The Dog and Cat Management Board in South Australia made a proposal that hit the news this weekend. You can read all about it here, but basically the sub headline sums it up nicely: Every dog will be desexed unless they can pass a test proving they are good natured under a proposal aimed at reducing attacks.
I find it hard to start where this type of proposal is concerning, but I’ll try!
A litter of Brittany puppies, 1 year old, most of them entire (not desexed).
This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.
Dog-dog aggression is harder to prevent that dog-human aggression, but luckily it’s more ‘livable’. That is, a dog that hates people is hard to live with. A dog that hates other dogs will probably be perfectly fine and happy living at home with minimal or no walks (and arguably, most dogs live like this anyway). For this reason, Dunbar believes that socialisation of a puppy to dogs is less important that socialisation to people. In the period from 9-12 weeks, dog-dog socialisation is not a priority.
In an off-leash puppy class at 3 months, most dog-dog issues are easily ‘fixed’. If dogs are struggling with dog interactions in a couple of weeks, they can go to extra classes with a younger group of puppies (i.e. a scared puppy can learn to be confident around younger, small puppies) or with older puppies (i.e. a ‘bully puppy’ will soon be put in his place by older, larger puppies). That is, a large facility running numerous puppy classes of different ages, can probably find the ‘right’ group of puppies (or young adult dogs) for a nervous or confident puppy to interact with, in order to teach that puppy appropriate interactions.
It’s important for puppies to socialise with other dogs and puppies to learn appropriate interactions from an early age.
This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.
Imagine you are at the dentist and he slips with his little scratchy-hook tool, and stabs your gum a little bit. You respond by biting down on the dentist’s finger and punching him in the face.
Or you’re asleep in your bed and you partner wakes you as she hops in. This terrifies you, so you grab your gun from under the mattress, and shoot her.
Puppies need to be guided to learn to not use the full force of their bite as an adult dog. Photo © Ruthless Photos.
Ian Dunbar used similar human-aggressive examples in his seminar to make a point: Dog-human aggression is never okay. Just like humans don’t (shouldn’t) hurt people that accidentally hurt them, and don’t hurt people that scare them, dogs shouldn’t hurt people in response to pain or fear.
There are simply no excuses for a dog to be human aggressive – it is never appropriate and never acceptable, regardless of the context.
First, appropriate socialisation should aim to build a confident puppy that is never fearful enough to bite as an adult dog. Second, a puppy should be taught how to inhibit (i.e. make less forceful) their bite so that, if for some reason they are motivated to bite in their life, the bite is less severe.
Dunbar didn’t go into much detail about teaching bite inhibition at the seminar, but basically the process involves teaching the puppy to bite less forcefully and then teaching the puppy to bite less frequently (and eventually learn that they are not allowed to put their teeth on people). Alongside this, you add a cue that means ‘let go’. (It seems that the Dunbar seminar Crystal, at Reactive Champion, attended did talk about teaching bite inhibition in more detail.)
Furthermore, puppies that attend the Dunbar-style puppy classes, with offleash play, mean that they learn how to appropriately control their bite when interacting with other dogs.
The plan is that, after teaching bite inhibition to a puppy, the adult dog will be more likely to bite in an inhibited way. That is, the depth and seriousness of the bite will be less severe. A puppy that is well socialised, but does not have bite inhibition, makes for a dangerous dog.
I have just read a very interesting article by Michael Fox, Alan Beck and E. Beckman entitled “Behaviour and ecology of a small group of urban dogs” (see full details at end of this post). This article certainly stirred some thoughts in me.
Basically, this is a study of a trio of feral dogs (two males and a female) living in vacant, derelict buildings in St Louis City, Missouri, in 1973. These dogs were studied from March 1973 until February 1974, for 90 hours over this period of time.
Obviously somewhat dated, but nonetheless an interesting investigation of how unowned dogs fend for themselves in an urban setting. (The authors do make the distinction between free ranging dogs, who have owners who allow them to range, and feral dogs, who are on their own.)
It’s an interesting enough piece of work all around, but the areas I found of particular interest is: the marking behaviour of the dogs, the interactions of the dogs with others of their species, and the psuedo-hunting behaviour the dogs engaged in. I will detail each of these below. Continue reading
