Mum's dog bit my LO

Nicki

catkins wrote: »

Silly statement to make. The vast majority of dogs NEVER bite anyone but not because they have been trained not to.

So what do you propose should happen to these poor traumatised dogs who are biting due to previous bad experiences with children? Not train them and let them continue biting and snapping? That sounds more of a ridiculous stance than mine!

yorkshire_terrier_owner

catkins wrote: »

Silly statement to make. The vast majority of dogs NEVER bite anyone but not because they have been trained not to.

Agree. My dogs have never bitten anyone because they have been socialised and trained from an early age, but have also never been given the opportunity. They will, however, bark at strangers who come into my home - but I know that they are alerting me to the presence of someone strange, not being aggressive. I have a command that 'releases' them and they understand that it is ok for that person to be there. This behaviour is totally normal for dogs, but I'm sure some would see it as worrying. As I said, it's about understanding canine psychology.

yorkshire_terrier_owner

Nicki wrote: »

So what do you propose should happen to these poor traumatised dogs who are biting due to previous bad experiences with children? Not train them and let them continue biting and snapping? That sounds more of a ridiculous stance than mine!

Rehabilitation. Not so much as training them not to attack, more treating the cause of the original problem.

Person_one

Nicki wrote: »

So what do you propose should happen to these poor traumatised dogs who are biting due to previous bad experiences with children? Not train them and let them continue biting and snapping? That sounds more of a ridiculous stance than mine!

Who suggested that?

Personally, and its a bit controversial, I think some people emphasise the 'past trauma' thing a bit too much. Dogs don't really have memories as we understand them, they have learned reactions and behaviours based on what's happened to them and what previous consequences have been.

Training, socialisation, and appropriate supervision are what helps most rescue dogs with problems become calm happy family dogs. Funnily enough, that's what helps young children learn how to behave around dogs and have good relationships with them too.

Kim_kim

Nicki wrote: »

So what do you propose should happen to these poor traumatised dogs who are biting due to previous bad experiences with children? Not train them and let them continue biting and snapping? That sounds more of a ridiculous stance than mine!

Being as their are loads of dogs needing homes, I guess if we euthanised those who bit or attacked humans then the "good" ones would have more chance of getting a home.

yorkshire_terrier_owner

Person_one wrote: »

Who suggested that?

Personally, and its a bit controversial, I think some people emphasise the 'past trauma' thing a bit too much. Dogs don't really have memories as we understand them, they have learned reactions and behaviours based on what's happened to them and what previous consequences have been.

Training, socialisation, and appropriate supervision are what helps most rescue dogs with problems become calm happy family dogs. Funnily enough, that's what helps young children learn how to behave around dogs and have good relationships with them too.

Agree. Dog has been attacked/traumatised by a child at some point in the past. What has it learnt? Child = I am in danger. Reaction = I must protect myself before it causes me pain. Training would come in the form of adjusting the dogs learned reaction to child = something nice happens to me. In this particular case, the dog's previously learnt behaviour has been extended to child = I am shut away from my pack and I am lonely, child must be bad, so I must attack and protect my pack.

MrsAtobe

krlyr wrote: »

Dogs are not pack animals - the assumption was made based on some wrongly interpreted studies on wolves in an unnatural environment.
Dogs are not giving off signals to get 'one over' on people - they are often appeasement signals. It's like human body language - if you're scared, you may lean away from whatever is scaring you. You may cross your arms when you're feeling uncomfortable with someone, you may keep looking around the room when you're feeling nervous, etc. - your body language reflects your feelings, and usually is there to give a physical 'warning' to other people of how you're feeling.

This is the same with dogs - they may lick their lips, look away, yawn, shake, sniff the ground, etc. all as signals of being uncomfortable. If those signals are not noticed, it can progress to stiff body language, a tight mouth, and then on to a warning growl, an air snap, and obviously a more serious warning of a nip or a bite without breaking the skin.

Listening to those warnings teaches the dog that they work. If the earlier warning signs are noticed, the dog does not need to progress further. You're not "caving in" to a dog, you're recognising that it feels scared or uncomfortable, and removing the cause of that (or removing the dog from the situation) before the dog goes over threshold towards biting.

And this is why you should never ever tell a dog off for growling or air snapping, BTW, it means that they learn to skip that step (because they get told off) and go straight to the biting stage.

yorkshire_terrier_owner

Kim_kim wrote: »

Being as their are loads of dogs needing homes, I guess if we euthanised those who bit or attacked humans then the "good" ones would have more chance of getting a home.

I volunteer at a rescue centre and often work with the dogs that have issues. If it isn't bite history, it's that they escape, are too boisterous, have an illness, need too much exercise, bark too much, are too shy, I could go on and on.

I kid you not, while I was there last week, a woman returned a dog she had rehomed 2 weeks before because it jumped over the gate. Rather than dealing with what to me is a minor problem, she just returned it. And that was after she had returned another dog before that for some equally minor problem.

Even the 'good' ones are difficult to rehome. I have been there when staff at the centre have made the difficult decision to put a dog to sleep and it's heartbreaking. I come home from the centre sometimes and just cry.

TopQuark

Kim_kim wrote: »

Being as their are loads of dogs needing homes, I guess if we euthanised those who bit or attacked humans then the "good" ones would have more chance of getting a home.

Perhaps we should do the same with problem kids needing homes too? Get rid and give the good ones a fighting chance.

And perhaps, instead of putting animals down, maybe we should be putting more kids into care, if their parents evidently cannot keep them out of harms way and protect them from being bitten?

Ridiculous.

Seriously, some people posting have clearly got less intelligence than the average dog!

Kim_kim

TopQuark wrote: »

Perhaps we should do the same with problem kids needing homes too? Get rid and give the good ones a fighting chance.

And perhaps, instead of putting animals down, maybe we should be putting more kids into care, if their parents evidently cannot keep them out of harms way and protect them from being bitten?

Ridiculous.

Seriously, some people posting have clearly got less intelligence than the average dog!

I don't know how the numbers stack up but if euthanising every dog that bites meant that half the mild mannered dogs currently sitting in cages dogs homes would get a family home, could that be such a bad idea?


Btw - I would never compare a dog to a child, I think your intelligence is more questionable.