Meeting out friends Great Danes. Advice?

[Diesel's Dad]

Hi all,

Diesel is now 20 weeks and still a mental bundle of energy. Next weekend we’re due to meet and walk with our best friends and their dogs. A bit of a walk by the Thames, running on long leads then hopefully pass out knackered in the pub while we have a beer and chat!

I’m so keen that this goes well as our best friends have returned from living in Germany and we haven’t seen them for ages. We always used to walk with them and their 2 Danes before we had a pup and it was great. So any tips on a good introduction and getting them to be best buddies?

Diesel does ok meeting new dogs when we walk, he’s getting to recognise dogs that want to sniff and play versus the grumpy ones who definitely don’t! But these of course are brief encounters of a couple of minutes max while we say hi to other owners and compare notes.

Our friends 2 Danes are Einstein, who is also white and stone deaf, he’s a soppy bugger but very energetic, never seen how he reacts to a puppy. The other one Millie is quite elderly and definitely doesn’t get on with bouncy youngsters! She gets very grumpy!

So any tips on a calm first intro hopefully leading to our dogs becoming the best mates that us humans are!?

Thanks.

DD

 

[JoanneF]

I would suggest starting the walk with a little distance between you - a few meters perhaps - either to the side or in front/behind. This will let you see how the dogs react and also avoids the head to head direct eye contact that dogs can find intimidating. Assuming everything goes well you can start getting closer but you will still be able to see if any tensions are appearing.

 

[Ari_RR]

I would let D burn some energy somehow before the encounter, so he is less overwhelming for the Danes.