Hello First off, I would like to thank this forum for answering 103420 questions on my puppy during the past year. It was been my husky bible, and today, I've finally decided it was 'time' to make an account!

There has been something I've been wondering about and wanted to see others' input on their own experiences so far.
So... I was wondering, Will my husky EVER kind of become "mature" and 'grow out of' trying to say "hello" to every. single. dog she sees?!?
She's only 14 months old, and I get that she's still a " puppy" but every time she sees a dog it's like she MUST go over and say hello!
She has been very socialized since a young age so I don't think it's the fact that she's 'curious' about 'hey what's that?' or anything...
I am thankful for the fact that she is indeed just very friendly and wants to play.. but it can be slightly annoying at a certain times heh.
Sometimes I just wish she had a little more sassy, grown up attitude lol. Yesterday, we went to beach and she does pretty well off leash.
The only issue was that every single dog she sees (even far away), she'll run over, say hi, - and then come back after she's satisfied.

Will my dog grow out of this overtime? Maybe when she gets older and literally has met 19238103 other dogs, she'll finally become like 'meh' ? haha
Has anyone elses dog grow out of this?

Hi there and welcome to the forum

I think your girl is just excited and happy to meet other dogs, which is great, but you need to work with her on how to ignore distractions.

Basically, train her to ignore other dogs, people, and other distractions when they're around so she doesn't try to drag you around every time it comes to meeting one.

You can sit at parks or other dog/people heavy areas and ask her to sit and stay, especially when other dogs come by. When she sits still and quiet, give her a treat and praise. Slowly she can start being less overly excited about meeting other dogs, but she will still be socialized and greet other dogs a little better as well.

My dog can be the same way and I've just stopped letting him meet other dogs if he acts that way and starts trying to pull. I make him sit, stay, and if he does, he gets a treat and sometimes if he does good all the way, he gets to meet the other dog too.

Good luck!

Hey, thanks for your input, Rocio,
Yeah, I mean I am thankful that she's kind of just overly excited rather than being aggresive of course.. That's a relief! But I guess I was wondering if they ever grow out of *naturally over time? I wasn't sure if this was a serious enough issue that would require training, I guess. But a little training never hurt anyone, so I can start on that and see if it improves!
*sigh* I was just hoping she would grow out of it naturally !! aha

Lol, I wish it was that easy! My dog is now 3.5 years old and he still acts that way sometimes!

It's a combination of their nature, as a breed, and the fact that you haven't yet told her not to do this in a way that actually prevents it.

The basic, default personality of this breed is overtly social and friendly, which is part of why they are known for being terrible watch dogs or guard dogs. Similarly, it is often said by Husky owners that they like complete strangers way more than their owners.

Similar story with other dogs. Many Huskies have very assertive, confident, and often cocky personalities that can often trigger other dogs and cause some grumbling and scuffling, so cheers to you that yours doesn't cause these reactions or herself act aggressively.

To both add onto and present an alternative to Rocio, the initial excitement and arousal is a state of mind that she has about either a human or a dog. It is the state of mind--the arousal--that creates the behavior you're looking to reduce or eliminate or fade away. But, even if you do as Rocio advised and ask for some additional, incompatible behavior like a Sit or a Down, you still have not addressed the original state of mind--arousal.

To answer your question, No, that won't just go away.

So your two options to make any progress are one, do as Rocio advised and ask for some additional, incompatible behavior which will create some good deference to you and patience or at least filter out some of that arousal, and/or two, address the arousal head on from the split second it happens in some form of No, disagreement, or correction.

Think of arousal as a row of dominoes or a steady building momentum stream. Once the first domino falls and the momentum builds, the further along that gets, the less chance you have of reeling her back in. You simply can't compete with that arousal once is gets away from you and becomes self-fulfilling. As arousal goes up, your relevance goes down. Dogs make bad choices most often simply because they are too aroused too often.

So, for training against this, the trick is to catch the arousal before the first domino even falls or any momentum builds at all. You can easily stage this. Get on a busy sidewalk and stand still with her in Sit or Down and wait for dogs to approach. You will easily see how much distance needs to be closed for that first domino of momentum to fall and that arousal to build.

This is good time to take stock of how insignificant your command to Sit or stay Down is in relation to that arousal, because she will break that Sit or Down.

Reset again, and wait. This time, when another dog approaches, interupt her somehow the split second she notices a dog. This could be a firm No or a leash pop, ideally with a prong collar, or a touch with your hand or a noise or anything, really, relevant enough to prevent the arousal--the first domino from falling and building momentum.

If you keep missing the mark and the arousal ensues, you know two things: you're too late in preventing the first domino from falling and your interuption / correction is not relevant enough to override the arousal.

Reset. Start over. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

It works. It takes time and consistency and persistence, but it works. Making yourself more relevant than any arousal for a Husky is a MONUMENTAL task and it is very, very difficult, but it can be done.

It is their nature to tune you out and get aroused and want to socialize with everything and everyone, but you don't have to have that dog if you don't want to. You can train her to be more versatile and have some impulse control, it just takes a ton of work.

And to add real quick, your chance of success at training this will be greatly lower off-leash or if she is walking in front of you and doing whatever she wants, as these both already are a state of arousal from the get go before the dog or the human even approaches.

Good luck.

If you don't get the response you want, you're missing your chance.

That is my new motto. Either I'm not giving enough information, or as Jeff said, you're too late.

Also, welcome, and you have a beautiful girl there! She looks a lot like Jeff's (seattlesibe) dog, Link. She has such a cute smile.

She does indeed look like Link

By the way, this :

Maybe when she gets older and literally has met 19238103 other dogs, she'll finally become like 'meh' ? 

Teaching a dog to be "meh" about anything is pretty much how balanced dog trainers stay in business, eh Jen? Meh, takes an incredible amount of work. It's what almost any client is looking for when asked to train a dog NOT to do something. Nobody pays trainers to make dogs more aroused and tuned out, that's for sure.

Arousal is very easy, Meh most certainly is not.

Thank you for your very detailed response, jef - seattlesibe !! The description and comparison to a row of dominos was super helpful.
and also, thank you Jen, wpskier222 Yes, she almost always has that goofy smile on her.

Jef, what you said makes sense because there have been times when, yes, I do catch her on time before she makes her move. It's that 3-5 second stiff frozen husky pose and most of the time she'll snap out of it if I 'disturb' her frozen pose with a loud sound/que. It's worked before, so I guess this
IS the real way to go.

Also, I am sure my frustration to write this post mostly came from the fact that she was off-leash at the beach the other day. Other than that, she's always on a leash so training will be so much easier with her 100% under my control physically..

Oh boy but like you said, it's going to take A LOT of patience and consistency!! On my walks I only spot on average 1 dog every hour... so that's gonna take a lot of trial and error before I see results lol. off-leash dog park is def too high of a jump on distractions for her so def start out small...

We are moving to LA the 1st week of next month (from Virginia) and it's a waay more common to see dogs on the streets so I'll probably get faster results over there!

If I do need more assistance I am open to going to a dog trainer I've been eyeing on who is conveniently located in los angeles. He's a trainer for a co called "The Good Dog"? and seems to specialize in aggressive and leash reactive dogs. From the videos I've seen so far he seems prettty legit!
For now though, I guess I should be teaching her the foundations of snapping out of distractions and whatnot before I know if she REALLY needs professional guidance! I just like how they have everything ready for the specific training where as I kind of need to go out there... and wait for it...

The Good Dog will be the best money you ever spend.

Sean O'shea was my instructor and Jen's mentor ' s instructor.  

Super legit.  Super skilled. Super results.  And most importantly a super human being.  

Sounds like you have your plan and the knowledge to get it done.  And you're asking questions and open to learning.  Well done. You'll be an ideal client.

Since you are alread savvy to the Good Dog methods and Sean's videos, if you want to start working on impulse control now and resiliency to distractions the two most important steps are Heel and Place, and Sean has great videos on both.

Oh wow. What are the odds!! Yes, I randomly came across his page somehow and was instantly hooked on his videos. If he can train those dogs, I am pretty sure there is hope that he is able to train my Luna