Does your dog greet you politely when you return home? Watch the video to see if Zooka greets me politely. . .

We love how excited our dogs are when we return home. Who else in our lives is THAT excited for us to return home?

Greetings can be problematic though, if the greeting is out-of-control. Jumping, barking, nipping, and other perfectly natural dog behaviors can become a huge problem if you are getting scratched up or even knocked over when you come in the door.

I want my dogs to be excited and happy to see me without being over-the-top out-of-control.

Zooka does a nice job of that now. He's three years old in this video. He was not nearly as polite when he was younger!

The video actually starts before I get to the door. You can see how calm Zooka is before he sees me out the window.

When he does see me, he gets excited but not overly so. You might notice one of the first things he does is find a toy. He normally likes to have something in his mouth when he greets and gets excited. It's a great way to make sure that his mouth is doing something appropriate and not biting or nipping at someone when they enter the house.

You will also notice that we have an ex-pen set up around our front door. This is a safety measure for our boarding dogs so that no one can easily slip out the door unexpectedly. Our dogs do not rush out the door, but we always keep it in place to make sure we keep up good habits when boarding dogs are with us.

The ex-pen also allows me to get in the door without being bombarded if I do have dogs who do NOT greet politely. Or if there are multiple dogs greeting me at the door. This gives all the dogs a chance to see me but calm down just a bit before they can actually make physical contact with me.

When I do enter, Zooka is very wiggly and happy but not jumping. He does jump up once during this greeting, but he's not all over me and too wild and he calms himself back down quickly.

Although you do not hear it in this greeting, he often greets me with lots of growling. This is his happy growl, and nothing that indicates any aggression or discomfort on his part. I actually love his greeting growl!

How do your dogs greet when you come home?