The Greeting Routine That Changed It All For My Dog
“Two greeting routines that helped my dog Batman to finally “Read the Room”
A couple days ago I spilled the beans about Batman’s wild antics at parties. Well, let’s dive into how we transformed that chaos into contentment.
Routine No. 1
Easy Routine – this is for dogs who are a bit too excited to see everyone or a bit too amped up. The goal is to teach them to mirror the guests. When folks chill, so do they.They need to be dragging a leash when they are excited.
This sounds so simple but you’d be amazed how much this will help.
Let them say hi to everyone and then.
When you feel it’s time to settle down, have them do a timeout at your feet. EVERYONE (including you) must ignore the dog until they settle.
Quietly let go of your dog’s leash (don’t say anything to your dog). They can move freely again until they don’t “read the room” properly.
Repeat until your dog gets it.
Routine No. 2
Routine For Tricky Dogs – If your pup falls into the tricky category, like Batman, a bit more structure is key.
The do this:
Controlled Greetings – Keep the initial greeting controlled by having your dog’s leash in hand. When you are confident you can drop it and they will go sniff guests and say hi politely you can do so.
Repeat the same process I recommended for the easy dogs.
If after 3-5 minutes your dog can’t seem to settle (won’t stop barking, pulling, whining, etc) then they need to go in another room or in their kennel until they settle.
Once they’ve settled for a few minutes in their kennel you can bring them back out on leash and start the process over.
Repeat until your dog is reading the room properly.
I can sum this all up in one sentence: give your dog only as much freedom as they can handle.
If you give them more, before they are 100% ready for it, YOU are setting them up to fail. And then getting mad at them because they never figure it out. I know because I’ve been there and made that mistake 😣
You have to force your dog to learn a new habit, a new pattern. They won’t figure this out on their own I promise.
Once I committed to this process with Batman he learned pretty quickly, but I had to take the time to do it right.
