Hi, I am new to the husky forum.
We have a 4 month old named Kaya and she is our first dog.

My question is:
when we walk her, and she meets other dogs in the neighbourhood, she wants to paw them. Often the other dogs are smaller and she can be overwhelming with her long front legs. We try to restrain her and calm her down, but she starts to get a bit hysterical when she can't greet her little friends. At the off-leash dog park, she does not seem to display the same behaviour, just when she is on the leash.
Is this a puppy thing? We want her to be able to be socialized, not ostracized!

From what i was told, and might be wrong, but I was told when a dog puts its paw on another dog, its a dominance thing. Saying basically I am above you. I wonder about that but we shall see what the others say.

imo i think they are just reaching for the other dog. You have them restrained so they are streaching to try to make some kind of contact. since you have their nose they can't streach out there heads to sniff so they try to reach with thier paws to pull the other dog to them. they dont' do it at the dog park b/c they aren't restrained so they can freely walk up to the other dog.

My oldest, Cali, seems to paw alot of the time, and then she sniffs to see if its worth the gamble to mount..lol. Overall its nothing I would worry about

Siberian Husky for dummies book states:

Pawing: A dog who places his paw on the shoulder of another dog is trying to demonstrate his dominance over that dog. He may try the same thing with a person.

I disagree with Kevin - well, sort of. It is one thing to stand and put paws on shoulders and backs, but if they are pawing at faces or the air, it could very well be play.

Huskies aren't dumb. If they can't get to what they want because they're being restrained, they'll use their feet or noses or whatever to reach what they want. I think that is a bit different from purposely placing a paw on the back of another dog. Usually at that point their tail is erect and body is more stiff than a flailing puppy throwing its feet at another dog lol

kaya2012 wrote:

Hi, I am new to the husky forum.
We have a 4 month old named Kaya and she is our first dog.

My question is:
when we walk her, and she meets other dogs in the neighbourhood, she wants to paw them. Often the other dogs are smaller and she can be overwhelming with her long front legs. We try to restrain her and calm her down, but she starts to get a bit hysterical when she can't greet her little friends. At the off-leash dog park, she does not seem to display the same behaviour, just when she is on the leash.
Is this a puppy thing? We want her to be able to be socialized, not ostracized!

I just have to jump in and say my dog's name is Kaya too!

That's all...

Bode paws all the time when he wants something. Whether it be with other dogs or people. I guess I could see it being dominance, but most of the time I feel like it's just him being a puppy.

Thanks everyone for your responses.
She mainly seems to paw at their faces when on the leash and meeting other dogs and yes, it seems to be her way of greeting in her happy, puppy manner.
I think one of the problems I'm having is that there are a LOT of smaller dogs in our area and the owners are getting wary of her when they see her coming. The other problem is that she keeps on and on and on and on with the pawing, she doesn't just do it a little bit and then go for a sniff.
I'm not sure whether to deliberately keep her separated from the other dogs in the neighbourhood until she's a bit older and just stick to the off-leash park.

Personally, I don't like dogs "meeting" on walks. To me, they are a structure bonding time between the two of you. If she's getting really excited, move completely out of the way of the other dog, and give Kaya a command, like sit, and make her focus her attention on you. Using treats may help her attention. Kale used to be the same way when he was little. I would move off the sidewalk, make him sit (and lay down when he got a little older) and made him look me in the eyes. After he realized that he is never going to meet dogs while walking, he ignored them. I use the "on by" command now when he shows any slight interest in acting up while walking.

If its a small dog, walk away. I don't deal with small dogs with mine - because people tend to be really weird about my dogs being near theirs.

My puppy is super friendly and seems to love all dogs equally. However, the same cannot be said for the little dogs we've come across. Even from across the street, they are always in attack mode! They just aren't friendly towards him so we just keep on moving!

Thanks for all the good advice. I think I will make more of a point to walk away when I see the smaller dogs nearby as they (and their owners) definitely seem to have more of an issue.
I like your idea, Hyper 987 about getting to her to sit and keeping her more focussed on me and not the other dogs - will give that a try on the next walk