Last week, dog trainers in the United States were raising awareness for Dog Bite Prevention Week. In this blog we look at some strategies for preventing dog bites.
What factors contribute to bites?
All dogs have the potential to bite humans. Any dog who is in enough pain, is scared enough or emotionally conflicted enough will bite. How much is enough will differ from dog to dog. Dogs who bite are not “bad dogs”. They’re likely just hurt dogs, scared dogs or conflicted dogs. We don’t need to demonise dogs with a bite history. We just need to see all dogs as the beautiful, fallible creatures they are.
And this puts us in an empowered position because it means we can take action to prevent dog bites. We can do something to help. We can make it better.
So, what are some things we know contribute to pain, fear and emotional conflict and how can we reduce them?
Pain
A recent study found that 15% of dogs brought to a vet for aggression had a medical problem that could have caused, or at least contributed, to the issue1. Other studies have suggested that up to 85% of dogs exhibiting aggressive behaviour have some underlying medical/pain issue.
So, if your dog shows a sudden change in behaviour (e.g. if they bite or growl seemingly out of nowhere), get them checked out by a vet.
Fear
A number of dog training shows (e.g. Canine Intervention; The Dog Whisperer) popularise aversive training methods in the name of being “pack leader” or to deal with dogs who are supposedly “dominant”.
I am not going to go into dominance theory here (suffice to say, this theory’s relevance to dog training has disproven many times by multiple scientists – including the guy who proposed it!) but research has categorically demonstrated that aversive tools, intimidation, verbal and physical “corrections” and other forms of punishment increases the risk of dog aggression and dog bites.
Why? Because aversive methods provoke a fear response (and often cause pain or discomfort as well). And they are often unintentionally used in situations where the dog is already afraid.
Now, dog owners rarely intend to do harm to their animals. Loving but desperate owners are simply given out-dated and/or unscientific training advice. Not only does this training do little to address the original behavioural struggle, it can make the situation much worse. This is because many of the behaviours touted as signs of “dominance” are actually signs of stress or fear.
Growling, for example, is not a sign of a dog trying to dominate their owner. These dogs do not need to be “put in their place”. Dogs use growling to avoid aggression. Growling is a dog’s way of communicating that they’re afraid and need more space. A growl should never be punished (n.b. to call it a “correction” is a misnomer). Punishment does not change the underlying emotion causing the growling. It only removes a valuable communication tool from the dog’s behavioural vocabulary. Scared dogs who cannot communicate by growling have no choice but to escalate to make the scary thing go away.
Emotional Conflict
This is a rarely discussed issue but it can be particularly volatile. Emotional conflict happens when a dog is faced with a situation where they either:
- want something but they’re not comfortable with what they need to do to get it (e.g. taking treats from the scary stranger) or
- they do not have the skills they need to calmly get themselves out of a tricky situation.
This can be an odd thing for us humans to understand, so lets consider a human-friendly example.
Imagine you’re sat a desk and are told to complete an astrophysics exam paper. You’re not an astrophysicist – you don’t have the skills required of you. But the person telling you to do the exam doesn’t take no for an answer – they hold a gun to your head and tell you to do the exam or they’ll shoot. They can’t be talked down. You’re now in a situation that feels threatening and you don’t have the skills to calmly make it better. You don’t want to fight, but you don’t have any other options because you don’t have the skills needed.
This is the situation dogs are faced with when resource guarding.
Unfortunately, many puppy owners are still told they should put their hands in their pup’s food bowl or take toys and chews away from them. The reasoning is either to exert “dominance” over the pup or to “get them used to it.”
However, this is actually one of the biggest risk factors for resource guarding.
Why? Because if pup is uncomfortable with this interaction (which totally understandable when someone’s trying to steal your stuff!), they do not have the skills needed to endure the discomfort or to calmly make it better (e.g. by walking away). They really want their food but they’re not comfortable with their human’s hands in there and they can’t make this stressful situation stop.
The science is very clear on this issue, playing with a dog’s food or taking away “their stuff” (food, toys, contraband) has a greater risk of causing more issues than it ever solves. Most bites to children occur as a result of resource guarding.
How can we prevent bites?
We’ve already spoken about how we can reduce bite risk by asking vets about pain and by using modern, fear-free training strategies that are backed by the latest science but how can we best prevent emotional conflict?
If taking items from dogs increases the risk of resource guarding, what do we do instead?
Thankfully, the research is also very clear on how we can minimise the risk of resource guarding.
- Prevention. This is without doubt the most important part in reducing instances of resource guarding and the bites that can come along with it. Prevention should be focused in two main areas – preventing dogs getting access to contraband and preventing children (and overzealous adults!) from approaching dogs when they have food or toys.
- The Turkey Game. This is a noise that we can make to distract our dog when they’re about to get up to mischief (e.g. they’re about to grab something they shouldn’t). Because we practice this game often, our dogs know that the turkey noise reliably leads to amazing rewards! This means that our dogs will choose to respond to it even in the face of tempting contraband!
- Teach a joyful “give” – we teach dogs to voluntarily give up whatever is in their mouth because it reliably leads to even better rewards! We teach this skill with the Toy Switch Game.
- Teach a strong retrieve – retrieve combats those situations where dogs have stolen some item of contraband and are parading it around or stashing it away for safe keeping. Again, when dogs know that the retrieve game reliably leads to good things happening then there is no need to play keep away, there is no need to ingest the item and, most importantly, there is no need to fight to keep the item.
- The Breadcrumb Game – this is our get outta dodge game… we use this game when we haven’t prevented our puppy (or adult dog with a habit of thieving!) from stealing contraband and all our other strategies have failed. The breadcrumb game is a safe way to get our dog away from the item.
There are lots of things we can do to reduce bite risk, these are just a few. Of course, if you’re concerned about aggression or risk of biting, then be sure to reach out. Remember, your dog is not bad. It may just be that they’re in pain, they’re afraid or they’re not sure how else to handle tricky situations.
References
- Dinwoodie, I.R., Zottola, V., Dodman, N.H. (2021). An investigation into the effectiveness of various professionals and behavior modification programs, with or without medication, for the treatment of canine aggression. Journal of Veterinary Behavior.
