I saw a Facebook post from a parent moaning about their eight week old puppy growling at their child when they picked the puppy up and cuddled it. All blame was on the ‘bad, aggressive’ puppy. Someone advised to tell the dog off.
Growling is the pups way to say they are fearful and not happy. If you scold a dog for growling, they learn growling doesn’t work to get the human to let go, and have to resort to bite. Potentially the dog then gets rehomed or put down. In this instance I would say we need to educate the child not to pick the puppy up and engage with the puppy in ways both parties are happy.
Check out this great graphic on Children Interacting With Dogs.
It’s the same with dog to dog interactions as well. So many times I see owners with confident dogs, allowing their dog to jump all over a dog who is underconfident. The owner means no harm by allowing this interaction and usually see’s it as ‘the dogs are having fun,’ but for the sensitive dog, this will make them more sensitive, which can easily lead to ‘reactive’ behaviour in future.
So you should not only be reading your own dogs body language, but all dogs body language to set both parties up for appropriate and mutually enjoyable interactions.
Check out our other articles on Good Dogs Growl and Ladder Of Aggression.
Half the time we miss or misinterpret what our dogs are trying to express. Please watch and share this video so we can achieve some better understand of dog communication and save situations like these from commonly happening x
