it is not that i refuse to allow my dog to be excited to see others, or that i refuse to allow others to greet him... i just want him to be able to settle down enough to where it is not overwhelming to him or the human that is greeting him... that is all. i never tell people they cannot pet my dog... i love the fact that my lab is excitable and that he loves to see people... all i am trying to do is teach him that more people will want to show him affection, if he would not give them a bath every time they touch him. does that make sense?
But sometimes you should tell people they cannot pet your dog!--when it's going to over-excite or over-stress him.
Nettle was pointing out the imbalance in the relationship between people and dogs--we expect dogs to be delighted to be touched and petted by everyone we choose to introduce to them, but we also expect the dog to not "touch back" in a way that's natural for dogs. And we know that not every person likes dogs, but we expect every dog to like every person.
The licking may be appeasement behavior--these people worry him and he's trying to make sure they know he's harmless and not challenging them. If that's the case, he needs you to tell them, "Don't pet my dog." He needs you to protect him.
Or he may be delighted and excited with all the attention--and not know an acceptable way to invite and accept it. You need to teach him a behavior he can do that gets rewarded by people petting and praising him.
With Addy when I first got her, it was a combination of both: she really wanted attention from people, but it also scared the pants off her. Along with a lot of desensitization and being willing to be
very aggressive when necessary about making people
ignore the dog so that she could take her own time to check them out and decide to come forward or not, what really helped her was teaching her two commands that gave her something to do to get and accept attention: Sit, and Dance. "Dance" lets my little dog get up on her hind legs to get a better look,
without putting her front feet on anyone. So, okay, Dance is not such a great choice for a Lab.
But you might teach Bow or something similar.
Let go of the idea that it's rude to tell people not to pet your dog. Figure out whether your dog is happy-excited to see people, or stressed and nervous. Then work on teaching behaviors that give you and him more control of the interaction, and gives him an appropriate way to behave, to substitute for his current inappropriately excesssive lickig.
Lis
I just wish there was a way to get her to control this without hurting her feelings. 
