I’ve been working on a dog follower (my first) and have a couple questions.
First off: When I first approach my pooch the dialog to have him follow me is not present. Anytime the main dialog is opened he just starts following me. I’ve been told this is normal, but honestly I’ve never paid attention.
Also, anytime I send him away I can’t open the dialog window back up again. Is it normal for dogs to act like this, or am I doing something wrong, and if so what can I do to fix it?

In my very limited mod creating experience, I always grab an existing mod on nexus that works that does what I want, or close to it, and see the mechanics of how they do things. Then, do that in my mod with in the vision of what I want. I don't reinvent the wheel, I just make it turn differently or for different reasons.

There are also Follower Tutorials, linked in the Pinned Threads that can offer you excellent guidance.

You can also open the CK and look at the DialogueFollower quest. That's the vanilla quest which controls followers (including dogs).

How do you have yours set up. Are you trying to run off the vanilla quest or make your own?

Yeah, I been through the scripts, and everything is correct to the letter. I have spent all day going over them and can't find a single error. I've done creature companions back in the Oblivion days, but this is not the same.

I have done it both ways. I created my own dialogs as well as use default. In both cases the results were the exact same. Also, I used two completely different types of "dogs" from fresh starts. And both were tested on clean saves.