[Dailydrool] Biting dogs

[dpmcquade at juno.com]

<<"Thank God the dog growls, now I can tell the dog is stressed before they bite and get the dog's stress level back down under that  
threshold to keep it from going there again through management followed by desensitization and counter conditioning."  (Note: Not all dogs growl  before they bite, which is a MUCH bigger problem.)>>

Thank you, Sara, for and excellent and helpful description of why dogs bite.

Like the folks she mentions in the above quote, I am always glad when a hound growls if he's unhappy. I never try to stop a growling dog.

Abner bit me three times because he stopped growling after his back surgery. I don't know if he was just so stressed that he bit before he even thought about it or if someone at the vet's had complained when he growled, so he thought he shouldn't do it.
 
If he had growled before snapping at me, I would have backed off, and no bite would have happened. Fortunately, shortly after his bad experience, as he de-stressed, Abner evidently remembered his manners and decided to give a warning again. We've had no more bites.

So if you have a puppy that growls, don't tell him not to. You want a warning.
Pam, with Drew, food slave to the Dashing Bassets
 

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