Seriously...

Seriously, my dog DOES like you. Thats why she puts her ears back, wags her tail and skips over to you when you look at her.

But she does not like being grabbed on either side of the face and being roughed up. She does not like huge hands coming down over her head and just because you stuck your hand out for .02 of a second for her to sniff doesn't mean she trusts you now, she doesn't know you, why should she?

A simple scratch under the chin would suffice, it'd make you her favourite person.
Also... her backing away means she doesn't love it, not that doing it again will make her want to play.

I don't know what it is that makes people need to grab her head, people rarely talk to Buster because he's a cattle dog and I'm not used to having a dog people actually want to interact with. Time for myself to get a bit more assertive me thinks.

Totally uderstand. It always seemed no one wanted to touch Lizzie. But Blaze? It's like "ohhhh, touchy touchy"

Ugh. I so know the feeling.

A couple of weeks after Emma's head injury, we went out to lunch. The waitress comes running up and tries to pet Emma's head... I said:

"Please don't pet her head. She has a head injury!"

The waitress ran off, and looked sooo embarrassed. This is why you ASK before petting a dog. You don't need to cram your hands all over my dogs! UGH.

Riley hates being patted on top of the head and will duck away if someone tries. I've had pretty good luck with people asking before they pet him but they stop listening when I tell them to scratch his chin and not pat his head. When he ducks, I get, 'Oh, he's not very friendly, is he?'