Petting Without Asking

Ugh, this made my skin crawl. I would pitch a FIT if someone pet Limit while he was between my legs. I'd probably make some rude comment about what direction their hand was going.

Also, Limit is the king of skittering backward when he's uncomfortable. If he is moving backwards, I am supporting him (in regards to people).

I rarely have a person just pet Leo when he is on-leash without asking. It happens all the time when he is off-leash. However, there I don't mind it as much, since it is more assumed that an off leash dog around people is going to be friendly with them.

Leo is pretty people friendly so even on leash it often doesn't bother me much. The exception is with children, whom he is nervous around, and there I either talk or body block.

The other day I was at the dog part with Leo, and unbeknownst to me a parent came in with their 6-8 year old daughter (I didn't see them enter). Well, out of the corner of my eye, I see her suddenly lunge forward to pet Leo's head while he is sitting and facing away from her. I was like . He instantly cringed, lip licked, and then walked away, so luckily nothing bad happened, but I was pretty upset at daughter/mother. It upsets me when parents bring their children into dog parks. Dogs are there because they are friendly with other dogs! Not necessarily children! If you do bring your child, they better be dog savvy and be able to treat dogs properly and safely.

I might play devil's advocate for a second

I expect that people will ask to pet a dog that they are approaching and always do the same myself if I am approaching the dog.

That said, there are instances when the scenario happens the other way. In these situations, when the dog is approaching the human, I honestly think that it's situational whether a "may I pet your dog" is necessary.

If someone's dog runs out of their yard at me or runs up to me off leash, I'll be honest - I don't have any issue touching that dog and don't think that the owner should have the gumption to tell me otherwise when it was their dog that was not under control. If someone is holding a conversation with me and actively does not inhibit their dog from approaching and the dog initiates contact, again, often I'll take that as a cue that I may pet the dog (because I assume that permission was granted when the owner actively allowed the dog into my space with no other comment). Finally, if someone is not paying attention to their leashed friendly dog and that dog runs over, then I typically won't ask, but will either move away or make a judgment call on the owner/dog as to whether it's okay to pet the dog.

For example, just the other day I was visiting my boyfriend in the middle of nowhere where he works and we took a walk into a nearby neighborhood. Apparently dogs have fairly free roam there because we had three come running out of yards towards us. Two of those decided to join us for our walk and followed us all the way down the neighborhood street and then back to my boyfriend's house (which was not even in the same neighborhood). Granted, no owners were around while we were walking, but even had they been, I would probably have pet the dogs without asking. No, they weren't my dogs. But they were on a public road, acting friendly, and in my space. Nobody was doing anything about it, so by default, I would have assumed that it was okay.

Maybe I'm wrong in my actions. But as much as I expect that anyone approaching a strange dog should ask before petting or otherwise cueing the dog to come to them, I also expect that anyone with a dog who they don't want interacting with the public to be on a leash (or under voice control) with an attentive owner who doesn't let them run into other people's space.

I don't actually bring my dogs into many situations where this happens; usually if they are out and about with me, they are either hiking or at agility trials. Both are places where people generally don't bother your dog. I don't bring them in to pet stores (I just want to get in and get out!) or to festivals or anything like that.

When they are out with me, Gusto is pretty good at getting the point across that he'd like it very much if you didn't touch him, thank you. He's the champion of just always being out of your reach. Doesn't even look at the person or react, just slips a bit further away.

I pretty much always have treats on me, so if someone is trying to interact with them, I just say something like, 'Hey, you're with me!' and reward them for focusing on me, while glancing sideways at the person. Usually they just smile and leave; sometimes they ask then if they can pet the dog.

And it is ALWAYS adults. I don't think I've ever had a kid grab at one of my dogs without asking, but adults are the worst.

This, basically.

With Rosey, She walked on my right side, and I walked on the right side of the sidewalk. So I was always inbetween.

Well when we're out in public Summer pretty much spends all her time schmoozing and doing her best to attempt to get every person she sees to pet her. So... a lot of people pet her. She's hilarious and adorable and a really really good beggar. Most people don't ask because it is so incredibly obvious that Summer wants alllll the pets. Once she gets eye contact with someone, it's over. About half the time she ends up in peoples' laps it seems.

I do have to tell some people to leave Mia alone but most people are so infatuated with Summer that once they realize Mia is not interested, they just ignore her.

I tend to give such situations the benefit of the doubt and:spam: assume they are training their dog to not run up without permission but aren't quite there yet in which case the last thing I want to do is reinforce that nonsense and increase the likelihood it will happen again.

And I for one will talk to people while my dog will stand there looking at the person and in my case not saying no is not implied permission and kneeling down or going to pet my dog without me releasing them first puts me in an awkward position.

I guess I don't see why it's hard to just...ask. Or ignore the dog. Or ignore a moment until you can ask. Obviously if the dog is all up in your grill that is one thing and you may have to react but that doesn't mean you have to go reinforcing that by petting and talking them up without a quick check with their person first.

Lots and lots of things bother me about living in NYC with a dog, but surprisingly, people have been pretty good on this front. I've had more children ask politely if they can pet Astro than not, which is sort of amazing really...people really do seem caught up on the "ask before petting" meme here (at least from my experience).

Even though they do ask, I've still had a few problems. Mainly, there are some people in my building, all adults, who do this weird thing where they hold their hand out over Astro's head to pet him, and the SECOND he moves (always lifting his nose to smell their wrist), they jerk it away, wave it back over his head, repeat...I just don't get it. I think they're very very nervous, but they apparently still can't help but try to pet him. Most of them are immigrants who speak no English and can't/don't ask me first, so I just have to give a shrug and move away.

I've also had a number of people start literally screaming and running away from Astro, which to me is just as annoying as petting without asking. Some of the shrieks I've heard are still making my ears ring

Thanks for the interesting response; hopefully I can clarify my original post. We might still have differing opinions at the end of my post, but I hope that I can at least give a few examples to help make transparent my thoughts. When I made my initial comment regarding conversation etiquette, I was referring to situations in which the owner allows the dog to move forward, not in which the third party moves toward the dog. For example, I would never reach down to a dog that is in a sit-stay beside its owner without asking first. Nor would I approach a dog that is tugging at the end of its leash if it required me to "make the first move" so to speak. Let me give just a bit of reference to a situation that I experienced that fits into this category. I had a scenario in NYC this Feb when I was speaking to a woman who was going to be running her dog in the agility portion of Westminster. We were both in the hotel sitting about 5 or 6 feet apart in the lounge chairs. Her dog was on a leash, but she was not holding on to it, so the dog was not actually restrained, although it was very well behaved. The dog walked over to me and put its head in my lap as we were conversing. The owner made no comment or move to bring the dog back to her nor did I react negatively to being approached by the dog, and so I took that as unspoken understanding that I was accepting of being approached by the dog and that she was accepting of the dog being near me.

As a minor tangent, one could argue that just because the owner was accepting of the dog approaching me did not mean that she wished for me to touch the dog; however, I tend to think that my response (that is, petting the dog briefly), was so typical in such a situation that she would have inferred that it was a potential consequence of letting her dog visit me. If she had wished differently, she should have said something (e.g. "he's quite shy, I hope you don't mind if I let him approach, but could you not reach out to him") or restrained the dog. Had I jumped up and down squealing, hit the dog with a frying pan, or squeezed its jowls and stuck my face right up in its grill - no, that would not have been appropriate EVEN IF the owner allowed the dog to enter my space. None of those actions ought to be an "expected" consequence of letting a dog approach a person - simple petting? Personally, I think that it is.

Back to the original situation - the owner was looking at me and so should have had no doubt as to where her dog was located. Should I have asked? Maybe. Could I have asked? Definitely. Would it have been hard for me to ask? No. But it just didn't feel necessary (or even the socially appropriate thing to do) in that situation. So I gave the dog a scratch behind the ears and continued to talk with the woman.

I still stand by my opinions on "if a dog runs up to me off leash." I don't think that anything is black-and-white, so I'm sure there are situations in which I would not feel comfortable touching a friendly dog that had run up to me (off leash) uninvited, but generally, yes, I would. Provided that the dog was friendly and I was in a position to be approached (i.e. not walking another DA dog, etc.), I would never be anything but polite and smiley with the owner, but the fact of the matter is that the dog entered into my space. If the owner was actively calling it back, I would not "reward the dog" by petting it, but typically in my experience, these situations have happened when the owner was either not present, not paying attention, or not giving a crap.

The "on-leash" but not under control is a bit more variable from situation to situation, but I try to assess every situation socially to determine how to act. Don't get me wrong - I will typically ask before petting, but I have been in situations when it didn't seem the appropriate thing to do. No owner has ever made any negative comment to me, so I'd like to think I usually make fairly good judgment calls.


I should mention that my interaction with dogs is much more limited to the general dog owning population than many on this forum. I don't do dog sports, I have been to few dog events (although I would love to change this!), and I don't have too many "dog people" as friends. More often than not, my dog interactions are with owners who probably haven't given much of a second thought to the matter of "petting with or without permission."

As a side question for discussion, what are everyone's personal opinions on petting another person's dog when you are invited into their house? That is, they invite you over for dinner or something of the sort and they have a dog. Do you always ask before petting then? Or do you not? Or does it depend?

Personally, I see so many situational factors that it is hard for me to make a blanket statement.

When Quinn was very timid of new people I was always on watch around her. I rarely had people just go in for the pat. If they did, I'd interupt them, explain she was shy and tell them how to greet her. Give her a treat or a scratch under the chin.

After work, she's now very social but she had her first real test a couple of weeks ago.
I pulled up at the servo and had the back window down with Quinn in the back, I saw someone I know from where I used to work filling up at the next bowser.
He's never in his life met or even seen Quinn in his life, he said hey to me and then "Oh man, I have to say hi to your dog" I told him to go for it, she's quite social now.
Quick as anything he jumped between the bowsers, came straight up to the window, reached in with both hands to hold the sides of her face, leaned into the car and baby talked right into her face.
If he had done that 18 months ago or to Buster I think he would have got some teeth to the face.

I was so shocked, he was so quick. A credit to how far Quinn has come though, she wasn't fazed at all. A little confused at what had just happened but she handled it awesomely.

I will always go back to the stupidest example that happened nearly 7 years ago now.
Cobain was still young, he was in training, I had really high expectations for him and he was following through nicely.

We were at a public Dragon Boat Racing event, and Cobain was lying quietly next to me in a large crowd as I watched my mother's team row. Suddenly I feel a tug on the leash. I figure he's trying to wander away or get more comfortable, so I was shocked when I looked over to see a woman trying to pull him towards her!

Cobain (if memory serves correctly) was still lying in the same position with a conflicted expression on his face.

And the woman says "It's okay I was calling him! I have treats!"
Gah :wall: I don't even remember how I handled that, but seriously?!



Generally though, I've noticed that people haven't been too bad for that lately. Most people will ask or admire from a distance.
Which I'm very thankful for because Rigby is a bit of a timid dog that doesn't always welcome new people in her space.


As for other people's dogs, I do agree that it's very situational.

This is a pet peeve of mine---

Crossbone is great in public- restaurants, parades, farmer's markets, pet stores, etc--we take him everywhere. We even seek out restaurants with patios that we can take him to when traveling.

Crossbone is not a happy-go-lucky, loves everybody kind of dog. In fact, he hates being touched by loud, peppy, crazy people who bend over him and pet his head. He will snap as a first reaction (working on it!)

I've become a much better advocate for him and tell people that he doesn't like to be touched. After I tell people, they are offended and questioning why we take our (well behaved, quiet, non-confrontational, laying at our feet) dog into public. Frustrating.

I don't get that mentality at all. Just because a dog doesn't love everyone shouldn't mean that he can't be out in public.

If people come with grabby hands, I body block and if they try to get around me to pet, I tell them that they cannot pet my dog because they didn't ask before trying.

If they come up grabby and back off when I body block, I will tell them they can't pet the dog because they're busy training.

If people ask, I usually allow them with my friendly dogs and praise them for asking first.

I'm one of those people who, when I see a dog, I instantly want to say hi. Usually because I'm at college and haven't seen my own dogs in weeks or months.

But I always ask if I can say hi, and I do it very early, before I'm even near them. If I have to walk towards them I walk sort of at an angle and don't make eye contact with the dog. If I get the okay I always bend my knees and get down on the ground and wait for the dog to approach me, haha.

But there have been several BIZARRE instances where the dog doesn't seem interested at all, and I think 'that's okay, I'll leave, no big deal' but the owner pulls on the leash and drags the dog over to me. I've had owners pick up their timid little dogs and try to put them in my face. One time this dog hid behind his owner and I said "oh it's okay! Never mind!" and the owner was like "No! He has to learn that people are okay, here, let me get him."



So now I'm just way more... attentive? Like, if the owner gives me the okay I pay a lot more attention to the dog's body language because I don't necessarily trust the owner to know when to say no. If the dog is like "no thanks, not really interested in you, human" I just say "cute dog" and keep it moving.

But I always ask even before getting anywhere near a dog's bubble.

I tell my students this all the time, to be an advocate for their dog. I always tell them "if people get cranky at you, tell them 'My trainer gave me permission to tell people not to touch my dog' and then they can be cranky at me instead." =P You can tell them that too if it makes you feel better LOL. "This trainer I know on the internet gave me permission to tell people not to touch my dog."


I was at PetSmart once and the cashier got RIGHT in Payton's face while I was running my debit card and stuff. He was like WTF lady and backed up, and she was like "Awww, he's shy!"
"No, he just doesn't like people getting in his face," I said.
She stared at me like she didn't understand what I said. I strongly considered getting in HER face, and then when SHE backed up, going "Awww, you're shy!" to make my point. But I didn't because that's not polite. But people think it's totally okay to do that to dogs though. For reasons.

I've had the dogs tied up outside of stores and watched, from inside, people approach Mega and try to pet her. She'll erupt into a barking mess. I'm not a fan of when this happens, but I'm pretty sure that her reaction is a much more effective lesson than anything I could have provided.

It must be my breed...because I very, very rarely get people grabbing or petting the guys without asking. I usually get asked "do they bite?" and "are they friendly?" long before people go diving in for petting.

If I'm invited to someone's house and they have their dog loose I'll pet it if it approaches me first. I don't ask permission. I assume they wouldn't leave the dog out if it shouldn't be pet, but I also wouldn't force any interaction if the dog looked uncomfortable. I'm kind of an introvert at parties so I love it if there is a dog I can pet. We're usually best buddies by the end of the night.

This, all of it