biting dog

**diddy** · February 28th 07, 10:51 AM posted to rec.pets.dogs.behavior

in thread :
(Lacustral) whittled the following words:

One of my neighbors, who is kind of a friend, has a dog that bites.
We'd gone dog-walking a good deal. His dog is this irritable, surly
creature, who snaps a lot. One time my neighbor recoiled, and said,
shocked, "He snapped at _me_! But he didn't say anything to the dog,
other than very mildly telling him No.
I emailed him later, told him that a snap is the dog warning that he
might bite and the dog needs to find out very definitely that either
snapping or biting is not OK!
Then a few months later, he told me that the dog had bitten his wife
on the thumb. They went to the emergency room, she had a cast on her
hand for several weeks, so it was a pretty bad bite.
The trouble is, he has this all rationalized. My neighbor said his
wife petted the dog while he was asleep and he must have been startled
and bit instinctively, without control over his actions. And that the
dog was very apologetic after he bit her, and he believes it was an
accident and it won't happen again.
Dogs do try to "make it up" after biting, I've read. It's part of
"healing the pack" - being apologetic to the pack member who was
bitten. But it in no way means the dog won't do it again.
I told him that he needed to talk to a dog trainer or a behaviorist;
that he probably needs to establish dominance over the dog, that
biting is a problem which worsens over time, that biting dogs tend to
bite children, on the face. He has about a 6-9 year old granddaughter
who visits a lot. I told him that training a dog is important to
establish dominance, like putting the dog in a sit or down before
doing something the dog wants you to do, like feed it. Apparently
the dog doesn't know commands.
But everything I've said has fallen on deaf ears. It annoyed him when
I talked about taking the dog to a trainer. I think he derives
gratification from having a dog that's "strong", i.e. mean and
unfriendly - he enjoyed it when his dog was snapping at my puppy, said
things like "He'll show her who's boss".
He seems really typical of people who get bitten by their dogs. I've
read things about biting dogs, and elderly couples who treat their
dogs like children and don't discipline them, are typical.
Thing is, with me it would never get to the point of biting, it would
never get to the point of snapping, because my whole relationship with
my dog doesn't include her snapping at me. If she ever did snap at me
- I would be very startled - but you can bet she would know not to do
it again, one way or another!
So often when there's some bad situation, you find after digging a
little that it suits the person involved. But maybe if I poke a hole
in his rationalizations ....
Supposing I wanted to shoot down the idea, which seems pretty silly to
me, that a dog that's sleeping and is woken up, is acting
instinctively and doesn't have any control over their actions? Any
references, web sites, anything I could show him?
It's quite common that dogs are startled or accidentally hurt by
people, and I'm sure that what they do when they're startled is a
matter of training - telling the dog it's not the dominant one,
teaching bite inhibition, teaching them not to bite. But he doesn't
believe it, he hasn't seemed to believe I might know at all what I'm
talking about. It's a pretty bad situation. I sure wouldn't want to
live with a dog that might sink his teeth into me at any minute. His
basic idea of what to do about it, was to be "very careful". I
suppose they are kind of tiptoeing around the dog, being extra sure
not to startle him. A dog can do a lot of damage with his teeth, and
he could seriously hurt somebody, including his granddaughter.

Laura

You have my sympathies, but if the owner doesn't want to accept
responsibility, I can't see how you can make anything happen. Already the
dog "should" be on the county's vicious dog list

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