Answers to dog "Aggression."

[ZenCloud]

Dog's bite! Dogs do not have hands. Dogs can not TELL you they don't like something either. So, they growl, flag, raise hackles and yes bite.

There are several drives a dog will bite a human in and most of them are good (really). Bad bites are typically out of fear. These are your dogs with poor genetics, character traits or victims of abuse. Unfortunately most of the fear biters will always be a problem as genetics or years of abuse will be hard to overcome.

The "good" drives that dogs bite people in are beneficial for home/family protection and these drives have been enhanced by humans as desirable over the years. The drive in this category where most people are bit is "prey" drive. Prey drive is as it sounds, when the dog is chasing his ball he is in prey drive. In prey drive there is not a threat to the dog and the prey object is usually running away or perpendicular or even parallel (but not towards the dog usually). Victims of this bite are often kids running away from the dog, bicyclists and accidental bites as the dog is going for his "toy." Prey drive is enhanced in sport work as these dogs are usually much easier to handle than dogs with fight drive.

If there was a way to keep statistics (truthful statistics) you would find that the vast majority of the time the person bit had provoked the dog in some manner. This is tough as most people will not admit to being at fault. They likely made challenging eye contact, body language, tried to force the dog into social acceptance to fast (in the dogs mind you are the alpha dog, not everyone else) or ignored ALL THE WARNING SIGNS the dog gave prior to them being bit.

Also, people have a tendency to convince themselves that the dog KNOWS what is right or wrong. Dogs do not know right vs wrong, they associate desired/undesired actions based on repetition as taught. The smartest dog in the world likely has the IQ of my 5 year old nephew.

YOU are charged with NOT placing your dog in a situation where these things happen. If the dog was smart enough to know better he would likely have been on the internet surfing the web instead.

The answer is = Dog's bite. Know your dog and control who and how he interacts (I did not say limit). If the dog bit out of drive he did right in his mind. if he bit out of fear consider muzzles, SENDING the dog to a trainer (not once a week classes) and putting the dog down if it is not controllable.

This is not all inclusive but after reading many posts thought it needed to be said. Take care.

Z