Question to smart dog owners

[Miss*Bijou]

The part of "the puppy did nothing wrong", I meant it since he doesn't understand it yet. It is a natural behaviour, and the puppy doesn't know better, and thus it's up to the owner to teach it properly. In anycase, the other person is still pretty stupid to try to take away the dog's bone.

Well I'm not sure why it's necessarily stupid for a person to have tried to take away the dog;s bone. There are many logical and justified reasons why a family member may need to or simply decide to take away a dog's bone, and there is no excuse for the dog's reaction to be as aggressive as biting, and biting hard at that. Period.

But regardless, I think that is besides the point. The fact that it may or may not be stupid thing to do, doesn't change the fact that a dog should never ever react that aggressively in the first place anyway.

With everybody and everything, we all have limits and boundaries, and the puppy's boundaries were intruded upon. Dogs should be disciplined and gentle, but it doesn't mean you should be tempting fate by pestering and annoying them.

I agree with you that no one should be tempting fate by pestering and annoying them (which, however, I don't agree was the case at all in the example here. Food guarding is a behavioral problem, not an issue of having boundaries intruded upon), BUT the bottom line and most important thing is that, realistically, these things may and probably will happen. You can't always control that, or the way others may behave with your dog BUT you need to be very confidant of how your dog can handle these situations. And no matter how annoying it may be for the dog to have its bone taken away, the resulting reaction to bite and become aggressive, is what matters.


You can't view any dog as a helpless baby at the mercy of other's attempts to do things he simply doesn't like. If you do, you could end up with a dangerous adult and very strong dog. Kids can do far more annoying things than taking a toy or bone away.

In conclusion, dogs should be trained, be well-behave... yadda yadda yadda.... but lets not label everything as them being "aggressive" or them being "bad".... they're just behaving naturally and we as humans are just conforming them to our ideals.

lol A dog that guards and bites hard enough to draw blood, in my book, has some important aggressive behavior issues. I'm not sure how there is any other way of calling it...?

Dogs are living among humans and can easily learn to behave in a way that is acceptable. Yes, they have instincts. But considering a puppy's aggressive behavior as just natural behavior, is forgetting that puppy's just like human babies, need to be taught what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

I think the positive thing, is that at 3 months old, it's still possible to work on those issues and have a chance at resolving them than if the dog was already an adult and displaying those behaviors.

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Honestly, I was in a situation (with my dog) a few months ago, that was incredibly frustrating, upsetting but made me really realize how much more responsibility lies on dog owners over their dogs response - in comparison to actions that triggered the behavior in the first place.

Most if not all of the time, the person, adult or child, parents or guardian, intelligent or dangerously dumb - is never really held responsible for their part (and utter stupidity) in the outcome. Just the dog and his reaction. And of course, you, the owner. Just like it's so painfully common practice to abide to a set of rules without ever being critical of how different any given scenario may be from the original one which a 'rule' may have based on and fully applied to. No one stops to think a little further, assess and debate how some differences in both scenarios might very well call for some adjustment to this 'rule'.

But in our society, that is far too much to expect from much of the population which strangely frames ideas, rules as well as their own judgments in neat, and rigidly framed boxes. And that is the extent of it, there is absolutely nothing possible outside of these boxes, and not much thought wasted on the non-sense delusion that there might be.


Sorry if this is another long post but I admit I am flawed in that I am completely unable to relate stories in a short-and-sweet kinda way. I won't re-write it again so I'll just copy the email I sent a friend (who is a dog trainer, was actually my dog's trainer way back when and with whom I became friends. Well, he fell in love with my dog so I guess he pretty much had to be friends with me to spend time with her. lol)

We did have an incident the day we flew out from Vancouver, but I do not blame it on her one bit, I blame it on the parents/kids ignorance and the parents not doing their job by letting their kid act like a retarded monkey and letting him run around without watching him! I was watching MY kid, She WAS behaving perfectly, someone who was in line with me commented on this about 10 seconds before that snotty brat decided he was suddenly going to RUN towards Lola, who was sitting nicely and obediently with her leash tied (she wasn't loose or anything).

Well, added to the fact that when we first arrive, as I was leaving Lola (about 5 metres from where I had to wait in line for food), that stupid kid started screaming, faking being scared as though it was funny (really, that kid and his parents were total losers and HE should have been crated in public - but anyway Well when on top of it, he decided to RUN towards her out of nowhere once they were closer to her and his parents were busy deciding what kind of donut to feed their monster and not paying attention to their freak offspring.

OF COURSE she barked! Not repeatedly, not growling, not going after him, she just stood up quickly and barked. ONCE.

Well, to be very honest, I wasn't mad at her one bit, and thought GOOD maybe that kid has learned not to do that without actually getting BITTEN by a dog, maybe his parents have learned to pay attention to the little monster, maybe teach him the PROPER way to approach a dog... or NOT to approach a strange dog who's owner isn't around..


But apparently the equally moronic 'security guard', who ONLY saw the last seconds of this, comes over and starts giving me shit, and telling me I need to take Lola out of the building! Anyway I told him I was flying somewhere and then I think he realized that he HAD seen me and Lola before this. Why? Because we'd been stuck there all day (long story) and she had been a little mascot superstar the whole day... with the airline employees, countless people and their KIDS petting her.. I was constantly told HOW GOOD she was, so I knew in my heart that she'd done nothing wrong and in fact, had she not been such a good dog, that kid's antics could have turned far worse than 1 wArning bark.


But people are stupid. They truly and honestly ARE stupid. Anyway, when I saw in his face that he had just realized she WASN'T a bad dog or a threat, he told me to take her now (I wanted to take her out for a pee before going on the plane) but that she needed to be in the crate as soon as I brought her back in the airport (whatever, asshole). As I left, I told him it was quite unfortunate that he was not telling those parents to WATCH their kid.. and I walked away. Then Lola saw a family with a little girl walking by us and out of nowhere, for no reason, barked at the little girl. I was so sad..


This is how it happens... 1 stupid kid with equally dumb parents, and then she's back to being defensive and fearful of kids? As I walked out of the airport and took her for a last pee, I couldn't stop crying. I think mostly out of frustration. But I thought it was so unfair, and such a simple unintelligent way for the 'security guard' to see and deal with the situation. It was that kids fault. Lola was good, before this and the whole day.. she was better than just good, and great with all the other kids. Until that little freak moron. Honestly, no one even cared to look at the way he'd behaved and that another dog may have attacked or bit him. Nope. Lola's fault because she barked at an out-of-control kid who suddenly started RUNNING towards her.

I tell ya. Argh.

His wise response:

People ARE stupid, so no surprise there.
The surprise is that you still believe in them. Well, good for you, you are an optimist.

Lola was right, the parents and the little shithead were wrong. So was the Security Guard, but; If the Security Guard didn't do his job and Lola for whatever reason hurt the fucking kid, guess who's ass would have been fried? Not to mention the airline's ass. So, lesson to be learned; "when in Rome, do as the Roman's do..." = the Sec. Guard was doing his job, taking no sides. The kid unfortunately couldn't be crated, so the next best thing to prevent ANY problems; Lola is in the doghouse. But I am very proud of you that you didn't blame it on her. If I was her, I'd fucking have chewed the little fucker into pieces!. But that's me. I'm not as nice as Lola.


Love and hugs to both of you.
Tini says, don't worry about people too much, though they won't change they are god to laugh at ;-)

xoxo

And that's life. Everyone will always be far more critical of the way your dog may react - regardless of what the dog might have been reacting TO. Sad but true.



See my point now?

 

[Miss*Bijou]

Everything and Anything a dog touches is YOURS and has to be surrendered on command. You need to be able to touch his food, take away his bones or hold onto his favourite toy. Period end of story. I'm very anal about this because I have a 110lb Dobie and we had to come to a understanding on this from day one. I've never gone anywhere and not been complimented on his behaviour.

Holy crap! I almost fell off my chair. I never thought I'd see the day.. but I am actually writing the words: I completely agree with you.

I will Also add that training a dog to listen when you call him back... and have him actually come back then and there - whatever he/she's doing should be another priority. And in big part, for your dogs own safety as much as anything else. It drives me totally bonkers when I'm watching one of my friends dog's, as she is poorly trained, and will totally ignore requests to come back and just go on doing whatever she wants.

If I call my dog back, it doesn't take a second or third time for her to acknowledge and decide whether she wants to come back or not.. it's instant: head perks up and she just comes. When I see people who's dogs blatantly ignore their commands and these people just keep repeating and not doing anything about it, I cringe. They heard you the first time, trust me. The issue is not that they can't hear you. LOL

lol



(OK I'm done now )

 

[Dharper]

"In the case of them growling, nipping or biting, I immediately place them into the submissive position and keep them there until they relax. Once I am comfortable that they have calmed down and understand that their behaviour is unacceptable I allow them to continue with what we were doing.

This is about establishing your position as dominant and having them accept their position as subserviant to humans.

I cannot agree with anyone who says that it is okay for a dog to be possessive. If your dog behaves like this you will never be able to allow it to play with a child so you need to correct the behavior quickly." Trevor 2136

I agree with Trevor. I have an 11 year old German Shepherd, trained that way, and when he is eating, I can pet him, put my hand in his bowl, and he doesn't care.

 

[HeMadeMeDoIt]

Holy crap! I almost fell off my chair. I never thought I'd see the day.. but I am actually writing the words: I completely agree with you.

I will Also add that training a dog to listen when you call him back... and have him actually come back then and there - whatever he/she's doing should be another priority. And in big part, for your dogs own safety as much as anything else. It drives me totally bonkers when I'm watching one of my friends dog's, as she is poorly trained, and will totally ignore requests to come back and just go on doing whatever she wants.

)

Holy Shit! I might actually be wrong for a change....maybe I do know nothing about dogs and my dog came genetically predisposed to obeying my every command without hesitation. Thats a lot easier to believe than that we have something to agree about