A modern dog owner's guide to sidewalk leash greetings How To Train Your Dog With Love And Science - Dog Training with Annie Grossman, School For The Dogs

As much as we want our dogs to be social beings, the sad fact is that city streets are not an ideal place for leashed dogs to socialize. The close confines of the sidewalk can keep dogs from having enough space to greet each other properly, and leashes too often can become uncomfortably taught, leading a dog to think that even just the sight of another dog predicts yanking and choking. 

This episode addresses: 

-Avoiding other dogs on the street 

-Using the presence of other dogs on leash as a cue for your dog to pay attention to you 

-Providing your dog with appropriate off-leash socialization opportunities 

-Choosing which dogs you might let your dog greet 

-Helping your dog greet other dogs naturally and appropriately ... and more 

Notes: 

7 things to consider before letting to dogs greet on leash

https://schoolforthedogs.com/7-things-to-consider-before-letting-two-dogs-greet-on-leash

Dogs In Need Of Space 

https://dogsinneedofspace.com/

The Yellow Dog Project 

Mendota leash -- Annie's favorite, lightweight leash 

https://storeforthedogs.com/products/braided-leash

Woof Shout Out: Dog adoption vests by Mimi Reid 

https://etsy.me/2PzKd9T

Fun dog fact of the day: NYC dog names (dogs named after fruits, vegetables, etc)  

https://nycedc.com/blog-entry/new-york-citys-dog-population

Follow School For The Dogs on Instagram: Instagram.com/schoolforthedogs Ask Annie: AnnieGrossman.com/ask

---
Partial Transcript:

Annie:

Hey everyone! So today we are going to talk about dog-dog greetings, specifically dogs greeting other dogs on the street, and I'm going to suggest how you can teach your dog to greet another dog well and all the things you need to keep in mind when deciding whether or not you're going to let your dog greet another dog.

But before I get into the thick of it, uh, I wanted to give my number one suggestion, which is don't do it. Don't let your dog greet other dogs on the street. That's it. Now the reason I'm not going to end it there is because I know that that sort of like a bummer piece of advice. People don't generally love the idea of shielding their dog from every other dog on the street. We like the idea of being able to walk our dogs and have it be a kind of social thing where they can say hi to the other dogs in the neighborhood and everyone's gonna get along. But here's some reasons why I generally advise against letting your dog interact with other dogs on the street.

First of all, I see a lot of crazy dogs at School for the Dogs, all of us trainers do. And a lot of those dogs are dogs who have issues with other dogs and, especially, those are dogs who have issues with dogs on the street, issues with other dogs at close proximity and in New York City where I am, and in a lot of cities, when you're having a dog greet another dog on the street, there's a lot that could go wrong. And I have to assume that it's the minority of dogs who have problems greeting other dogs or problems even just being on the street at all where other dogs may or may not appear or just problems being on the street at all, no matter where other dogs are.

Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/podcast/