Excellent advice. Reposted from my FB page. 

Pack Leader Dog Psychology & Behavior

Pack Leader Press Release: Allowing your dog to excitedly rush into another dog's intimate space on the walk is dangerous and disrespectful.

Even though your dog may be friendly and social, not all dogs are.

So many incidents happen on leash because people allow their dog to just enter another dogs space who they don't know.

If someone is coming towards you like in this picture, it's best to calmly put your dog behind you while you calmly but FIRMLY say something like "EXCUSE ME, can you please give us some space, we are working on training."

Its a moment to provide calm confident leadership and your dog will be watching you claim his space for him from a pushy excited energy.

If the other person is offended, so be it. Thats their response that theyre responsible for. If they are offended by you just asking for space, you didn't want to meet that person anyway.

Also, as a pack, lets never let our dogs go up to other dogs unless we ask the owners from a distance if it's ok.

Remember too, the owner may think its ok but the dog may not so always be assessing and evaluating.

I recommend to my clients to avoid on leash meetings as much as possible. We actually practice asking people for space because in the real world, society hasn't figured out the dangers of letting dogs rush into each others space.

It's a HUGE problem in public but we have to start somewhere. Lets start with our pack setting the right example and being respectful of all dog owners and dogs!