On respect, for dogs and their people

Much of what I know about respect I learned on sidewalks. For years I walked packs of dogs through Hoboken, and several times a day I met the same moment: a stranger, warm and well meaning, stepping toward the dogs with an outstretched hand and a rising voice. Almost none of it was malicious. Almost all of it was misinformed, and the dogs paid for the difference.

We absorb, from every direction, the idea that the friendly thing to do with a dog is to greet them. The loud baby talk. The hand extended toward their face. The crouch to eye level. To a person, these gestures read as affection. To a dog who has never met you, a stranger closing in low, hands first, voice high, is not affection. It is pressure, and they never asked for it.

Consider the question itself: "Can I pet your dog?" It is asked with love, and I hear it constantly. Now put a child in the sentence. "Can I pet your child?" No one would ask it, and no parent would agree, yet the logic is the same: a stranger requesting hands on a small companion who has no say in the matter. And some people do not ask at all. Picture that from the dog's side. You are walking, relaxed, minding your route, when a person you have never met walks up and puts hands on you.

A thoroughly easygoing dog will shrug this off. Such dogs are rarer than we like to believe. For the rest, the encounters accumulate, and over the years we have met many dogs whose leash troubles, nervousness, insecurity, and in some cases aggression trace back in part to uninvited hands.

People used to ask how I could walk twelve dogs at once up and down Washington Street on a beautiful day. There was no trick. The entire walk rested on keeping every dog focused on me, in a calm, following state of mind, and I worked for that state at every step. An owner with one dog wants exactly what I wanted with twelve: focus, calm, a loose leash. When a stranger interrupts to touch the dog or excite them, that state of mind breaks, and the break costs the dog something real.

So I make the request plainly and kindly, and I encourage every owner to do the same: please do not touch or talk to my dogs. I say it even when the dogs beside me have no issues at all. The most common reply is "don't worry, I'm good with dogs," or its cousin, "dogs love me." I have found that the people who are genuinely good with dogs never need to say so. They show it by leaving a working dog to their work.

I hold myself to the standard I ask of others. I never request to pet a dog I do not know. I never make sounds to excite one, never talk to one, never approach one. I know the effort it takes to build a balanced dog, and I respect another owner's effort too much to unravel a minute of it on a sidewalk.

On-leash greetings between unfamiliar dogs deserve the same caution, and my recommendation is simple: decline them. You do not know the other dog, and you do not know the other owner, and one bad moment between two leashed dogs can mean a fight, an injury, and a legal matter. It can also leave your dog with a lasting negative association on leash, and that association is the seed of leash reactivity, sometimes of dog aggression itself. The risks outweigh the rewards, every time.

You do not need a speech to protect your dog. One sentence does the work: "No thank you, we're working on leash skills." Said kindly, it offends no one. It keeps your dog's walk calm and safe, it shows them that you are in control of every situation, and it teaches, gently, that touching a dog you do not know, or letting your own dog rush toward one, is not a kindness.

Your commitment is to your dog, not to a stranger in the street.

This is what advocacy looks like at the end of a leash. In the dog's world, leadership means protection, direction and love, and protection is listed first for a reason. Your dog cannot explain that they are working, or nervous, or simply enjoying their walk. They have you for that. Speak for them, and the street becomes a calmer place for you both.

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