We tried to teach our LO to be gentle with the dogs and she's not always so if she doesn't listen to gentle we tell her to give the pups a kiss. It's worked well.

It's become that she kisses most little kids we meet. She doesn't usually give adults a kiss unless someone asks for one but with a little kid she'll just throw her arms around them and plant a kiss. She's 15 months old and when I've laughed about it with other moms they say well at least she's not biting or hitting them, guess that's true.