You call your off-lead dog “friendly” …. I call him “annoying”

Being "friendly" is not the only requirement for off-lead dogs to play.

Hunter has never, ever harmed another dog. He enjoys stopping for a bum-sniff and greeting other dogs. On a handful of occasions he goes into silly, play-bow mode and engages in a little play but mostly, he just plods through life ..... in his Hunter-world .... Doing his Hunter-thing ....

And I really REALLY want it to stay this way.

You do not want ANY dog to attack your dog and you especially do not want a giant, Kangal to attack your dog.
So, allowing your friendly dog to come up to him when you've never, ever met us before is a bit of a gamble on your part, isn't it??

This is not a post about the typical "but my dog is friendly" scenario and where you are asked to call your dog away.

That's not what I mean.

Hunter is walked on a "long line" over the park so it would be easy to assume that he's off-lead .... And so it's fair-game that other owners would allow their friendly dog to approach.
That's all great.
As above, Hunter enjoys greeting new dogs so no problem here.

The issue is that being "friendly" should not be the ONLY criteria you have for allowing your dog to come bounding over to other dogs.
You'll use the word "friendly" or "oh, he's only a puppy, he just learning" or "oh, he LOVES big dogs" or "I'm sorry, he just wants to play with every dog he sees"

And what do you expect Hunter to do in that situation?
Whilst your "friendly" (I prefer the word RUDE!) dog / puppy charges straight into him / jumps up all over him / hangs off his ears / keeps on & on jumping up around his face trying to lick his mouth ..... Would it not be entirely reasonable that Hunter may lose his cool and snap at your dog?
For the record, I never allow these types of greetings. I'll always be Hunters advocate and I'll always move him away from these situations but still .... It would be perfectly reasonable & perfectly acceptable for your "friendly" dog to be attacked if this is how it greets other dogs.
Even the most patient & calm, gentle , friendly dog has it limits and one day, enough will be enough .... One day, maybe Hunter is feeling a bit poorly... One day, maybe Hunter just does not want to be jumped on any more and BOOM ....Just like that ..... Your "friendly" dog has been attacked.

Isn't that true of all of us?
As humans, we don't tend to go around attacking people that greet us. If someone "friendly" greets me with a polite "Good Morning!!" the chances are I'll be polite back to them but if that same person ran straight up to my face, climbed on my back, started slapping me around the face whilst chewing on my ears then I'm fairly certain I'd "attack" this person - wouldn't you?? Even though I've never attacked before ....

THEN .... To make the situation even worse you'll say things like "Well it's OK, he needs another dog to tell him off" or you'll say "It'll do him good to be snapped at, perhaps he won't do that again" or my personal favourite "he's just a puppy so it's good that he got put in his place"

Really??
I mean really??

Should *MY* (friendly & polite) dog have to become SO distressed during his walk that he feels the need to snap at your (overly-friendly & rude) dog? Should MY dog *have* to lose his temper whilst hes just plodding along, minding his own business?
And should MY dog be responsible for training / teaching YOUR dog how to greet politely??
It's not Hunters job to train YOUR dog.
If your "friendly" dog is also rude in its greetings or in its playstyle then it's up to YOU to teach your dog how to behave around other dogs.

Do not push my dog to lose his temper and to do YOUR work for you.

Being "friendly" is not enough.
Your dog also needs to have good social skills .... To greet politely..... To introduce themselves to other dogs calmly ....

Otherwise, your dog needs to stay on the lead.