Posted on 03/02/2011 1:31:37 PM PST by Evil Slayer
OK. Next time a dog like does that I will put your advice to action. May I ask another question? Does it mean anything if a dog growls rather than barks at a human?
Wow.
This is a super-complex issue to explain with words.
The -expression- of the dog means everything, whether it’s growling or barking.
If the mouth is wide open and the back teeth are showing during a bark or growl, it’s 99.9% “display” behavior that is usually a sign of fear aggression, fear or “bluff”.
If the lips of the dog are -forward- over the back teeth and only the very front teeth are showing, *that* dog means it.
Barking is more an alert for the dog’s owners.
[Sort of a “Come see what’s happening!!”]
Growling [depending on the rest of the dog’s body language context] can just be a fearful head-fake meant to keep you from getting close to it because it’s afraid of you.
This page gives some illustrations but doesn’t address the many nuances of each expression.
http://www.pawsacrossamerica.com/interpret.html
The “Aggressive” pic doesn’t give many details about ear position/body stance/lip position, etc but it’s a start.
If it helps any, my breed expertise is Dobermanns.
If they’re growling/barking at you it’s just a warning/potential threat behavior.
Their “silent rush” is what you really have to worry about.
Right now, Odin’s inside, ferociously barking at something going on outside.
If he were outside and perceived whatever’s out there to be an -actual- threat, his target wouldn’t even hear him coming.
But that’s _just one breed_.
My Ibizan Hounds, OTOH, could stand and bark and growl at you 24/7 and you’d have nothing to fear but a splitting headache from the noise.
They’re just mouthy, wimpy posers.
What breed of dog is doing this to you?
I could probably get a better fix on the situation if I knew that.
My experience is that when a dog is rigid - walking stiff-legged on tip-toe, hackles up, tail fluffed, eyes locked - the S is about to HTF.
I have one that is silent as a fish -- you don't see her until she leaps up (without touching you) to examine your tonsils and look up your nose. Friend has threatened to get her a white coat and a stethoscope. The other two bark like maniacs whenever anybody sets foot on our property, but if there was trouble the first one is the one to worry about. She's quite funny and playful until she perceives a threat, then she's all business.
You have an ~excellent~ grasp of your dogs’ “language”.
I applaud you!
:)
Best way to learn to speak Dog is to work with the dogs in a performance event -- obedience, agility, flyball, hunting retriever, whatever -- because it motivates you to really understand what makes them tick.
My 11 year old has a vocabulary of about 200 words, I'm not sure how large my Dog vocabulary is but I usually know what she's thinking. (Anybody who says dogs don't have a sense of humor hasn't met her.)
Thanks again for your help. I'll look on at the web site you've provided.
Well, that’s an easy one.
She woke up and found a “stranger” in “her house”.
[who also “smelled different” because of the shower]
Dogs totally live in the moment so she may have “forgotten” you from the night before *but* more likely, everything “changed” when her pack wasn’t there, demonstrating ~their~ complete acceptance of you.
Case in point: our family doctor has known and loved Odin since Odin was but a tiny 8 week old pup.
About 9 months ago when Odin was only a year old and just beginning to “be a man” , we took him with us to see his “Uncle Andy” again and Odin adored him....until his “daddy” went inside, leaving “mommy” alone with this “suddenly strange man”.
He then growled, barked and placed himself firmly against my side and in between me and the doc.
[this is the dog’s job, BTW...guarding me when hubby is not present to do so, himself]
The doc understood completely and harbored no ill will...still loves the dog like crazy.
Last week we tried again [the dog’s behavior has been “polished” since the last meeting] and Odin was well-behaved, properly full of adulation and did all his fancy tricks for the doc, even carefully taking tiny bits of training treats from his fingers without so much as touching flesh.
[he adores little kids and they, him, so his gentleness in snack-taking is paramount]
Daddy went inside again and Odin just wagged his nub at the still-there doc, knowing him now as absolute, trusted friend.
[On the down side, this now gives my doctor free rein to murder me as the dog totally accepts him]....LOL
Tossing her ball was *brilliantly* clever and one of the recommended methods of defusing aggression....leaving your keys inside with her...well, not so much....;-D
I am happy to help in any way I can.
Feel free to contact me any time you want.
It’s very humbling to realize that a dog can learn ~our~ language yet we often cannot fathom *their* language at all.
What I’ve learned, besides reading many *excellent* books was from just watching them interact with each other.
If you watch carefully and closely, you can read what each subtle tilt of ear or tail, glance or tiny bit of posture change “means”.
Since I was basically raised by dogs, [mostly Dobes] because I had no kids in my neighborhood and “busy” parents, I learned to ‘speak’ both dog and horse pretty early.
It always annoyed my dad that I could get the horses to do incredible things and behave perfectly although they would act like maniacs when he was near them.
He simply didn’t “get” what they were “saying” and got quickly frustrated and angry with them.
Even “his” dogs only listened to me.
My teen-years WonderDobe had an incredible vocabulary.
There were even many words you couldn’t ‘fool’ him with by spelling them.
Odin is proving to be “psychic”, for the lack of a better word.
If I *think* something, he’ll react.
A good example is my Ibizans and Podengo.
They’re very playful, very noisy and bouncy silly, carefree things.
When they start their crazy “zoomies” in the middle of the night, I’ll think to myself “Oh, God...SHUT UP!” and without me saying a word, Odin will jump off my sofa and go over and butt between them, thereby showing authority and “demanding” a cease to the insanity.
I did not teach him that.
One night, he simply did it himself.
He also goes back outside and “rounds them up” when they’re running like maniacs around the yard and won’t come in...and “mom” is freezing awaiting their return.
I’ll just say “Go fetch the girls in” and off he goes.
Maybe he’d be a good sheep dog....:)
LOL!
She was dis-invited from a no-cage boarding facility because she would herd the other dogs into a corner and not let them leave . . . .
I know some (two) homeschoolers who found a cat dead in the road and boiled down the bones and put it back together for anatomy class at home! eeek.
In one of my science classes the first year of college, we did a lot of disecting...The only one I was queezy about was dealing with an eyeball, sticking a needle into it to asperate out some fluids to check. Most of the dissections were not much different than frying a steak or fixing some liver and onions for my dad..Never experienced an eyeball in home cooking...:O)
LOL!
Good dog with a sense of humor...:)
OMG daffy that is hysterical...
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