I’ve worked with hundreds of cases like Mitsy’s, and I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what I say, and it doesn’t matter what the person I’m talking to says: the action of moving directly at a dog and extending a hand in greeting is so hardwired that you often have to physically stop people from doing it. The only solution is to use two people: one with the dog and the other beside the stranger, ready to move between the stranger and the dog if the stranger can’t resist a typical primate greeting.
