The dog attacks we don’t hear about – we hear a lot about dog attacks. They make headlines, particularly when a person is badly injured. We hear discussions about dangerous dogs, irresponsible owners, certain breeds, muzzles, licences and what should be done to keep people safe.
But there is another kind of dog attack happening every day that rarely makes the news. The attacks on dogs themselves. In homes up and down the country, dogs are shouted at, grabbed, smacked, kicked, pushed, frightened and punished for getting things wrong. Sometimes the person knows exactly what they are doing and sometimes, they don’t. They may describe themselves as a dog lover. They may genuinely believe they love their dog. They may simply have grown up believing that this is how you discipline an animal.
On occasion the person responsible is someone we have trusted with our dog. A walker, groomer, sitter, trainer or another person working professionally with animals. Unless they communicate it to someone like me, most dogs remain voiceless as to what has or is happening, I think that is part of the problem.
We expect dogs to understand our world
Dogs arrive in our homes and are immediately expected to know a whole list of human rules.
- Don’t wee there.
- Don’t bark at that.
- Don’t chew this.
- Don’t jump up.
- Don’t steal food.
- Don’t pull on the lead.
- Don’t growl.
- Don’t chase.
- Don’t get overexcited when someone comes to the door.
- Don’t be frightened of the vacuum cleaner, fireworks, strangers, children, the vet or the strange dog charging towards you in the park.
The list goes on. However, people are often unable to explain these rules to a dog in a way that it can understand. We speak a different language and have a different ‘operating system’. Dogs are not furry little humans. They don’t naturally understand our customs, our homes or our ideas about good manners. Much of what we expect from them has to be patiently taught.
Yet we can be terribly unforgiving when they get it wrong.
- A dog takes food from the worktop and somebody smacks him.
- A puppy wees on the carpet and somebody shouts at her.
- A frightened dog growls and is punished for warning that he is uncomfortable.
- A dog refuses to move, perhaps because he is scared or in pain, and somebody drags him.
We often look at the behaviour without asking what caused it.
A growl is communication
One of the things that particularly concerns me is the way we respond to growling.
A growl is not bad behaviour. There is no such thing as bad behaviour in ‘dog land’. The way a dog thinks are: Is it safe or dangerous? Is it rewarding / not rewarding. A growl is…..
- Communication.
- The dog is saying something.
- I’m frightened.
- I’m uncomfortable.
- Please stop.
- I don’t want you any closer.
- Something hurts.
- I need some space.
Punishing a dog for growling doesn’t necessarily make the underlying feeling disappear. It may simply teach the dog that giving a warning gets him into trouble.
Then people are shocked when one day the dog bites “without warning”. Perhaps he did warn. Perhaps nobody listened.
It is testimony to the extraordinary nature of dogs that serious attacks on humans don’t happen far more often. We put them into situations they cannot escape from. We misunderstand them. We invade their space. We remove their food, touch them when they are sleeping, pull them about, dress them up, cuddle them when they don’t want cuddling, allow children to climb over them and sometimes punish (or even destroy) them when they finally say enough, and still, overwhelmingly, dogs choose not to hurt us.
That says a great deal about dogs.
What dogs sometimes tell me
In my animal communication work, dogs sometimes share experiences of being badly treated. Quite often those experiences happened in a previous home, but not always.
Sometimes I am shown somebody shouting. Sometimes I feel fear around a particular type of person or situation. Sometimes I am given a very clear impression of physical handling that has frightened or hurt the dog.
These are some of the more difficult parts of the work for me.
I am always careful about how I share this information because animal communication is not an evidence gathering exercise and I am not there to judge – but help in any way I can.
Sometimes the information makes sense of behaviour that has previously seemed inexplicable.
- Why does this dog panic when somebody reaches for his collar?
- Why does she flatten herself when a voice is raised?
- Why does he become frightened when a man picks up a broom?
- Why does she tremble before going to a particular place?
Behaviour nearly always has a story behind it. We may not know the whole story, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
“But I love my dog”
I think this is where things become uncomfortable. Because cruelty does not always look like somebody who hates animals.
- Someone can love their dog and still lose their temper.
- Someone can love their dog and still use outdated training methods.
- Someone can love their dog and believe he needs to be “shown who’s boss”.
- Someone can love their dog and frighten it.
That doesn’t make the behaviour acceptable, but if we genuinely want life to improve for dogs, we have to be able to talk about this without immediately dividing the world into good people and bad people. Sometimes people simply need to learn another way.
Dogs do need boundaries, they do need guidance, they need to learn how to live safely in a human world, but teaching does not require fear.
If a dog doesn’t understand something, our first question should be:
Have I taught him what I actually want him to do?
That is very different from punishing him for doing the wrong thing.
The people we trust with our dogs
There is another uncomfortable area that I think deserves more attention. Most people who work with dogs are compassionate, patient and deeply committed to their welfare, but being a dog professional does not automatically make somebody kind.
We hand our dogs over to walkers, groomers, kennels, sitters, trainers and daycare businesses and often have no idea what happens once we are out of sight.
**So pay attention to your dog.**
If a previously happy dog suddenly becomes reluctant to go somewhere, don’t automatically dismiss it as stubbornness.
If their behaviour changes around a particular person, notice. If they begin trembling, hiding, freezing or trying desperately to avoid something, be curious. There may be a completely innocent explanation. But behaviour is communication too. Our dogs deserve to be listened to.
Perhaps we need to change the conversation
When we hear about a dog attacking a person, the immediate question is usually:
Why did the dog do that?
Sometimes that is absolutely the right question.
But something I usually ask is:
What happened before the dog did that?
Not because every bite can be excused or because people don’t deserve to be safe and certainly not because dangerous behaviour should be ignored, but because behaviour does not happen in a vacuum.
Dogs have fear, pain, memories, boundaries and breaking points just as we do. The difference is that they are living in our world, entirely dependent upon us. We decide when they eat, where they sleep, when they exercise, who touches them, where they go and whether they can walk away, that gives us enormous power over another living being and with that power comes responsibility.
Maybe the remarkable thing isn’t that dogs sometimes attack people.
Maybe the remarkable thing is that, considering everything we ask them to tolerate, they so rarely do.
You can find out more about my animal communication work here.
If you need behavioural help you can find a professional, qualified behaviourist here.
