Greeting New People

I think Shelties, who are a very smart and sensitive breed, easily and quickly make their own calculations as to who is a potential friend, who simply is to be tolerated at best and who doesn't give off friendly vibes even if they are pretending to like dogs and should be avoided. I have always honored my Shelties choices as to whether or not they wished to be touched...especially by people who are strangers.

And like humans, Shelties run the gambit of personalities no matter how well they have been "socialized". Think of human children or even adults...some thrive on meeting new people, easily give hugs to people they don't really know and are always looking to make new friends while others tend to be loners and would far prefer to watch others from a distance or at most say a quick hello and move on.

One of the qualities that I love about Shelties is that many of them are not "everyone's" dog. I certainly wouldn't want any Sheltie of mine to live in fear of other humans or animals or to be aggressive in any way when needing to be handled in a medical or emergency situation... and obviously if you want your Shelties to go into therapy work or any job that demands that they really enjoy being handled by humans they don't know then that is a totally different ball game. However, not all Shelties, no matter how good and extensive their socialization/training, will fit that outgoing role...any more than all humans can be trained to be extroverts.

Trini
 
Calliesmom said:
yes. AKC Beginner Novice Obedience. so BN are the initials that go after your dog's name when they qualify 3 times in that class to get that title.
there will be videos of it in the Club Trial 2020 thread if you want to see what happens in that class.....
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Oh I will certainly take a look. I *think* we want to do agility, but we definitely want to complete in a dog sport of some kind.
 
I so agree with Trini. My dear departed FIL always used a very gruff tone with my dogs (he grew up on a farm) and although they wanted to like him, they couldn't bear his tone of voice. One of my hubby's friends comes over and yells "MUTTS!" every time he sees our dogs - not one of our Shelties has ever liked him and Faith barks her head off at him and won't stop. I totally get it. And like Trini, I am don't mind at all that my dogs are discerning on who they like and will approach and/or tolerate attention from. It's the Sheltie way. After all, if they were to run off and dote on every person they saw, they wouldn't be a very good sheepdog!
 
Sharon7 said:
I so agree with Trini. My dear departed FIL always used a very gruff tone with my dogs (he grew up on a farm) and although they wanted to like him, they couldn't bear his tone of voice. One of my hubby's friends comes over and yells "MUTTS!" every time he sees our dogs - not one of our Shelties has ever liked him and Faith barks her head off at him and won't stop. I totally get it. And like Trini, I am don't mind at all that my dogs are discerning on who they like and will approach and/or tolerate attention from. It's the Sheltie way. After all, if they were to run off and dote on every person they saw, they wouldn't be a very good sheepdog!
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Yes we have a friend who comes over that he HATES. Barks at him non-stop when eventually he settles for other people. I really just want him to tolerate someone else touching because it seems like a lot of obedience, CGC and some other things require they not act shy when a stranger pets. We'll keep working on it. I just wondered if he would be more tolerant as he gets older.
 
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