# Polite Greetings???



## Abby142 (Oct 16, 2012)

Alright I have a question. For the most part Jade is great meeting new people and dogs, but this weekend we ran into a little problem with a shelti. Jade wanted to say hi and play with the dog but she kept getting up in the other dogs face. I know that face to face meetings can be considered "rude" but I'm not sure how to prevent that so I just kept pulling Jade back to me. Several times the Shelti came up behind for a little sniff when Jade wasn't pay attention but Jade would instantly spin around like "whoa! What you doing back there! Oh you want to play, okay!" It wasn't hostile in any way, the other dog just kept surprising her. But the other dog was clearly not having any of Jade's face to face stuff and kept backing up. Eventually I just had to kept Jade glued to my side because I didn't want anything to happen and neither dog was going to change what they were doing. 

So if face to face greeting is wrong, how do you teach your dogs to allow other dogs to do the around the back sniffing? Does that make any sense?


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## Mary Beth (Apr 17, 2010)

My husky would start out all nice, but the minute the other dog sniffed her behind, she turned aggressive. Since it wasn't important for me to have her play with other dogs, I just avoided other dogs.


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

My Lacy doesn't allow 'behind' the scenes sniffing. He'll flip in the air to avoid it. However, his flipping is normally considered play by the other dog. He would rather face to face greet. Then 'friendlier terms' can be discussed. If the other dog doesn't care for face to face greeting, then I won't allow them to greet. 

My GSD doesn't want to make friends with other dogs. He'll ignore. Therefore, I don't allow any greetings with strange dogs. If I'm at a friend's house and we want the dogs to meet, we'll do it on a leash. The other dog will come and they'll do a shoulder to shoulder sniff, working their way back. Even after all the politically correct greetings are made, he'll ignore. He's a social snob.


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## Abby142 (Oct 16, 2012)

We have never had a problem meeting other dogs before, like Lilie said Jade normally starts with the face to face and then moves on from there. And Jade was on a leash for all this, although the other dog was not which is why it kept sneaking up behind Jade for a little sniff. Eventually I made the decision that all of you seem to have come it, it wasn't worth messing with and we eventually just left the area. 

I just want to make sure that Jade isn't being rude. I always control first time meetings with strange dogs and I don't want to be "that person" with the rude dog


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## Lilie (Feb 3, 2010)

Abby142 said:


> We have never had a problem meeting other dogs before, like Lilie said Jade normally starts with the face to face and then moves on from there. And Jade was on a leash for all this, although the other dog was not which is why it kept sneaking up behind Jade for a little sniff.


 
The problem could have simply been because the other dog was not on a leash and Jade was. 

I would just mark it off as lessons learned, and not worry too much about it. See if the same behavior is repeated when Jade is on or off leash.


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