Avoiding confrontation

This is a mistake I see dog owners make very often, so it’s the first thing I want to address in this series.

When you encounter another dog and its owner on a walk and you stop before them that signals to your dog that you’re taking part in this confrontation. Whether it be positive or negative, you’ve now decided to engage this new dog and its owner.

If you want to avoid aggressive confrontations you simply need to keep walking for a little bit so you’re standing on the far end of the encounter, instead of at the beginning. This signals to your dog that you’re ready to move on from this encounter.

So even if I want my dogs to say hi I still use this technique and position myself at the end of the encounter. This has worked very well at de-escalating any possible negative confrontations that might have occurred otherwise.