Teaching Appropriate Puppy Greetings
We all understand that puppy socialisation is important but getting it right is far more important!
Socialising with other dogs is an important part of a puppy’s socialisation and their development and in order for encounters to go successfully, your puppy needs to learn:
What other dogs are communicating through their body language
How to respond to those body language cues
How to be respectful to the wishes of others
What constitutes appropriate play and what doesn’t
What the boundaries for acceptable play and behaviour are
How to enjoy social contact with others
How to stop contact when feeling tired/overwhelmed
In a natural setting, it is usually well socialised adult dogs that help puppies to learn the subtleties of interacting appropriately (novice animals learning from experienced animals). However, if you put a group of inexperienced puppies together in a class environment, not only can you not ensure they will be suitably matched to play freely and in a socially acceptable way together (due to differences in personality, confidence levels, previous experiences, size, play styles etc) but you have novice animals learning from novice animals. This can cause several issues such as shy puppies remaining shy and avoiding others throughout their adulthood, shy puppies learning to use aggression to keep others away; confident puppies learning to enjoy playing with others too much to the point that recall from other dogs becomes a problem and they show little interest in their owners; confident puppies learning rough play and becoming ‘bullies’; extreme frustration in confident puppies when they are prevented from approaching other dogs.
For this reason, we rarely engage in off lead puppy play in our Puppy School classes as we want to ensure no harm is done and that all our puppies feel safe and learn appropriate interactions.
So instead, we teach puppies how to greet other puppies and older dogs appropriately. By learning how to encourage polite greetings, you can help your shy puppy grow in confidence and help calm your lively or excitable puppy to be around others without rushing over to them. Don’t forget though – if your puppy chooses not to meet another dog, this is fine as well – having choice is important and simply feeling comfortable with the other dog nearby is completely OK!
We put the focus on puppies learning that an approach involving sniffing, pottering and ambling with a relaxed, slow and low arousal greeting is far more beneficial than a fast, excitable, head-on one.
Our puppy greeting exercises have a very positive impact for both you and your puppy. It helps:
You learn to understand your puppy’s developing personality
How to read your puppy’s body language and of that of the other puppy/dog to ensure encounters are positive and whether you should encourage a cooperative turn away
How to protect your puppy and how to move them away if necessary
How to select suitable potential doggy friends before letting them off lead together
To give you the initiative to solve problems for your puppy
To help your puppy build trust in you so they know you will offer support during difficult encounters later.
For greetings to go well, both parties should be in a calm state of mind.
If you are in a situation where your puppy or the other puppy or dog is too excited, it is best to encourage them away (we show you how to do this positively in class without causing frustration) and then wait patiently for both parties to be calm (we’ll also show you techniques to use to help turn excitement into calmness). It is far better for puppies to walk around, sniff and greet if they choose to rather than walking towards each other and meeting head on. Sometimes greetings with some puppies and dogs might not be suitable at all and if they are not a good match for each other or one of them is showing signs of being worried then it is best to walk away and find a more suitable dog who will promote an appropriate and positive learning experience.
Many dogs with good social skills will read another dogs energy and decide whether they want to continue to interact or walk away and disengage within 3 seconds. However, when a dog is on a lead, it's not so easy for them to walk away or disengage so as your puppy’s guardian, you should be ready to encourage short meetings when dogs initially meet, especially whilst they are on a lead. Leads can be a cause of tension, frustration, heightened arousal and emotion so if the lead prevents them from moving away they are instead forced to interact which can result in reactive behaviours and the start of lead reactivity.
If a greeting goes on too long (even if both parties seemed happy with it initially), it can become uncomfortable so the 3 second rule prevents this from happening. Imagine someone coming over to you and shaking your hand for 3 seconds - you could cope with that couldn’t you? Now imagine someone coming over to you and shaking your hand for 5, 6, or more seconds – that would start to feel really uncomfortable and you’d want to remove yourself from that situation. It is exactly the same for most dogs!
In our video clip below, you'll see our puppy parents implementing the 3 second rule during their Week 3 puppy class. The important thing here is to be able to get your puppy’s attention and then lure your puppy away, not pull them away. As you'll see, the leads are always kept loose to keep frustration levels low and to avoid any negative connections with being on a lead around other dogs. The puppies are being guided away with a food lure which is then given to them as a reward for turning away and subsequently re-engaging with their guardian. Everything about this greeting is positive. The Pointer puppy is a very shy puppy but with help from his mum, he has been given an outlet to escape but with enough of a 'hello' to see that another puppy can be safe.
Our puppy greeting exercises aren’t enough to socialise a puppy with other dogs completely, but it is a great start and a lovely gentle and positive way for you to embark on the socialisation process. To socialise well, many pleasant encounters with different types of puppies and dogs are needed throughout puppyhood.
We should always be advocating for our puppies, keeping them safe and secure and this includes ensuring that socialisation opportunities are positive for all involved.
References:
Puppy School Puppy Club and Tutor Training Notes
