Behavior

Dog Snapping

Identifying The Level Of Dog Snapping Within A Family Pet

If you have a dog that has a bad habit of snapping at people, especially children, then you should first understand what this behavior means and why your dog may be doing it. Snapping is usually thought of as being a signal that dogs use to drive other dogs or people away, without biting them or inflicting serious injury. Often considered an expression of irritability, snapping is also a form of communication that females use to keep their puppies from pestering them.

It is natural to expect dogs to use snapping as a form of communication with people. Dogs will usually not snap at adults to, whom they are subordinate. And with adults who are snapped at, it is usually only their hands that are at risk. With children, however, snapping can be dangerous, because a child’s face is often level with the dog’s head.

Centuries of selective breeding have attenuated this natural canine trait until dogs of some breeds now seem to be almost incapable of snapping, regardless of how much they are pestered. Yet however hard we try to train young children not to abuse or pester a dog until it becomes irritable, we cannot count on a child to always following instructions. Families with a young child at risk who still find themselves wanting a dog are therefore advised to select a breed that ranks low on snapping behavior.

Regarding a dog’s tendency to snap at children, the experts say: “This question deals with a dog’s tolerance for being poked, pulled, and handled by children, not always as kindly as we might like. Picture the prospective dog owners who want to feel confident that their dog, once it is an adult, will not snap at children. For such a person, can you rank these breeds from least to most likely to snap at children?”

Snapping is a characteristic that diners in prevalence from males to females, at least to a minor extent. According to the experts, males are in general somewhat more predisposed to snap than females. A good family or children’s pet would necessarily have to rank low when it comes to snapping habits. However, other characteristics, such as high rankings on demand for affection, playfulness, and obedience training, and a low ranking on dominance, certainly enhance the profile of a good family dog. Snapping is one component of the overall reactivity, explained at the beginning of this article, and dogs that are low on snapping will tend to be low on other traits associated with reactivity.

Dog Snapping

Dog Chasing Cars

In young pups or dogs that have only chased a few times, correction is far simpler than if the dog has been chasing for more than a few weeks. Early correction can usually be made by transforming the stimulus, whether it is a car, bicycle, motorcycle, children on skates, etc, from an attractive to an aversive stimulus. One of the most effective methods involves the “monkey-see, monkey-do” principle. This requires the cooperation of one or several car owners who are prepared for the dog and stop their vehicle before any injury can be sustained. If bicycles, motorcycles or other stimuli cause the chase, these of course should be employed.

The owner should walk with the dog toward the street from various starting points the dog has used in the past or would be likely to use in the future for its attacks. Just as the dog starts to break into its run, the owner should suddenly reverse direction away from the vehicle, shouting as if fearful. The vehicle’s operator must slam on the brakes, screeching the tires to a halt, after which the vehicle and operator must remain still until owner and dog have retreated to their own property and have gone from sight. Then, the vehicle should be driven or pedaled onward and a repeat performance set up.

The process must be repeated until the owner no longer needs to reverse his direction to stimulate the dog to retreat back to its own property. This may take as many as 20 repetitions, with the cooperating operators and vehicles rotating their appearances. When this is accomplished, the same method is used, with the owner absent from the scene, to test the degree of conditioning obtained. If the dog resumes chasing the vehicles, the procedure should be started anew until success is achieved.

The value of this method is best demonstrated in young dogs or those that have recently acquired the behavior. In older and more experienced dogs, more preparation and work are required. The tenacious chaser is usually one that has been at it for more than a few weeks. Underlying causes frequently involve more than simple satisfaction of a chase reflex. Many affected dogs have suffered severe injuries from their “conquests” after catching up with the mechanical prey, and yet have persisted in their folly to chase cars and other fast-moving vehicles.

In these cases, the total environmental and behavioral background must be examined to determine the causative factors; these must then be removed. Possible inciting causes include:

• Barrier or tether frustration.
• Wandering free around the neighborhood.
• Regular walks and urine marking.
• Tendencies acquired through the owner’s previous anxiety or overt chase behavior of vehicles or children on skates, skateboards, bikes, etc.

Dog Chasing Cars

Dog Breeding Tips

Once your puppies’ eyes open up then the real work and expense of rearing a litter begins. As puppies begin to display individual character traits their emotional and physical development relies ever more heavily upon the breeder and less with their dam. This is also when early observations can be made between the committed, conscientious breeder and one who lacks dedication.

The conscientious breeder recognizes and readily assumes the responsibilities of optimum caring for a litter and is not one who abandons them to their dam’s care alone. The difference between breeder types is first discernible when the puppies are about three weeks or slightly older.

Supplementary feeding while continuing to allow the dam and offspring full access to each other is crucial to large litters, yet often is of no less important with relatively few puppies. Untimely puppy supplementation causes the dam’s health to wane shortly before deprivation becomes noticeable in her offsprings’ development. A brood matron should be vibrantly healthy, carrying neither excess weight nor appearing undernourished. The emotionally and physically healthy dam consistently maintains an active and lively interest in her puppies and environment.

Earliest puppy stimulation and socialization with the breeder begin from the moment of birth when the sac is broken. Because their first sense is that of scent, the breeder is familiar to the puppies before their eyes open. Further stimulation is given by the breeder as puppies’ eyes open and they become aware of a hazy world beyond their olfactory sense. Until now they essentially became familiar with their breeder’s scent through their dam’s coat and learned different portions of her anatomy: where there is and is not her heavy milky scent.

Only the breeder should handle puppies during their first two weeks. While such handling is consistent with sound early puppy care practices, it does in reality limit their world. Once they react to a feathery touch on their eyelids, although their eyes are not yet open puppies are highly aware of differences in people. As a result, puppies can react violently the first time handled by anyone other than their breeder.

Some struggle, screaming to be free; others may growl menacingly although the new handler implicitly follows the breeder’s instructions. Reactions can be indicative of how puppies handle strange situations later in life: reactions from complacency to submission or aggressiveness, dependent socialization of puppies at first contact by a stranger.

Puppies’ first human bonding is through the breeder. The experiences must therefore be positive. If a puppy is incorrectly handled or handled not at all, it responds instinctively with distrust toward all humans. It is therefore crucially important that all early contacts be positive. Once the barrier of distrust is instilled, the puppy becomes hard to work with, and in some cases, unmanageable.

Dog Breeding

Dog Body Language

Body Language: Your Dog’s Movements & What They Mean

Dogs use their bodies and paws to express a variety of different things. Below are some examples and what they mean.

Dog crouches with front legs extended, rear up, and head near the ground: This is the classic play-bow and means simply “I want to play!”

Stiff-legged, upright posture or slow, stiff-legged movement forward: “I am in charge around here!” and “I challenge you.” A dominant dog will use this posture to indicate assertion of authority and a willingness to fight for it.

Body slightly sloped forward, feet braced: “I accept your challenge and am ready to fight!”

Dog rolls on side or exposes underside: “Let us not argue” or “I am not a threat to you” or “I accept that you are in charge here.” This is a submissive response to avert conflict. Many dogs adopt this posture in a fairly relaxed and contented manner when they are around their pack leader. When your dog rolls on his back for a belly rub, he is actually accepting you as leader of the pack.

Dog places head on another dog’s shoulder or places paw on the back of another dog: “I want you to know who is the boss around here.” These gestures are commonly used by dominant dogs, pack leaders, and dogs that have aspirations of becoming a pack leader.

Mouthing: This shows up in dog-human interactions as the dog taking the handler’s hand in his mouth or, while walking, taking the lead in the mouth. Mouthing can be a serious sign of dominance challenging and shows that the dog does not accept the human as pack leader.

Dog places paw on master’s knee: “Look, I am here” or “Pay attention to me.” This attention-seeking signal has many variations. They include pawing the air in front of their master or sliding the head under the master’s hand.

Hair bristles on back and shoulders: This is a sign of anticipated aggression. A ridge of hair bristling down the back is a sign that says “Do not push me, I am angry!” When the bristling extends to the shoulders it means “I have had it with you” and is a sign of an imminent attack.

Dog sits with one front paw slightly raised: This is another sign of stress but is combined with insecurity. It means “I am anxious, uneasy and concerned.”

Dog rolls on his back and rubs it on the ground: This is sometimes preceded by nose rubbing where the dog pushes his face, and possibly his chest against the ground in a rubbing motion or rubs the face with a forepaw, from eyes to nose. They often follow feeding or occur as the dog’s owner begins to prepare food. However they also can occur following or in anticipation of other pleasant activities.

Scraping the ground and ripping the turf with the paws: This is usually after the dog has defecated but may occur at other times. Dogs have glands on the bottom of their feet that provide each with a unique scent. What a dog is saying here is ” I was here and I am leaving my calling card!”

How Your Dog Views the World

Like tourists who assume everyone speaks English, or should, it is second nature to us to think that the world looks pretty much the same to all creatures, great and small, including our dogs. For example, we rarely give much thought to the optical processes that turn light into vision; we assume that our visual version of reality is reality.

Even those of us who wear glasses fall into this way of thinking. Glasses bring things back into focus so they once again look like they are. If those people who run around staging role-playing seminars on multiculturalism for business executives were to do the same for multi-species, I would suggest as the first group exercise they get everyone down on the floor with their eyeballs about six inches off the ground. Simply by virtue of visual perspective, the world looks very different to a Chihuahua.

Dogs also differ from humans in their ability to focus on near objects, to perceive and distinguish detail, and to see contrasts between light and dark. Some of these differences are relatively minor, but some must result in a highly altered version of reality. The most remarkable feature of the human eye is its extraordinary power of “accommodation.”

The lens in a normal eye, when relaxed, is of just the right thickness and curvature to bend incoming light rays from a far distance (equivalent to the setting of “infinity” on a camera lens) so that they converge in sharp focus upon the retina at the back of the eye. If the lens were incapable of adjustment, the light rays from close objects would end up converging at an imaginary point well behind the retina; the result would be a grossly blurred image striking the light-sensitive cells of the retina. But by squeezing the lens with muscles that are under unconscious control, we can make the lens thicker and alter its curvature, bringing close objects into proper focus. The greater the squeeze, the closer to our face is the focus.

In young children, the eye’s lens is capable of adjusting by as much as 14 diopters, an optical unit used in describing the power of lenses (and in prescribing eyeglasses). That degree of accommodation corresponds to being able to focus on everything from infinity to an object less than three inches away. By way of comparison, eyeglasses with a power of 14 diopters would look like the proverbial Coke bottle bottoms. (Most glasses for correcting nearsightedness in humans run about 1 to 5 diopters.)

Dogs have a much more limited power of accommodation, generally not more than 2 or 3 diopters, which means they can focus on close objects only if they are no nearer than a foot or two. Anything closer than that will unavoidably be a blur. That may well explain why dogs generally try to sniff or touch objects at close range: they simply cannot see them very well. If the relaxed lens normally brings a distant object’s image into focus behind the retina, the result is hyperopia or farsightedness.

Barking Dog – What is he Trying to Say?

1. Continuous rapid barking, midrange pitch: “Call the pack! There is a potential problem! Someone is coming into our territory!” Continuous barking but a bit slower and pitched lower: “The intruder [or danger] is very close. Get ready to defend yourself!”

2. Barking in rapid strings of three or four with pauses in between, midrange pitch: “I suspect that there may be a problem or an intruder near our territory. I think that the leader of the pack should look into it.”

3. Prolonged or incessant barking, with moderate to long intervals between each utterance: “Is there anybody there? I’m lonely and need companionship.” This is most often the response to confinement or being left alone for long periods of time.

4. One or two sharp short barks, midrange pitch: “Hello there!” This is the most typical greeting sound.

5. Single sharp short bark, lower midrange pitch: “Stop that!” This is often given by a mother dog when disciplining her puppies but may also indicate annoyance in any dog, such as when disturbed from sleep or if hair is pulled during grooming and so forth.

6. Single sharp short bark, higher midrange: “What’s this?” or “Huh?” This is a startled or surprised sound. If it is repeated two or three times its meaning changes to “Come look at this!” alerting the pack to a novel event. This same type of bark, but not quite as short and
sharp, is used to mean “Come here!” Many dogs will use this kind of bark at the door to indicate that they want to go out. Lowering the pitch to a relaxed midrange means “Terrific!” or some other similar expletive, such as “Oh, great!” My cairn terrier, for example, who loves to jump, will give this single bark of joy when sent over the high jump. Other dogs give this same bark when given their food dish.

7. Single yelp or very short high-pitched bark: “Ouch!” This is in response to a sudden, unexpected pain.

8. Series of yelps: “I’m hurting!” “I’m really scared” This is in response to severe fear and pain.

9. Stutter-bark, midrange pitch: If a dog’s bark were spelled “ruff,” the stutter-bark would be spelled “ar-ruff.” It means “Let’s play!” and is used to initiate playing behavior.

10. Rising bark: This is a bit hard to describe, although once you’ve heard it, it is unmistakable. It is usually a series of barks, each of which starts in the middle range but rises sharply in pitch – almost a bark-yelp, though not quite that high. It is a play bark, used during rough-and- tumble games, that shows excitement and translates as “This is fun!”

Barking Dog

American Pit Bull Beaver?

The American Pit Bull “Beaver” . Imagine what this dog did to the owners furniture as a puppy!

Yorkshire Terrier Attacked

An elderly woman was walking her Yorkshire Terrier at an outside shopping mall when a Rottweiler attacked it.

The Rottweiler grabbed the small Terrier a flung it into the air like a toy. The Terrier’s owner was knocked off her feet into a doorway.

Onlookers watched in horror as the Rottweiler breaks four of the Terriers ribs and nearly punchers it’s lungs.

Check out the full story here