Comments on: Charged by a Dog

By: Melissa

Melissa — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 05:51:51 +0000

Oh my goodness… This is the whole reason why I fear walking my husky in my neighborhood!! I live in a ghetto neighborhood where it’s common to have a dog just for protection. Just a bunch of people uneducated about dogs. In the past I was charged by two pit bulls. One of them actually attacked my girl and bit her rear end but fortunately no blood was shed. I would love to learn more about body language in dogs so I can prevent attacks like this. Also I wish more people would be more educated in having dogs not just for protection but for a companion!

By: Holliana

Holliana — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 19:15:21 +0000

I live in California and it is the law that you have control over you dog when in a public place. Meaning on the Leash or already submissive enough to ignore everything other than you.
What I do when another dog or dogs charge us while I am walking my dogs is (if the owner is present or near) I inform them that they need to come and get their dogs because since I am abiding by law to have my dogs on the leash that I will not be legally responsible for what happens to their dogs if a fight were to happen. Most owners will come and get their dogs and honestly I really don’t care if they give me a look at least I’m educating the public and speaking the truth, they can take the harsh reality of the information I gave them any way they wish to doesn’t bother me any.

If there is a stray dog that charges us I first grab hold of my emotions and ignore the other dog no matter how close it gets, You have to correct your dogs focus towards something else so if my dogs focus turn towards the stray I do a quick jerk on the leash and continue forward with our walk. sometimes the dogs follow and if I start to get frustrated my dogs start showing more aggression or interest in the other dog so it’s important that no matter how your dog reacts before meeting the other dog get ahold of yourself first because your dog will follow your dominance, but you need to be able to be calm and assertive to get the message through.

By: shibashake

shibashake — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 19:15:06 +0000

In reply to MM.

LOL! Yeah, I am familiar with the bad looks. Sephy and I used to get some of those. 😀

My neighbor Mike was just telling me this story about a Chi who ran out of his house and charged a Rottweiler. The Rottie responded by just holding the little guy down down by his neck. There was no blood and no real fight. However, later on, the Chi owners found out that their dog had a collapsed wind-pipe. The vet bill was $5k.

But then, they had the audacity to sue the owner of the Rottie. 🙄

Clearly, they didn’t win the lawsuit given that it was their dog that charged. DOH! Some people …

By: MM

MM — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:16:14 +0000

In reply to Dominant Dog – Taming the Top Dog.

Hello Shibashake,

I read this post and the other one http://shibashake.com/dog/off-leash-neighborhood-dogs and I am so glad I am not the only one who is so frustrated with this.

Hiru prefers his personal space and does not like being charged at and will start to growl. I’ll then start to feel guilty because the other owner gives me that look, the “you have a bad dog” look. I usually walk right on by and Hiru is perfectly okay with moving away from it.

He isn’t bad! I am not saying he is perfect but he able to walk right on by with just a passing glance and then stares straight forward again in our walks if a dog isn’t charging him. Even Keiko our new little puppy doesn’t charge unknown dogs but approaches them cautiously (like in the descriptions from Turid Rugaas’ books).

I wish other owners stop allowing their dogs to charge or approach other pooches without permission, and stop with the bad looks too. (Venting…Lol)

By: Dominant Dog – Taming the Top Dog

Dominant Dog – Taming the Top Dog — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:14:15 +0000

[…] Charged by a Dog […]

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:31:52 +0000

Yeah, Cesar does do that. Like you said, it’s to get the dog to change to that state like he does with his human clients; getting them to put their heads up and put out thier chests. I think it’s the same; only with humans we can teach ourselves to do those things when we’re not really like that. The point is that Cesar wasn’t teaching that dog to hold it’s tail up when it’s scared, he was just using the body language to change the internal language.

I think Ian Dunbar trains his dogs to calm themselves, but I’m only going by hear say from what my dad read up on because I never read Dunbar’s books(mostly because he’s like Victoria and has discriminated against Cesar).

It probably would since dogs can’t really lie with thier body language; if they could it would make trainers have an even harder time!

By: shibashake

shibashake — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:17:44 +0000

It would be a pretty bad idea to teach your dog to lie with his body language even though he’s not that way on the inside.

Hmmm, this reminds me of when Cesar Millan raises a dog’s tail or puts a harness-like thing on their back to keep them from tucking their tails between their legs. I wonder if changing the external body language can change their internal state as well.

I know it works in some circumstances for people.

So it would be the same idea with training various calming behaviors. The question is – will having a dog do calming behaviors on command actually help to calm him down internally as well? Would be interesting to test out – wonder if there are studies on this …

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:02:56 +0000

It would be a pretty bad idea to teach your dog to lie with his body language even though he’s not that way on the inside. Now that would cause problems. It’s better to just get your dog to be calm, not just act it, anyway. Although you can train your dog to be calm, but do something that will cause excitement, like Cesar did with Daddy; he did a little hiss-hiss and Daddy started barking to teach the other dogs not to react to a barking dog.

I think you can train a dog to act threatening than teach it to act calm when it’s not.

Thank you. Now I can read it without my glasses.

By: shibashake

shibashake — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:26:55 +0000

Not sure how you would find a dog thats trained to do that; maybe an actor dog?

Heh – yeah would be interesting to see if a dog could be trained to do that. I am not sure how to do it though, since calming signals is more a whole way of being, rather than just one behavior. I suppose one could start by training single behaviors that are associated with calming signals such as ‘Sniff grass’, or maybe ‘Lick lip’. Although, if a dog does that, but still had dominant energy, that would just be really confusing to other dogs.

Another thing; could you maybe make you text darker? I’m here with my glasses on and still have a hard time reading your post.

Done. Hope it is better now. Let me know if you want me to darken it more.

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:22:01 +0000

The owner gave me a thank you as I went passed her after herding the dog back.
I suppose you could train a dog to herd other dogs (Lupin does this with other dogs and even us, but we discourage it because he bites at our ankles), but the problem would be that the other dogs aren’t prey animals, and wouldn’t be easily herded.

I think Daddy is pretty trained to give calming signals all the time! Therapy dogs are calming, too. Not sure how you would find a dog thats trained to do that; maybe an actor dog?

Another thing; could you maybe make you text darker? I’m here with my glasses on and still have a hard time reading your post.