# Specifics on Calm Greetings



## sdain31y (Jul 5, 2010)

Good luck. Let us know how it works. In my opinion, both greetings are tough challenges and something you sconstantly work on and refine.


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## RedDogs (Jan 30, 2010)

I would not do greetings with another dog while they are on leash. Partially because it can go very wrong when dogs can't communicate normally due to leash restrictions. But more of it is how many dogs get anxious and excited about the possibility of greeting another dog. We just don't do it.

How did you train polite walking? 

I would mark a 20' long path for you to go back and forth on... have a person stand about 20' away (parallel to your path). The person is still and not looking. You are walking back and forth. Reinforce as often as needed to keep your dog with you. When he is walking well, the person can slowly walk. When your dog is walking well, the person's parallel path can be moved a little closer. And a little closer. And a little closer. 

And the actual greeting piece is a separate training exercise.

I would do the parallel path thing with other dogs.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

> On Sunday my friend is bringing her well behaved Aussie over here. The plan is to have her go to one end of the field and just stand there with the dog. I'm going to move towards them with Cosmo, making him sit and calm down whenever he pulls. I'll wait till he's calm, give him a treat, and move on. I'll repeat this till I get to the dog. I think it's going to be really tough. He pulls so hard for other dogs he goes up on his hind legs sometimes. I have used the clicker in the past too for other things and he responds well but I'm not sure how to incorporate it in this exercise. Can someone give me some feedback on my plan? Also should I step on the leash to keep him stationary until he's calm or is this going to make it worse?


I would keep the leash in hand so you have more control. 

Instead of stopping and waiting until he's calm, you could do a circle with treats. Or serpentines and doodle exercises. You want to keep his attention on you, not the dog ahead. 

When you take your golden up to visit another dog, I would treat it the same way as greeting people. Make sure he walks nice until you give the OK for him to visit with the other dog (this means walking right past your friend and her dog sometimes and jackpotting with treats when he makes it past without looking at the other dog). If you are OK with visiting with the other dog, go by your dog's behavior and energy levels. 

If you know he's going to be spastic in his greeting, grab him by the collar and hold him still while the other (and in theory, calmer) dog comes up and sniffs his nose and checks him out. <- If you do this every time, your puppy will learn.

Confession: My guy didn't master the calm greetings (with people or dogs) until he was a year and a half. This despite the fact he was in novice obedience classes. It was all PLAY-PLAY-PLAY. So yes, I obviously worked on the above for a while. He learned... but it didn't happen over night. >.<


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## jackie_hubert (Jun 2, 2010)

Great advice. I agree with him focusing on the other dog too much if we move toward them. Will focus more on walking past the dog and around the dog. Maybe we'll do circles around going closer and closer and releasing him calmly to see the dog as a reward. Oddly, he can do it just fine in class but not in real life scenarios. 

He has learned to walk politely by learning to focus on the handler. We started off with the heel command and lots of rewards when healing. Now I use the clicker when he's heeling naturally during the walk and he sits when I stop. When he's focused and not too distracted it works very well (almost 90% consistency). He still has a tendency to start pulling sometimes when he wants something.

Got him a no pull harness (the Easy Walk) today so I can control him better when he darts for dogs or people. So far so good, he responds super well with just a flick of the finger. Also got him a packback today which seems to put him in a working mode. I'm going to put the no-pull harness on him for the greeting excercise but maybe not the backpack?

Can you explain serpentines and doodle exercises?

With people greetings if the people are calm he will sit and wait (with high anticipation nonetheless) but with dogs he goes for it and will pull pull pull! I think it's made worse by the fact that when he goes to daycare he gets soooo jacked up waiting to play that it reinforces the bad behaviour.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

You know, the more I read posts like this, the more I think sometimes it's just what's in the dog. I have people asking me all the time how I trained Ranger to greet politely. Honest truth? I didn't. He never jumped up on the couch, never jumped up at people, ever since I got him. 

I'm not trying to make the OP feel bad - kudos for teaching this important thing! It just made me wonder if some dogs are just naturally less "jumpy" than others. My brother's dog tried to jump on me once and that was it - I made him dance with me for about five minutes while telling him what a good dog he was. He was begging me to let him go by the end and he hasn't tried it since. 

Sorry, this was a bit of hijack. Back on topic - Ranger used to lunge at other dogs we passed on walks - it was his way of "saying hi". He did intense socialization for the next year and learned that he DOESN'T have to say hi to every dog he meets. Some walks we meet every dog we pass, some walks we don't stop at all. Because it's not such a big deal anymore, he's usually a lot calmer about it. Usually - apparently he was going nuts at the dog park yesterday so he lost his off leash privileges!


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## jackie_hubert (Jun 2, 2010)

Not feeling bad at all. You'll remember that Cosmo was the dog who would be kinda uptight around other dogs trying to be the boss, just standing there calmly, not really greeting at all. That is until about 4 month when he started daycare. His "I'm so excited to see you I simply must see you now!!" attidue is in some regards a step up. Now we just gotta tone it down again.


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## Megora (Jun 7, 2010)

jackie_hubert said:


> Not feeling bad at all. You'll remember that Cosmo was the dog who would be kinda uptight around other dogs trying to be the boss, just standing there calmly, not really greeting at all. That is until about 4 month when he started daycare. His "I'm so excited to see you I simply must see you now!!" attidue is in some regards a step up. Now we just gotta tone it down again.


It might take time. 

To be honest, I don't think it is just consistent training that fixes their wayward self-control. They have to grow up. I think some dogs take a little longer time growing up and learning restraint. 

Our Sammy was not grown up until he was five. My sister showed him when he was 3 and it was so dreadful she didn't dare go back into the show ring until he was 6. <- The worst part was him getting excited during the fast (heel) jumping up and springing off of my sister's back before having a happy fit around the ring and jumping on the judge. People could not believe he had a CGC after his name. 



> Can you explain serpentines and doodle exercises?


Start off with your dog's attention. Go into a serpentine or ess. I usually imagine forward weaving through cones. Taking two or three steps leftwards and then two or three steps rightwards. Same thing with the doodle exercises - imagine cones and do left circles around them and then right circles. Throw in sits and GO-GO's (run backwards with treat). Mix it up while your friend serves as distraction. 

Move fast. <- Moving slow gives your dog time to daydream and look around. You want him to be looking up at you and guessing what you're going to do next.

When you start off you could ask your friend to sit somewhere with her dog and be in sight of your dog. As your dog gets better, you could ask your friend to walk in the opposite direction. 

And use lots of treats and "happy voice" talking to keep his attention on you. <- Something to kinda keep in mind, but when you are teaching heel, you would have the treat and leash in your left hand. And you would give the treat with that hand. Most people then hold the leash to their left hip or over their side. This keeps the dog glued in the heel position and looking up at you. 

Treat and release every few successful steps. Only treat when the dog has done something good. Don't treat a dog who is looking away or not paying attention. 

Gradually work your way closer to your friend and her dog. 

You can practice the CGC approach. You approach your friend and her dog. Both dogs are placed in a sit stay for a few seconds. Again you work on keeping him looking up at you. Release him and move off. 

The next step after that is shaking hands with your friend without your dog breaking his sit stay or lunging at the other dog. 

The next step is your friend touching your dog without him breaking his sit stay or lunging at your friend or her dog. 

The key is to be patient and give your dog plenty of time to learn his manners. Because he's young, I'd keep one hand on his collar and the other hand in guard position near his butt to keep him in a sit stay when you practice approaches with your friend. 

Anyway, I'm babbling. <- And should be practicing stays with my loon.


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## Ranger (Nov 11, 2009)

jackie_hubert said:


> Not feeling bad at all. You'll remember that Cosmo was the dog who would be kinda uptight around other dogs trying to be the boss, just standing there calmly, not really greeting at all. That is until about 4 month when he started daycare. His "I'm so excited to see you I simply must see you now!!" attidue is in some regards a step up. Now we just gotta tone it down again.


Ah, I totally understand! Ranger was like that too when it came to greeting dogs. At 9 months of age (when I got him), he had NO socialization. Meeting dogs was a hit or miss...he was a little tense, so would approach with chest up, head up and get snapped at more often than not. Then he started laying down to sucker the dogs in, then would pop up like a jack-in-a-box and get right in their faces. :doh: He just kept getting exposed to more and more dogs and started getting "put to work" with his backpack around them...and now with his backpack, will always ignore other dogs on walks, unless it's an "allowed" meeting. He's still kinda funny without his backpack, but he's definitely better.

It's always a process with dogs! At least now the tenseness is over which is great...I found that was the hardest for Ranger to get past. Once he was comfortable, the next step of stopping him from wanting to play with everyone was a lot easier. Hope it's the same for Cosmo!


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## tippykayak (Oct 27, 2008)

Work him on the other side of the field from the Aussie. You need to teach him that it's fun and rewarding to work in the presence of another dog, but that it doesn't lead to a greeting. Both of you can just work with your dogs at whatever the minimum distance is for Cosmo to see the Aussie but not to be too distracted to work. It could be pretty far at first.  

Frankly, I practically never have my dogs greet another dog on the leash. It isn't that fun for the dog anyway, since they don't get to play while on the leash. Besides, I don't trust that a stranger's dog won't act inappropriately, and when the guys play with their "friends," they do so off leash. We do the CGC exercise where we pass another dog and I shake the handler's hand, but there's never any greeting reward. That makes it easier to teach a calm pass, since they never expect that they'll be allowed to actually interact with the other dog.


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