Dog Sense Behaviour Consulting Ltd
10 Richards Crescent T4P3A7 Red Deer, AB, Canada

Pure happiness #nofilterneeded #happypuppy #oldman #dogsense #dogsofinstagram #staffielove

Use the treats!!!

Saturday's Pet Peeve: Using the sniff test to test friendliness in unfamiliar dogs. Recently, a father blogged about an incident in which his 10 year old son... was bitten on the face by a stranger’s dog. He and his son were hiking on a trail when they encountered another hiker with a leashed dog. Oliver asked to pet the dog and the owner suggested the sniff test. The dog licked his hand, so he petted the dog and it lunged, lacerating Oliver’s eyebrow. Any dog who isn’t doing a slobbery, uncoordinated, full-body wag-dance when encountering a stranger might be ambivalent, socially reserved, worried or anxious. Actually, to be safest, let’s include the slobbery wag-dancers, too. Why? 1. Dogs do not necessarily want to be touched by strangers, anymore than children (or we) want to be touched by strangers. 2. Inviting a dog to sniff your hand by standing still, staring and reaching towards her might be perceived as a threat, towards which the dog might respond by avoiding your hand, or biting you. If that perception is a possibility, why take a chance? 3. Aggression can be silent and stiff which looks a lot like calm and bites happen very fast. In the blink of an eye, a person is injured, and a dog is in serious trouble, for which he didn’t ask. Dogs do choose to sniff people, dogs and things, as a way of exploration and identification. But sniffing is NOT an invitation to be stroked and patted. Somehow we have to rewrite the etiquette of interacting with unfamiliar dogs so that they aren’t put into a terrible position of being trapped on leash and forced to defend themselves. This alone would go far in reducing dog bites. On a hiking trail or sidewalk, it’s nice to smile at other people and comment on their dogs and children. You might even want to stop for a moment and have a conversation about how clever and good-looking they are. Then you and they can move on, all of you feeling enriched by the encounter, but also safe. #vetbehavior #vetbehaviordogs #dogbitesafety

I know there are a plethora of articles about separation anxiety in the post-quarantine Covid world, but this one includes words of wisdom from my peerless mentor in behavioral medicine, Dr. Katherine Houpt.

Tuesday's Pearl*: In the dog lexicon, a face lick is not necessarily a kiss. At a recent family gathering (before Covid-19), the host's very cute 40 lb very-mi...xed neutered male dog, Gomer, joined everyone on the family room couch and vigorously licked the face of an adult guest. While licking he wiggled and climbed frenetically onto her as other family members smiled and looked on. At one point, when she had had enough, she moved him back using her arm, and he growled. The crossover from licking/wiggling to growling seemed surprising, but was it really unexpected? No - because, for Gomer, both were manifestations of anxiety and stress. Why do dogs lick? Developmentally, puppies lick the faces of adult social group members to signal submissiveness in order to solicit caregiving (and food regurgitation). Our own dogs may lick our faces because they’ve learned that it delights us (okay, SOME of us) and the licking is happily reinforced, leading to more licking and more delight...for some of us (*waves*). But keep in mind that licking might also be one of the many ways that dogs "displace," or indirectly express, discomfort, anxiety or ambivalence. Rather than showing 'love', Gomer was exhibiting stress. There were 26 visitors milling, talking, hugging, eating and drinking in his house. He had already greeted and played and carried balls to anyone willing to give them a toss. The couch presented his first opportunity to climb onto and reach a face, and his exuberance was over the top. At that point he should have been redirected with a toy (which, to him, trumps food), lured off the couch without hands (to avoid defensive behavior), and led upstairs to his safe haven. Instead, his frantic behavior escalated so that when he was physically obstructed, growling was immediate. All he had to do was step over the line in his amygdala. (This is also, by the way, the context that triggers "humping" of guests.) Gentle redirection without pushing would have been very helpful. Don't assume that frantic licking and jumping indicate love; even with friendly dogs, they might mean just the opposite. #vetbehavior #vetbehaviordogs *Modified from a previous Pearl.