And what are your most useful tips to make sure they will be friendly with other dogs?
Someone I knew has a dog that runs around the block and comes back by themselves, and will not listen to the owner calling them back. I do not want that.
I’ve been to a country where I saw no dogs on leashes. Some dogs following owners lazily and slowly riding their motorcycles when the human didn’t feel like walking, but had to walk their dogs anyways. I want whatever assertive and respectful communication these owners and dogs have.
Train it to come to you when you call no matter what else it is doing, train this HARD, and do it while you take walks. Just do it randomly during the walk. Basic training of calling its name and giving it a treat when it comes is the first step and you just escalate from there.
Thats how I did it with my nom’s dog. And we dont need the leash now. We still use it whenever we are anywhere near a road or cars for safety, but she’ll come back even if theres a cool critter, another dog or a new smell and I say her name, so when she’s on trails or in the forest she’s leashless. If you remember to call her every time she gets a bit too far and enforce the discipline she’ll naturally keep the correct distance, and won’t wander off.
But it took daily training on basically just stopping whatever she’s doing when told and to come when called. And unless those two things are reflexive I wouldnt go without a leash. During training if at any point she failed to do it when it was casually reinforced I would take her outside and make a training session out of it, and we did it for a month, and since then it still needs to be reinforced. Its not actually that hard.
Man I miss that dog.