Imagine you are walking down the street, just taking in the sights, sounds and smells when suddenly a stranger rushes up and starts shouting, “OMG, I love your hair, that is so soft looking, I must feel it.” And you realize in that moment that you are trapped in a corner and have nowhere to go; plus, it turns out the person approaching you is speaking a foreign language you don’t understand. You have no idea they are talking about your hair. You just see a person rushing at you with their hands out going toward your head.

Really use your imagination and ask yourself what emotions you would be feeling. How about if the stranger was doing that to your child instead of you?

My guess is you would feel panicked, possibly afraid. Will you laugh it off, tolerate the stranger touching you or will you defend yourself with whatever you have available?

Most of us would never tolerate this behavior. And yet we allow it to happen to our dogs daily when we take them out in public and allow people to pet them. Or when we invite visitors into our home and allow the visitors to interact with the dog.

I get emails weekly from people whose dog has growled or snapped at either a visitor to the person’s home or someone reaching to pet the dog on a walk. In most cases the dog was minding its own business when the person approached it and reached out to touch it.

Dogs on a walk are on a leash; they can’t run away if they are worried. Dogs in a home may feel trapped as well.

Why do you think it is OK for people to touch your dog without the dog’s permission? Often, we don’t want to appear rude by telling someone not to touch our dog. We don’t want strangers to think our dog is “aggressive.” And people often do shame the owner by saying, “what’s wrong, does he bite?” if we try and ask that the dog be given space. Or you get the overbearing, “but all dogs love me” person who insists on doing whatever they want.

Most of the time we just don’t know the dog is unhappy until the dog growls, snaps, or bites. Then we blame the dog for being “bad.” Yet, if someone were behaving inappropriately to you or your child and you defended yourself by hitting the person; you would most likely be congratulated for defending yourself. No one would call you “bad” or “aggressive.”

Sadly, many pet owners don’t know their dog is speaking until the dog does growl. But dogs are communicating with their environment constantly.

While we are always telling children “ask permission to pet the dog” we should also ALWAYS be asking the dog what he thinks about being petted.

First, think about your dog. How do you know he wants to be petted? Does he bump your hand, does he paw your leg, rub up against you, give you liquid eyes that implore you to touch him? Believe me, he is doing something that says, “please interact with me.” If your dog is not doing that same thing to the person attempting to pet the dog, then the dog may be saying “not right now.”

If you are on a walk and your dog is on a leash; does the dog back away from the person attempting to pet it? The dog is saying “no.” Does the dog turn its head away or duck its head down when the person reaches in? The dog is saying “no.”  

And please remember that a dog wagging its tail does not always mean the dog is happy. Many tail wags are asking for social distance. So many people call and say, “he was wagging his tail and then he bit.”

If you have company and a person is sitting on your couch and the dog comes up to sniff the person, that is NOT an invitation for being petted. That is just the dog’s way of gathering more information. Does the dog sniff the person and then walk away? If so, the dog is saying “ok, sit on the couch, I’m going to ignore you for now.”

If the dog is moving away from the person and the person then decides to follow the dog, please step in, and help your dog. This is often when children are bitten as they see the dog leaving and follow it. The dog was probably trying to be polite and get out of a stressful situation. From the dog’s perspective he was clearly communicating. So, what is the dog to think if someone totally ignores that communication? The dog may feel he is being threatened.

Ask yourself if your dog must be friendly to everyone he meets? Would it be ok if he ignored them instead? If your dog must be friends with everyone, then work hard to associate strangers with fun and food and enlist the help of a reward-based trainer if the dog is stressed.

There are always going to be exceptions. There are dogs that appear to solicit attention and then suddenly growl or snap. Dogs can be conflicted. They may want attention, then once it starts happening decide it is too much. These are often dogs who have been stressed over and over by previous encounters with strangers. Please immediately contact a reward-based trainer if this describes your dog.

And when I say stranger, I don’t always mean a person the dog has never met. Dogs can have conflict with your neighbor or a relative, even if the dog has met that person in the past. Maybe the dog just isn’t feeling the love that day, he still gets to say “no” if the neighbor wants to pet him.

Remember, your dog is always communicating. We need to do a better job of listening to what the dog is saying.