[HartOvara]

Hades thoroughly enjoys a good hugging, the kind where you hold their head tight to your chest and sway their body side to side. As Jazzy said with V, Hades initiates this, he seeks it out, and it would take someone blind to not see that the dog loves it.

Is it conditioned? Most likely, but that doesn't make conditioned enjoyment any less real that actual real enjoyment. Is it "real" enjoyment when a dog gets excited at the jingle of its prong collar? Nope, neither is the enjoyment for dogs that actually really do enjoy hugging.

Hugs are no different than any other "unnatural" behaviour that we condition our dogs to enjoy, usually (always exceptions), a dog that doesn't enjoy hugging either, a) has an owner that has no interest in hugging them, nothing wrong with this or b) has no usable conception of how to appropriately condition responses.

If you don't want your dog to be conditioned to hugging, that's fine.

But if you *can't* condition your dog to enjoy conditioning, as a trainer/owner/handler, your skills are lacking.

Same concept can be applied to a number of behaviours that involve conditioning. Doesn't mean that you have to do it with your dog, but if you can't, that's where the problem would therein lie.

Roxy could and may have done some serious damage to a stranger that hugged her, possibly serious disfigurement. No, I would not put her down for it. If she bit me, I still also wouldn't put her down, because it would have been my fault for lack of training, lack of desensitization and I missed signals of hers.

It's not acceptable by any means, but IMHO, when things like this happen, it's usually handler/owner error, as with many issues like this. PTS sure for the safety of people around it, but for anyone reading who hasn't experienced this yet, avoid this and prevent it by training, increasing thresholds and knowing your dog.