Should You Allow Strangers to Pet Your Dog?
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
There are no rules in dog training that say that we're going to train your dog to be petted by a lot of different people unless they're training to be a therapy dog. My dog Dixie is a therapy dog, highly trained and skilled to sit with people who are sick and have terminal illnesses, and to give them love and affection by letting them pet her. She's six and a half years old. She is a calm, zen, very well-behaved dog, and I worked for a long time to get her to this state so she can be a therapy dog and share that healing energy with people.
However, I see a lot of people bringing their puppies and dogs in public, letting everyone pet and touch them. And sometimes those dogs can get uncomfortable. They can have stress, anxiety, fear, and they can even get aggressive and snap at people. This is not something you want to teach your dog or puppy.
To answer the question whether people or strangers should be petting your dog in public, the answer is NO! People don't have to do that.
Even when we test dogs for the AKC Canine Good Citizen, which is a very high-level set of social skills, for your dog to be doing pretty much anything in a public setting, the petting for the dog while they're sitting is done by the evaluator, who's the dog trainer, not by a stranger in public.
We don't want the dog jumping on people, nipping people, or being aggressive towards people if they get uncomfortable. And this is why we do that. Because even with dog training, even when dogs are going through a training program, and they're being tested for the AKC Canine Good Citizen, things could still happen.
Overview of Our Training Programs
Basic commands with vocal and hand signals, such as sit, down, stay, and come.
We teach owners how to control unwanted behaviors such as jumping, barking, chewing, and play-biting.
We teach leash training, which involves loose-leash walking.
We teach socialization skills.
The socialization skills we teach are not about being petted by everyone in public or being nice to every dog they see. Socialization means your dog can go out in public without being affected by distractions such as noises, sights, and different floor textures. In other words, we take dogs to Home Depot, Lowe's, and other home improvement stores, where they're introduced to sliding doors that move very fast, forklifts, pallet jacks, flatbeds, and shopping carts. The dog has to learn to become desensitized to these things and cope with such distractions in public.
When a dog is exposed to this amount of stimuli and distractions, they may be uncomfortable. So, allowing perfect strangers to come pet your dog may be a liability.
There's no rule in dog training that says that people or children must pet your dog. Nothing. You don't even need to worry about it. I love these vests that say, “Dog in training, Do not pet.” Even though some people may ignore them, they're great things to have on your dog while they're in training.
When people want to pet puppies that we have in public, we tell them, “No, he or she is not very comfortable. They're in training.” Kids often run up to dogs in public and want to pet them, without even thinking twice. The parents need to keep these kids away from any dog they don't know or haven’t been introduced to before.
Safety is number one when it comes to dogs in public. You don't want to have to walk around with a muzzle on your dog because they have shown aggression to people who make them uncomfortable in stores that they've never been to.
What you want to do is put them in a down-stay, have them relax and decompress, and teach them to bring it down a few notches. They don't need to be interacting with a lot of different people. They need to learn to go to the stores, lie down, watch, and do nothing. This is the skill set for high-level socialization.
I can tell when a puppy or a dog is really getting it. When we take a dog to the store, and I'm talking to the owner or a bystander watching the training session, and they ask questions about the dog, and the dog lies down voluntarily. This is a good sign. The dog stays out of the way. They're not demanding attention or getting jealous,
Conclusion
Unless your dog is a highly trained therapy dog allowed to interact with people and be petted, your dog does not go out in public to be petted by anyone under any circumstances. What I learned from taking Dixie through therapy dog training is that the pets are not for the dog. Pets and affection are for people. So the dog couldn't care less if they get pet or not. They'll rather go to the socialization training, go to the field trip, come home, and get a belly rub from their owners.
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