How to teach a dog to greet people calmly

What “calm greetings” actually means

In Proof this is a skill in its own right, because a dog that greets people calmly gets to meet more people — excitement costs freedom.

Teach four on the floor first — it is what this one is built on.

The stages

These steps are a draft pending review by a credentialed trainer. They describe standard positive-reinforcement marker training; the app carries the same notice on every session screen.

1. Stage 1 — Approach on a slack leash

   Goal: Dog reaches a calm helper only while the leash stays loose

   1. Helper stands still, boring. Walk toward them; the moment the leash tightens, stop and step back.
   2. Slack leash resumes the approach. The person is the reward — pulling makes them further away.
   3. When you arrive, the helper greets low and calm, and pays four-on-the-floor.

   If it goes wrong

   • Dog cannot function within ten metres of the person? Start at eleven. The dog sets the starting line, you move it.
   • Helper cannot resist squealing at the puppy? Recruit a better actor. One over-the-top greeting undoes ten reps.

2. Stage 2 — Strangers and doorways

   Goal: Polite first contact with new people, at home and out

   1. Rehearse the doorbell routine with planted friends before real guests test it.
   2. Give the dog a job during arrivals — go to mat, or a scatter of treats — so the door stops being a launch pad.
   3. Tell people what to do. "Ignore her until she sits" trains humans, which is most of this skill.

   If it goes wrong

   • Fine with adults, loses it around children? Children move and sound like prey-toys. Distance plus paid calm watching, and never let a child be the training partner until the adult version is boring.

How long does it take?

Most foundation skills reach their bar in two to four weeks of short daily sessions. Adolescence can temporarily un-stick anything, which is normal.

Proof does not put a timeline on an individual skill, and neither should anything else — the honest answer depends on the dog in front of you, how often you practise, and where you practise. What it does instead is measure: every session records how many reps landed, so progress is a number rather than a feeling.

Proving it in 3 different places

A behaviour that only works in the kitchen is situational, not trained. Calm greetings counts as proven in Proof once it clears the bar above at the top stage in 3 genuinely different contexts:

• Indoors — the quiet room where everything works
• Garden — outdoors, but home turf
• Street — pavements, traffic, passing people
• Park — other dogs, long grass, real distraction
• Somewhere new — a place the dog has never worked before

Proof also expires. Leave a proven skill for two months without asking for it and it returns to the daily plan as a refresher, because that is what actually happens to trained behaviour.