tail held out<\/a> at medium height behind him, with a wide sweeping wag. When the dog sniffs your body, he is gathering information about you, not necessarily inviting you to pet him. If he backs away or acts leery or jumpy, don\u2019t pet him. If he exhibits a loose, wiggly body posture with relaxed eyes and mouth as he moves toward you or if he initiates brief eye contact, he is most likely indicating friendliness and a desire for interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOnce the approach has been made, pet the dog slowly in areas where he is comfortable being touched. A dog who enjoys petting will usually lean toward you or actively seek contact with you when you stop petting him. If the dog attempts to move away or displays signs of discomfort, such as licking his lips or showing the whites of his eyes, give him some space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Best Spots to Pet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Most dogs are comfortable being petted on the chest, the shoulders and the base of the neck. When petting these areas, reach in from the side, rather than moving your hand over the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The way you pet a dog can make you his favorite person \u2014 or the human he\u2019s always trying to avoid. Certain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/site2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}