dog as the default. This process will be greatly accelerated if you can get the help of a professional force-free trainer. Be sure not to go to someone who wants to reprimand your dog: punishment of any kind will heap fear and anxiety on the existing fear and anxiety and make the situation worse!

As you know all too well, the skill of parenting is to work with the child in front of you, rather than the one you wish you had in front of you!

So it is with your family dog.

For more help with this ever more common problem, watch our free Masterclass for Growly Dogs

I’d love to hear how you resolve this issue on your dog walks - just write a comment below. I’ll appreciate every one!

Social Butterflies versus Wallflowers - over-friendly dogs vs. shy dogs

“Go on. Go and say hello to Aunt Ermintrude. Give her a kiss. Go ON!” 

This last would have been accompanied by a sharp prod between the shoulderblades to propel you forward.

Can you remember this happening to you when you were a small child? You wriggled and squirmed and really didn’t want to have anything to do with this towering, bearded, overpowering aunt.

But if you’d been left to your own devices, curiosity would eventually have got the better of you and you would have started to engage with this strange, mountainous, figure.

So is it with many dogs. 

Some are bouncy, in-your-face, love-everybody, kind of dogs - not in the least bothered by the Aunt Ermintrudes of this world. But many more are quiet, retiring, worried about anything new. The key to this is to strike a balance

The Social Butterflies need to learn a little restraint and thoughtfulness, lest they leap up on the wrong dog and get bitten or terrorised. Or of course they may leap on a shy and worried dog who will think in terror that her last hour has come.

The Wallflowers must be allowed to be Wallflowers! If you give them time to assess from a safe distance, they will gradually start to explore nearer, on their own terms.

The funny thing is that we always seem to want the opposite of what we have! Those with the demented jumper-upper wish they had a calmer dog - continually snapping “Get down!” to their poor dog, who thinks that perhaps he needs to jump higher in order to please his owner. While those with a mouse-impersonator wish they had something more outgoing, and feel as if the world thinks they beat their dog. 

We always want to fit in with society’s view of being able to produce the perfect dog, without necessarily heeding what our dog has to say about it all.

 

Aren’t all dogs friendly?

This commonly accepted thought completely ignores the fact that dogs are all different! They are individuals, just as we are. Their breeding will influence their behaviour, but there’s huge variation within breeds and types. And we’ve all learnt - through the notorious breed-specific legislation - that you cannot tar all dogs of one breed with the same brush.

Because people notice the exuberant dog more than the shy one, they think that’s the norm. You can’t help but notice the bouncy Labrador with his tail thumping your legs (but there are many quiet, shy Labradors too). Or the half-crazed Poodle who thinks everyone must love him (Coco Poodle? Are you listening?). But In fact the quieter response is the more common one - and probably much better for survival in the wild situation that dogs were evolved in. 

Just because some dogs are in-your-face dogs doesn’t mean that this is how all dogs should be.

And what about responsibility for other people’s dogs?

Let’s say you have one of the bouncy dogs who thinks the world is his oyster and wants to greet everyone. Now imagine that instead you have one of the shy, retiring dogs. Maybe your dog desires only to be left alone, to have peace and quiet to enjoy her walk without interference. Your shy dog could be enjoying a tremendous game with you and your frisbee or ball, and the last thing she wants is someone muscling in on her prize. 

How would it be if you were enjoying a makeshift game of badminton with your family in your local park, and a load of louts came barging in, snatching the shuttlecock, knocking your children over and treading on them, wrecking your game - with their parents laughing at their antics all the while. Nice? I don’t think so.

So if your dog is the super-friendly one, don’t let him rampage all over the place, upsetting calmer, quieter, perhaps older, dogs.

It can take a shy dog several days to recover from an experience like this - really! They may have to stay indoors for days to allow their hormones to settle back down - just as you might if you were in a mild car shunt. It could be a few days before you were happy to get behind the wheel again. This dog’s owner may be upset and begging you to put your unruly dog on a lead. This request, sadly, is often greeted with derision and insults. 

Many owners of boisterous dogs assume that their dog’s behaviour is not only natural, but acceptable.

I’m here to tell you it’s not!

These owners seem to think they have more right to be out walking their dog than others with more challenging dogs. They form this opinion, I believe, because sometimes their unruly dog is greeted by a show of teeth and snarling from the other dog. They assume that this dog must be nasty - aggressive - and therefore to blame for whatever happens. They forget that that dog was quietly minding her own business until their dog landed on top of her! 

Sadly, this usually gives rise to more insults and abuse.

It doesn’t take much imagination to transfer this scene to a school playground. Some children will be playing happily together while others cruise the playground looking for entertainment - often found by annoying the quieter children. Of course, playgrounds are carefully “policed” by school staff, and unacceptable behaviour should be halted immediately, so that the boisterous children can learn some social skills, learn how to treat other people respectfully, and the quieter children can enjoy their quieter life. 

The school playground is like the park

Is this chase enjoyable for both dogs?

We don’t have school staff in the park. We’re meant to be grown up enough to manage this ourselves. I know it comes as a surprise to many of the “My dog is friendly” persuasion to learn that many other dogs are not. They are instead nervous, anxious, possibly recovering from an unsolicited attack which - unsurprisingly - has made them suspicious of all dogs. Or they may simply by diffident and self-contained, and not disposed to talk to strangers.

And some of these bouncy-dog owners will be genuinely astonished to learn this! But once you have learnt it, let it inform your dealings with other dog-owners and their dogs. It’s not a dog’s fault if he was attacked. It probably wasn’t his owner’s fault either, but it can have a lasting effect on the victim. It’s equally not a dog’s fault if he was not properly socialised as a puppy, and if he was adopted after puppyhood it’s not his owner’s fault either. 

Most people are decent and honest (in my experience), and they really wouldn’t want to see a child hurt or humiliated by another child’s actions. All they need to do is realise that dogs are as different in temperament as children are, and that some sensitive ones can be seriously upset by another dog-owner’s thoughtlessness.

The quiet, shy dog doesn’t care whether the boisterous dog has good intentions or not. It doesn’t matter if “He just wants to play,” or whether he is intent on tearing the other dog’s throat out. The effect of the confrontation can be the same - causing the anxious dog to get more withdrawn, or - as can often happen - become proactive at keeping other dogs away by putting on a tremendous display of aggression.

How can I help my dog?

So watch your puppy or new dog carefully. Whether extrovert or introvert, be sure to protect them from bad experiences. Allow your boisterous pup to express himself in a way which suits him, while gently teaching him what we would prefer.

And let your quiet observer quietly observe. From behind your legs if that’s where she feels comfortable. When she’s ready, she’ll be able to take much more in her stride.

And whether you’re the owner of the over-friendly dog or the shy and anxious dog, you’ll find great help in this free email course:

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