Please Don't Pet My Dog

Alright, first off my name is Brittni. I am the owner of Get Heeled Dog Training. I have been training, fostering and working with dogs for almost seven years ( or 21 in dog years.)

I have helped a lot of friends and friends of friends and total strangers off of Facebook for free because I was too nervous to ask for compensation. Yet here I am, writing a blog for my professional dog training page on having confidence in public with your dog.

Having confidence is such a huge part of dog training and being a great dog owner/ pup mom/ dog mom/ dog dad/ a cool cat and kitten okay I digress. But what I love to see in my client’s owners (yes I work for your dogs and train you) is the confidence I instill in their timing to mark behaviors as well as confidence in holding the leash correctly and doing simple things dog owners do everyday with confidence.

I wanted to address confidence in this post specifically with situations when you have your dog out in public and someone approaches you.

Does your dog jump or bark or pull to greet people or dogs?

I train dogs to be successful out in the world. This means prepping them for situations out of your control which, let’s face it, is just simply life in general.

I am here to tell you it is okay to tell other people that ask, “Please give space we are training.” Or “My dog is training right now but thank you” and keep it moving.

Your dog does not need to meet every person or every dog, in fact, I highly recommend they don’t. Why? Because we don’t want to create a habit where your dog now expects to meet every dog and every person.

We want our dogs to walk past dogs and humans like they are just everyday objects. No barking. No pulling. No nonsense. Just keep it moving.

I hope this post gave you a bit of confidence for the next time you are out to tell that eager, smiling person, “No, please don’t pet,” because your dog comes first, not that person’s feelings or ego. I mean you knew that was coming because after all, I work for your dog.

But I mean you have to pay me, not the dog.

#dogsocializing #dog #dogtraining #Confidence