Would it be unwise to teach my dog to kiss feet?

[Kopfy]

She is a very licky dog and desperately wants to show affection by licking visitors. Her preference would be to jump up and lick faces. Which is obviously unacceptable . She also licks hands, legs, feet anywhere really. I was thinking I could get her to lick feet as an acceptable greeting? I know it’s not ideal but would divert her attention from jumping and visitors don’t seem to mind this as much. She is out of control with excitement and frantic licking when people come round

No I don’t think that’s acceptable and I have a dog! I don’t want to be licked by my dog or another dog, if you were letting your dog do that to me I’d be annoyed and think you had a poorly trained dog and didn’t care. If she’s out of control then you need to restrict her access to visitors until she can calm down.

Would I need to remove my shoes 😂😂😂

Seriously though, I really wouldn't like it 🤢

That is absolutely vile.

I wouldn’t come to your house if I thought that was going to happen.

It’s usually a sign of anxiety.

There’s some good advice on training greetings on the FB site dog training advice and support. Ours brings people a toy. Or you can train them to settle and go to their bed.

I love dogs but wouldn’t want to be licked by a strange one, especially if I was wearing nice shoes….

I wouldn't be keen on this personally

Yes I think I should know this really. I am just exhausted by it all

And yes do some training where she’s restricted access to visitors till calm. Probably take about a week, you might have to recruit someone to help to pretend to visit. Honestly it’ll make your life easier.

How old is the dog?

8 months

No, licking should be generally be discouraged - especially with visitors.

My own dog licks faces but only mine and DH's - and even then he knows he's not to do it unless asked (we taught him to do it on command only).

As PP have said licking can often be a sign of anxiety as well as excitement - I wouldn't allow her to greet any guests until she was calm.

Maybe I should send her to sit on her bed until calm?

@Kopfy

Maybe I should send her to sit on her bed until calm?

That's a good idea

Sending her away till calm would be a good idea. Plus you also need to consider what would happen if she does this to someone and startles them, your dog could get kicked in the face and the person could get bitten.
You really need to look into training, she's only young so it's the perfect time to fix behaviours before they become harder to train

She only really does this to visitors and we manage them closely. Not with people when out and about

I think you should keep your dog away from visitors. No one wants to be licked anywhere by a dog.

You need to take your dog to a professional for training.

If she is a Husky you are wasting your time!

But the training needs to be done insitue surely. I need to train her to cope with every day life

I don't have any useful training advice but just want to show support and say it's not easy! We had a very stubborn family dog for 11 years, and she was very resistant to training.

Also, I'm probably too soft but I wouldn't mind a nice dog kissing me

Oh thank you jelly bean. I am a bit tearful this morning wondering how I will ever train her with these things. She is clever and will learn little tricks no problem. but it’s when the excitement/instinct takes over. I feel in some ways I should be thankful she wants to show affection. I know that isn’t much of a consolation to visitors who don’t want to be licked

I was kind of thinking if it is only the visitors shoes then that is preferable to hands etc. but I think my plan is to teach visitors to completely ignore her for now til she is calmer. The problem is she gets so excited and you kind of want to get the greeting out of the way so she can settle down. So I suppose this inadvertently rewards the bad behaviour.

My dog is the same Op. very licky. I have a mat that is her “spot” and trained her to go to her spot whenever the doorbell went and wait until she is invited over to say hello. To say hello she has to sit in front of the person and they pet her and then she isn’t interested in them anymore. Takes practise and ask your visitors to bear with you but it works.

I would teach a 'go to you bed command' instead. Train visitors to know they may have to wait for you to open the door and greet them while you sort dog out too. And make sure they ignore her when they come in, and only speak to her when she's calm.
This needs to take priority for now, but so worth it in the long run (says she who learnt the hard way!)

My dog LOVES greeting visitors. During training the dog behaviourist taught us to use a mat as a kind of greeting area.

We started off with one of us leaving the room and coming in with trays which we would hold treats by the mat and point to it then ignore the dog. Once his feet touched the mat he got a treat and a fuss. After a while you can ask friends to call in and do the same until it’s his default reaction to guests.

Thanks maryandgerrylivinginderry this is what I would imagine would be a good plan for our dog. Can you remember did you treat her with food to stay on her mat? I can’t decide if this is complicating matters and the reward should just be to come say hello

Thank you everyone