Greeting behaviour--when things go wrong

[tritonx]

I've been carefully watching Fraser during greetings with other dogs. From time to time he is on the receiving end of warning growls and snaps from other dogs he is greeting and I've been puzzled why things seem to go downhill from what looks to me to be a normal beginning. As far as I can see, the beginning bits are normal--careful approach, no direct eye contact, ear sniffing, taking time with things. It looks as though when he thinks it's okay, he goes for sniffing the groin area and is growled/snapped at. Is he misreading other dogs' signals? Is he going in to sniff an area he doesn't really have clearance for? I only ask because it seems to happen to him fairly often. Even trotting past other dogs on the street, he'll often get an aggressive display from another dog when he's not doing any much other than trotting past on his walkies without paying much attention to them.

[dawn]

Is Fraser entire? Some dogs don't like entire dogs.

Also our dog Henry doesn't like being sniffed in the groin area, the bum he's OK with, but not the groin!

[fenby]

this happened to Harvey an awful lot, it was as though he was giving of a scent, even dogs on the other side of the pavement started growling at him, it was really spoiling our walks  When Harvey was 18 months I had him castrated and the change was amazing, dogs that appeared to hate him were now fine. Not sure if that would work for everybody but it was the best thing I did. 

[tritonx]

Fraser's neutered and four years old. I just can't see why he so often seems to get an aggressive response from other dogs when he's, as far as I can see, being completely inoffensive. Often it's part way into what looks to be a good interaction and then suddenly it's all growl snap and Fraser yelping and beating a quick retreat. Poor fellow. Which is not to say he can't be a bit of a lad toward some dogs hidden safely behind their fences and barking at him. Then it can be dire threats and lunging in their general direction unless I keep him on tight leash. He seems to enjoy shouting the odds across the fence and bounces along afterward with his tail held high as if saying, I showed him.

[Karma]

It's hard to comment without seeing the behaviour of the other dog.
Fraser may be doing everything "right", but if the other dog has low tolerance levels and is giving off signals that they don't want the greeting to go further, they would feel well within their rights to tell him to back-off even if he was being very polite!

Honey will rarely tolerate another dog getting as far as sniffing groin area... she's had some bad experiences and, coupled with a bad back, this makes her shift from happy to greet to "get-the-heck-away" fairly quickly... but she does give plenty of signals along the way! 

Another issue could be anal glands... this can cause other dogs to react more... or another illness?  Honey can't tolerate one dog we meet who has Addisons disease (who really doesn't pay her any attention at all), and I've known of a dog with Epilepsy who attracted a lot of confrontational dog behaviour, especially when he'd recently had a seizure...

[lescef]

Other dogs are on the receiving end from Bramble. She will happily meet another dog, they will sniff then Bramble will growl at them but she  carries on sniffing them! It's a complete mystery to us. Out trainer says she is mixed up but I am unsure what to do about it! We have decided that at 19 months old she doesn't need to say hello to every dog so we are training her to ' leave' them with some success.  At least that way other dogs  who are too friendly towards her can be rightly growled at!

[Chillis]

be hard to say without seeing it
Peps doesn't take to kindly to being butt sniffed 

[QuaCKeReD]

From reading, sniffing of bum is a sign of submission.....not sure on groin area