Last week, the Whole Dog Journal issued the following as their "Tip of the Week" that I felt was very much worth sharing. Sorry for no direct link to the tip, but it's an email newsletter and I can't find it specifically online. But their sentences sum up a huge frustration over the media reporting of dog bite incidents and why experts in canine behavior are important resources vs just news sites or people without expertise.
"Without Provocation.
"Almost every "Dog Mauls Toddler" headline is followed by an article that includes, among other things, these two phrases:
"1.'The dog was always good with children' and
"2.'the bite was unprovoked".....
"With the very rare exception of idiopathic aggression -- aggression for which there is no discernible cause - every bite is provoked from the dog's perspective. We, as humans, may feel the bite wasn't justified or appropriate, but rest assured the dog felt justified in biting. In many cases the provocation is pretty apparent from the news article: the do was kept on a chain, the dog had a litter of puppies, the toddler was left outside in the back yard with a dog who had just been fed. In each case, the dog was stressed beyond his ability to control his bite.
"Raise your stress awareness. Examine news reports about dog attacks to see if you can identify possible stressors and provocation in each incident. Then be sure to protect your own dog from these potential bite-causing circumstances."
Now all we need to do is to educate the news media which as you know is a million times more difficult than herding cats!
It drives me mental when I see or hear someone say that a certain kind of dog is 'unpredictable' or can attack 'without warning'. It's time we humans stopped blaming, banning and killing dogs for our shortcomings as dog owners.
Think of how many bites/attacks could be avoided by simply having most people, even if they don't have a dog or even like them, educated on the basics of canine body language...
Recently there was a HUGE controversy about a video that went viral showing a four-year-old feeding six adult pit bulls. Many people who hated the video stated their reason for hating it was that something bad COULD have happened (even though the video clearly shows that nothing bad happened). How I viewed the video was proof positive that if everyone helped their children learn how to be around dogs, with dogs and how to handle dogs with confidence that children being harmed by dogs would nearly be eradicated.
Again so sad that we humans choose to blame the animal when it is our shortcomings that cause the problems with them.
Posted by: Cheryl Huerta | February 17, 2015 at 01:44 PM
It's all about the owners, the dogs aren't to blame! Proper training of any dog can ensure that these attacks don't happen... and it's up to the owner to arrange this training
Posted by: Chris Loverseed | February 17, 2015 at 08:01 PM
its the owners who has everything to do with it. Agree with Chris.
Posted by: Jak | February 18, 2015 at 04:39 AM
Nice.
Posted by: Jaimie | February 24, 2015 at 05:49 AM
If more dog owners had the knowledge of how to train their dogs properly then there wouldn't be as many incidents headlining dog "attacks." It's the owners to blame, not the dogs. I, too agree with Cheryl and Chris. More people should seek out Dog Training and maybe some dogs wouldn't have a bad reputation. If you take on the responsibility of getting a big dog who has the ability to really hurt someone you, as an owner, need to take the time and put in the effort to provide the dog the training he needs! All dogs are trainable, even rescue dogs!
Posted by: Barkocity | March 16, 2015 at 01:36 PM
I was looking through YouTube videos tonight to put together a video showing dogs who are obviously giving signs of stress and warning of a potential bite and the parents encouraging their kids to interact with the dog. There was one channel I came across and this man is so ignorant of what he is putting both his children and dogs through. Anyone who tries to help him understand what his dogs are trying to say is called a troll and banned. Sadly the German Shepherd in a lot of the videos passed away recently. Now he has a Rottweiler puppy, and full grown Husky......and a daughter that loves to grab dogs faces.
https://www.youtube.com/user/hydrors215/featured
Posted by: D | June 29, 2015 at 05:26 AM
100% agree dont complain, Train!!!
Posted by: francis | July 02, 2015 at 01:42 PM
This is really good post, I like it, thank you for sharing with us
Posted by: Andrew White | October 24, 2022 at 06:25 AM