My Enlightenment

I had someone open my eyes today regarding my dogs and the dog park. I was volunteering at the Doggie and Kitty Carnival (an adoption event) and I had a chance to speak to the trainer who helps Second Chance for Homeless Pets. I told her about Kitna and how he was dominant aggressive and she asked me a few questions.

"Who makes the first move?" . . . "Kitna"

"What is he like at home?" . . . "Scared of just about everything."

She helped me understand that what I was seeing wasn't dominance aggression, but fear aggression. She said that dogs that are dominance aggressive won't need to take action against other dogs because they exude their dominance to where all other dogs can see it and other dogs will submit to it. Since Kitna was making the first move and would snap at dogs that try to stare him down, it was fear aggression. He decided to do something first before the other dog had a chance to.

I also found out something interesting about the event that I described in my last blog post, the one where the smaller dog bared her teeth at Kitna and he rolled her, and that information has made me see that I really do need to retract my statement about Kitna being good with other dogs. And honestly, if I had thought logically about it, I would have seen it because it doesn't make sense the way I described it. When the smaller dog bared her teeth at Kitna, it wasn't a challenge, it was a gesture that said, "Get away. I don't like you being so close." But Kitna saw that the smaller dog was uncomfortable and he took advantage and rolled her.

Kitna was being a bully.

So now I have to figure out what to do. I want my dogs to be well adjusted and I want them to be happy. I want Kitna to be more confident because he is a big 'ol chicken and I realize now that if we continue to bring him to the dog park, it is only a matter of time before he draws blood. (I also need to apologize to Connie at Healing Hearts. She was right to be concerned that Kitna may bite her and I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner.)

I am looking into possibly attending a public playgroup on Saturday's that is supervised by trainers, but I need to find out more about their methods before I decide to do it.

Now I just have to figure out how to explain this to my husband because he thinks Kitna does awesome at the dog park and he is not very good at believing me when I tell him something that conflicts with what he thinks.

Lip Twitching

I don't know if there is another term for this behavior, but this is what I call it. Lip twitching is when a dog will  silently bare their teeth at another animal or person. Like this dog:

Click here to go to the original image

This dog is not happy and is clearly telling the person with the camera to get away. If this signal fails, it could very easily result in the dog lashing out and biting.

I decided to do my post on this topic because while at the dog park this last week I noticed a dog repeatedly doing this behavior. I suspect that this behavior is what caused her to get "alpha-rolled" by my larger male dog.

They had greeted each other and every thing was going fine but then my larger dog snarled and "alpha-rolled" her. I yelled . . . because, well, I panicked, and they broke apart. After that the owner would call her dog back any time she went near my male with comments like "Oh, he doesn't like you, stay away from him."

Kitna is not a bad dog, and he is not bad with other dogs, but he does sometimes have difficulties at the dog park because other dogs will try to put him in his place and he doesn't stand for that.

Anyway, after the initial incident, I decided to watch the other dog (but mostly I kept an eye on Kitna) to see what she did when another dog approached her. That's when I noticed it: A silent, split-second, showing of teeth. She would do this any time another dog approached her to sniff her behind. She would scuttle in a circle so the other dog would always be in front of her and she would bare her teeth — repeatedly.

I watched her do this at least 5 times to the same dog, but he never quite got the message. I don't think he was really paying attention to her.

"Where was the owner during all of this", you ask?

She was right there talking to another owner who had a young puppy with her. I wanted to approach her and tell her what her dog was doing, but I am not a very diplomatic person and I don't like confrontations. How would one go about telling someone, politely, that their dog is about to get themselves tussled again because she is baring her teeth at other dogs?

Comments and suggestions are welcome. : ) My goal is not to get myself kicked out of the dog park for fighting with other dog owners.

Before we end, I did want to blow your mind a bit with this image:

Donovan and Flapjack*

You may ask,"Whoa! Shouldn't somebody stop that??"

Actually....no. These two are playing. A lot of the time when dogs play they will bare their teeth and snarl, but it is nothing to be concerned about.

So how do you tell the difference?

By watching their posture. If the dog has a relaxed posture (gently wagging tail, mouth open, panting) then you are probably good and they are just playing. If your dog is stiff (tail held straight, mouth closed, hardly breathing, ears either flat against the skull or pricked forward at attention) then you need to worry.

If you notice your dog exhibiting this behavior, gently correct them by voice and if they continue to do it, it may just not be a good day to go to the park. If there is another unused area, you can try moving to that area for a bit and then try again where the other dogs are or perhaps it is best to just leash up and try again another day.

Ultimately, it is up to you, but if you aren't watching your dog(s), you won't spot the warning signs until it is too late to prevent a fight.

* Photo by Molly Wald, Best Friends Animal Society Photographer. Click the caption to see the full shoot on facebook.

Meet and Greets

When your dog meets another dog there are a couple of stages that they go through. First we have the initial greeting. This typically begins with both dogs meeting face-to-face. At this point it is very important to pay attention to their body language. The initial greeting is one of the places where a fight could break out. This is the part in the greeting process where they are sizing each other up. Have you ever heard the saying 'don't look a dog in the eyes'? Well, this is why. Direct eye contact from another dog is almost always seen as a challenge. Typically, the dogs will adopt a very stiff posture; their legs will be straight, their tails will be up either held perfectly still or quivering slightly, and their ears will be forward.

If the lack of a second front leg bothers you, pretend both dogs are tripods.

One other thing to note: The stress of being on a leash can make dogs feel vulnerable. They are more likely to fight if they are restrained on a leash. This is why I do NOT recommend face-to-face greetings while on a leash. If you are out walking your dog, and you pass someone else who has their dog on a leash, that is not the time to do a meet and greet. If the other person requests one, politely refuse and continue moving.

Face-to-face greetings can always be tense, but they are more comfortable for the dogs if they are unrestrained by a leash and they are in a secure fenced-in area. If you are concerned about how your dog might react to a new dog, then by all means, leave the leash hooked to their collar, just let it drag on the ground so that you have something to grab or step on if a tussle breaks out or if things get too intense for one of the dogs.

Continuing on: from the initial meet and greet, there are a couple of things that can happen. If one of the dogs is feeling uncomfortable, they will turn their head away and look off to the side. The breaking of eye contact, and the aversion of the face, says to the more aggressive dog 'I don't feel safe. I want you to leave me alone.' This move will be accompanied by lowering of the ears and tail.

This dog is feeling uncomfortable

Sometimes though, the other dog just doesn't get the message. If that fails, and the dog still doesn't want anything to do with the other, more aggressive, dog, sometimes they will turn their whole body to the side. If you notice your dog doing this, you may want to shoo the other dog away. Occasionally, this is where a tussle may break out. The uncomfortable dog may decide to take other, more aggressive, action to get the other dog to leave them alone. This doesn't mean that the uncomfortable dog is dog-aggressive. It just means that the other dog didn't get the message.

The next stage of the greeting process is where the dogs move away from one another's faces and the proceed to sniff the genital area. That is where the strongest scents are and that is where they can learn the most about one another.

In the picture above, these two dogs have moved on to this stage in the greeting process. As you can see by their body language, they are not too sure of one another. They are still a little stiff. However, in this case, all was well. The yellow dog quickly did a play-bow to let the black and white one know he wanted to play and off they went together, chasing each other around the park.

I have a friend who is a very talented with a camera and she takes gorgeous pictures of shelter dogs. I thought I would share this with you because it is a perfect example of what a play-bow is, for those of you
that don't know. The dog will position themselves with forequarters on the ground and their butt's in the air. Their head will be up, to look at the other dog and gauge their reaction. They are probably one of the cutest behaviors a dog can do, other than zoomies, which will be explained in a later post. Normally, the play-bow is accompanied by a couple of barks, to get the attention of the other dog.

What to do if a fight breaks out

If a tussle does break out between two dogs, there are a couple of things you can do:

• Make loud noises - clap, shout, stomp your feet.
• Throw water on the two dogs
• Blast a dog air horn
• Use a citronella spray

If you wade into the fight and try to pull the two dogs apart, there is a 90% chance that you are going to be bit. Either by your dog or the other dog. A lot of the time, if a dog is engaged with another dog, and you jump in and try to stop them, they are going to redirect their aggression onto the intruder — you.

I am just going to say this: if you are carrying a concealed weapon, DO NOT discharge it at the dogs. DO NOT shoot the dogs. There are other, more effective, and less deadly, ways to break apart a dog fight than shooting a dog. (We recently had an off-duty animal control officer from a nearby city shoot a dog that was 'attacking' his puppy at a dog park with his concealed weapon. Both dogs are fine, but it was a completely unnecessary use of force.)

Once they break apart — hopefully a result of using the bulleted methods above, and not by risking yourself — quickly leash the two dogs and take them FAR away from each other. Preferably out of sight. Don't let them sniff each other again, or even look at each other. That is simply asking for more trouble. Make sure you inspect your dog for injuries. This is one of the reasons I always carry a doggie first-aid kit with me when we go to the dog park. If your dog was injured to the point where you think they need to go to a vet, then you need to get contact information from the other owner, as well as vaccination information about the other dog.  If you know that your dog was the aggressor, remove them from the park. If you have other dog's with you, leash them up and take everybody home. It is not worth it to allow them to continue playing when one of them is hurt, or could be hurt again.

Hopefully, all meet and greets will go smoothly for you and your dogs, but it is always a good idea to be aware of body language so that you can determine when a situation is becoming too stressful for your dog.

References:


Play-bow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dzinelvrslc/5411550749/

Bailey, Gwen. What is my dog thinking?. San Diego, CA: Octopus Publishing Group, 2002. Print.

The Truth about Dogs and Sex

For my first post I am going to discuss something I overheard at the West Jordan dog park the other day. This is something that I think it is important for everyone to know.

A man had brought to the park his unaltered male (meaning the dog still had testicles) German Shepard. The dog wasn't ill-behaved or anything, but it was what his owner said to another man, who was the owner of a solid black female German Shepard, that got to me. I think to make this a bit easier to understand, as well as type, I am going to give them pseudonyms.

The owner of the male will be called Buddy.

The owner of the female will be called Princess.

Their conversation went something like this:

Buddy: "How old is she?"

Princess: "She's about two."

Buddy: "Have you had to put diapers on her yet?"

Princess: "Huh? Oh, you mean . . . ? No, no. I got her fixed long ago."

To elaborate on this conversation a bit, Buddy was asking Princess if his dog had gone into heat yet. Possibly to find out, later in the conversation, if Princess would be open to seeing if Buddy's dog, and Princess's dog wanted to mate.

There are a couple of things that irked me about this conversation. One: Dogs have the ability to reproduce as soon as six months of age. The average female dog will go into her first heat at six months. While her eggs may not be completely fertile, it is still possible for her to become pregnant. This is how a lot of  'oops' litters occur. If you want to avoid that first 'oops' litter, I suggest you consider getting your dog fixed before she is 6 months. I will have resources on where you can go in Utah to get this done for relatively cheap down below.

The second thing that bothered me was that it appeared that Buddy was using the dog park for a hookup for his dog. I understand that there are people out there who, for various reasons, do not want to fix their dogs. But please do not use the dog park as a place to scope out potential mates for your dog. It is vastly inappropriate and, to me, it is the same as going to the local playground to find a hookup for your two-year-old son. There are other, more appropriate places, you can go to find a mate for your dog.

For those of you who do not know much about spaying and neutering, here are some interesting facts:

• Dogs can have numerous health problems related to the reproductive organs: Testicular cancer, ovarian cysts, cervical cancer, uterine infections, mammary gland tumors, just to name a few. Also every time a female dog is bred, she runs the risk of developing a pro-lapsed uterus. A pro-lapsed uterus is where the uterus is hanging outside of the dog's body.
• Male dogs who are not fixed are more likely to be aggressive with other dogs as well as have very strong desires to roam in search of a mate. Dogs have very good noses and they can smell a female in heat from at least a mile away.
• Spaying and neutering does not make your dog fat. Constant access to food and poor exercise make your dog fat.
• A neutered male dog is just as fierce and loyal to his family and home as an unaltered male dog.
• Dogs do not harbor any resentment towards their humans for getting them fixed. Resentment is not an emotion that dogs are capable of.
• 97% of fatal dog attacks in 2006 were from dogs who had not been fixed.*

All of these issues can be avoided or remedied by getting your dog fixed. There are some places in Utah that offer very reasonable prices on spay and neuter surgeries.

The following offer spay surgeries for $65 and neuter surgeries for $55.

Best Friends Animal Society Spay & Neuter Clinic - Orem
Address: 845 N 100 W STE 107
              Orem, UT 84057
Phone: 801.432.2124 x 10

Salt Lake Spay & Neuter Clinic
Address: 160 E 4800 S
               SLC, UT 84107
Phone: 801.262.6414

HeartSong Spay & Neuter
Address: 600 S State Street
              Clearfield, UT 84015
Phone: 801.614.5212

The Humane Society of Utah
Address: 4242 S 300 W
              Murray, UT 84107
Phone: 801.261.2919

All of the above places also accept free-fix vouchers from Best Friend's UT. If you qualify for any type of government assistance, you qualify for a voucher program where you can get your animals fixed for low-no cost. (BTW: Pit bull type dogs are free to fix anywhere in UT where the vouchers are accepted because there are too many unwanted Pit Bull's in UT shelters.) To get more information on the Free-Fix program, call 801.432.2124 x 16

*Source - http://network.bestfriends.org/initiatives/pitbulls/pages/justice-for-the-victims.aspx