The Other End of the Leash: Why We Do What We Do Around Dogs

by Patricia B. McConnell

Direct head-on approaches can be threatening to dogs, especially shy ones meeting a person or dog whom they don’t know. Watch two well-socialized but unfamiliar dogs greet at the park. The politest of dogs tend to approach from the side, perhaps even at 90 degrees. They avoid direct eye contact. On the other hand, two dogs standing face-on, staring into each other’s eyes, are trouble—big trouble—and I see it sometimes in dog-to-dog aggression cases. Dogs may greet head-on on occasion, but it’s not polite, and it leads to tension and sometimes aggression.2 When we do primate-based, head-on, direct approaches to dogs, they often respond as if they are being threatened. I must have seen more than a thousand dogs who are comfortable if you greet them by standing sideways and letting them come to you but who will lunge and bark aggressively, and possibly bite, if you stride up straight toward them, stare directly into their eyes, and reach your hand over the top of their heads.