[quote dontdisturbmenow]@GenevaL, Out of curiosity are you going to keep your puppy on lead forever? Because if not, there will be a time when he will naturally go to other dogs. That's how they learn just like kids learn to behave by doings things and being told not to.
Also it's not always dog owners at fault. I have a puppy everyone finds very cute. People encourages him to go to them to give him much fuss. It's hard to teach that it's ok for some but not others. I am also teaching him not to jump but again because he is small and cute people keep saying it's ok and encourage him.
He is learning well thankfully because he is quite a clever fog but it's probably taking quite a bit longer because of Pepe's behaviours. As it is, there many more dog lovers even when they don't own one than dog haters, which I guess is a blessing.
Thankfully I've had no experience whatsoever of the unpleasantness that's been exhibited here.[/quote]
My puppies are now adult dogs and we invested a great deal of time in recall training them. Your approach of letting puppies off leads so they can run up to other dogs / people and learn by being told not off is not one that I think is advisable or safe. In fact, it’s exactly the sort of ‘training’ that others find infuriating. If your puppy runs up to a dog on a lead and annoys it, you are allowing it to be in a an unsafe situation. It’s YOUR job to teach the puppy / dog, not other growling dogs and annoyed owners.
You compare them to kids learning by being told not to do things. We don’t allow kids to do dangerous things to teach them a lesson. We don’t let them step out into the road to learn that cars are fast and will brake to avoid hitting you; we hold their hands. You don’t teach a dog that it can be off-lead and run up to other dogs on leads which don’t want to be approached because if they are growled or snapped at you will try and recall them. You teach them that they are not to approach other dogs and if they can’t do that then they don’t come off lead OR you put the lead on when you see an off-lead dog approaching. If you don’t know this basic etiquette then you should do because this is exactly what people are annoyed about.
We began by training them to look at us on walks, then by letting them walk ahead and asking them to turn round. Then we put them on long lines and recalled using those, beginning in areas with no distractions and when that was reliable we did it with the long lines trailing. We then let them off lead in an enclosed paddock and then finally in safer open areas such as woods. Recall initially involved them being called back only to be praised and released or treated with food or a toy. We then introduced occasional re-leashing so they didn’t associate it with being put on a lead every time they came back. The process took 15 months but we have two dogs with absolutely brilliant recall. Not once did they learn by running up to other dogs and getting told off.
We do not let them off lead in areas where there are other dogs that they could run up to in order to teach them not to run up to them...because that would be irresponsible, dangerous and inconsiderate.
As I said, every problem I’ve had has been with owners allowing their dogs to run up to mine because their dogs are poorly trained and not under full control.