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People trust dogs too much. Dogs are friendly and make good pets and all but people need to draw a line.

Ensorceled 5y ago
"My dog would never bite. He just snarls and snaps like that when he's nervous." "My dog is a good dog at heart, but she's a rescue so you have to make allowances." "My dog is only growling because you are showing fear." "If you got bit, you must have done something to the dog. No dog bites without good reason." People "trust" dogs to a ludicrous degree, even dogs that clearly can't be trusted.
- kapp_in_life 5y ago
  Whenever someone says crap like this to me I feel sorry for the dog because its clearly poorly socialized and thats entirely the blame of the owner.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    Yep. Our weekly long run takes us through an off leash park, never had an issue with literally dozens of dogs every run. Dogs are all socialized; running around, chasing each other, running beside us, barking happily. All my unpleasant dog encounters have been with people who can't take their dog to the off leash park ...
  - Taywee 5y ago
    That's reductive. Dogs have a surprising degree of individuality, intelligence, and personality. There are dogs with anxiety disorders, psychological disorders, attention disorders, and other issues that aren't necessarily the blame of the owner (or even might be the fault of previous owners). Trying to reduce it to that is like blaming every problem behavior on somebody's parents. Dogs aren't simple machines.
    - pxc 5y ago
      Let's review some of the examples in GGP: > "My dog would never bite. He just snarls and snaps like that when he's nervous." If you ever hear this, the dog is being socialized in a bad, counterproductive way before your very eyes. The owner is ignoring manifestly severe distress, as well as generally unacceptable behavior in public. > "My dog is a good dog at heart, but she's a rescue so you have to make allowances." The word ‘allowances’ here is kinda strong, in that it sounds like you're not only giving up on eliminating certain negative behaviors/feelings in your dog, but also in managing them. But it's really close to something that I think is fair to say, which is that you can't expect your dog to instantly recover from trauma, and that you will have to make gradual progress on teaching your dog that the world is safe for them and how you expect them to behave in it. At the same time, it's your job to manage those behaviors along the way, so I'm not sure that counts as ‘making allowances’ in the sense of simply permitting otherwise unacceptable behavior. So it might be fair to give that one to the GGP, too. > "My dog is only growling because you are showing fear." This is useless information even if it's true, and it pushes responsibility for the dog's behavior and comfort onto others (probably including random strangers, given the character of the examples). This is poor socialization in action again. (Aside: growling is good. It is good for dogs to give warning. You probably want to address the thing they're growling about (food possessiveness, fear, anxiety, mistrust of strangers), which may not be good. But you probably don't want to suppress growling per se or treat growling as bad behavior. That's a good way to get a less predictable dog.) > "If you got bit, you must have done something to the dog. No dog bites without good reason." If someone says this about their own dog, they're showing a stunning level of disinterest in their own dog's behavior, comfort, and impact on others. If someone tells you your dog bit them, you need to be very interested in all of the details so you can figure out what was going on and what you need to do about it.
      - Taywee 5y ago
        Yes, you're right, given the context. I hadn't properly followed the chain of comments, and every one of those statements is unreasonable. I just hear a lot of dog people who subscribe to the belief of "no bad dogs, only bad owners", which is cute, but not 100% realistic. You can do a lot to properly train and manage dog behavior, and much bad behavior is the fault of the owners, but there are special cases that really aren't that rare. I have a dog who, as far as I know, has never been abused and she has intense anxiety around new people and other dogs, despite following all the rules and doing everything right to try to socialize her properly for years. I get the ugliest stares from people when they ask if they can pet her and I say that she has anxiety problems, and that she's never bitten somebody, but I can't guarantee that she never would, because people she doesn't know stress her out quite badly. I've made a lot of progress with her, but I doubt I could ever get her to a point that she'd be perfectly comfortable around strangers.
- FactolSarin 5y ago
  Plus everyone, even dogs, can have a bad day. I feel I'm a pretty judge of dogs, having grown up around them all my life. I know when a dog is barking to alert an owner vs when a dog is barking and is about to bite. But even with that in mind, I remember the one time my dog was playing with another dog, and suddenly the play turned to aggression on a dime, and I had to pull those dogs apart, and one ended up with a piece of it's ear gone. Neither dog had a history of aggression, neither has done anything like that ever again. There was no warning, it just happened. Why? I have no clue, and I never will, because dogs aren't people. I can't even know what another human is thinking when a violent outburst happens, much less another species. So are drug-sniffing dogs reliable? I bet they are, but just like people sometimes they can be wrong, or they can have a bad day, or they can give the answer they thought the trainer wanted. Who knows? We don't know how they experience the world enough to even make a guess.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I don’t even like dogs and I think you’re being uncharitable to what are complex living beings with histories and trauma just like humans. For bad but obvious reasons we have different levels of empathy toward different trauma responses. A child who freezes or fawns will get love and support while someone who lashes out or has emotional episodes will be called a bad kid or crazy when they need love and support too. You don’t have to ever consider the behavior acceptable and it’s never your job in particular to deal with it or be around them but that doesn’t mean that the owner’s empathy is invalid. And it sucks when owners are unwilling or incapable of helping their dog. But they’re also right — dogs really don’t bite for no reason.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    > I don’t even like dogs and I think you’re being uncharitable to what are complex living beings with histories and trauma just like humans. Actually it's the exact opposite. We reduce these complex living beings to a "all dogs are good, only people are bad". > But they’re also right — dogs really don’t bite for no reason. People don't assault and kill for no reason either, doesn't mean their victims, or the person bitten by the dog is at fault. DDG "dog kills child" and come back to this thread.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "dogs really don’t bite for no reason." Back in Russia a neighbour's pibull would regularly attack and bite small children playing on the playground, drew blood, left scars. They refused to believe there was anything wrong with the dog's behaviour. Only when the dog attacked their own kid at home, they finally accepted the fact and, sadly, put down the dog. Some people are crazy, some dogs are too. Indeed, nothing happens for no reason, but the reason might be screwed up chemistry in the brain. Or it might be traumatic upbringing, or something else totally unrelated to the person that suffered.
- pxc 5y ago
  People who do this stuff might think they're trusting their dogs, but they're neglecting them. > "My dog would never bite. He just snarls and snaps like that when he's nervous." A dog who is snarling and snapping is doing the canine equivalent of screaming ‘GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME RIGHT NOW’. Actually trusting that dog would have to mean believing it when it tells you it is uncomfortable and feeling threatened. If you trust someone and they tell you they need to be removed from a situation, you do it. > "If you got bit, you must have done something to the dog. No dog bites without good reason." Honestly, this is the other side of people ‘trusting’ dogs too much. Most people who get bit by dogs are doing something extremely stupid, and most people who get bit by other people's dogs are doing something extremely presumptuous and invasive. If what you're interested in is whether a dog is vicious (i.e., how easily it can be rehabilitated or accommodated so that it never bites anyone again for the rest of its long, happy life), the secondhand judgment of someone who got bit by the dog is generally unreliable unless it's accompanied by a detailed account. Unfortunately, being a ‘dog person’ or someone who ‘loves dogs’ or ‘has had dogs their whole life’ doesn't at all assure that a person can read basic canine body language, either.
  - marvin 5y ago
    I got bitten by a dog that looked at me from six meters away when I came out of the owner's car (with the owner driving! We were chatting amicably at the time), then with no other warning than standing very still for two seconds ran at me and bit my leg to the point of bleeding. Then, when I met it again three years later, tried to do the same thing but by that point they'd wised up and anchored its leash to something. Although, you know, maybe there existed a more constructive solution. And my cousin was bit three times (required stitches) by a dog she never approached, and backed away from carefully after it became obvious that it was unfriendly, running away after it bit her the first time. She did accidentally enter the owner's property, though, while jogging. The property boundary wasn't marked. I don't think you can generalize this stuff, unless you've made a detailed survey of the conditions concerning situations where dogs have bit people.
    - pxc 5y ago
      I wrote a big long reply but my browser ate it. Anyway my point is not to deny someone that they've had unpleasant or even traumatic experiences with dogs, but to point out that moderately detailed stories, like the one you just shared, are much more informative than judgments given without context.

"My dog would never bite. He just snarls and snaps like that when he's nervous." "My dog is a good dog at heart, but she's a rescue so you have to make allowances." "My dog is only growling because you are showing fear." "If you got bit, you must have done something to the dog. No dog bites without good reason." People "trust" dogs to a ludicrous degree, even dogs that clearly can't be trusted.

kapp_in_life 5y ago
Whenever someone says crap like this to me I feel sorry for the dog because its clearly poorly socialized and thats entirely the blame of the owner.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Yep. Our weekly long run takes us through an off leash park, never had an issue with literally dozens of dogs every run. Dogs are all socialized; running around, chasing each other, running beside us, barking happily. All my unpleasant dog encounters have been with people who can't take their dog to the off leash park ...
- Taywee 5y ago
  That's reductive. Dogs have a surprising degree of individuality, intelligence, and personality. There are dogs with anxiety disorders, psychological disorders, attention disorders, and other issues that aren't necessarily the blame of the owner (or even might be the fault of previous owners). Trying to reduce it to that is like blaming every problem behavior on somebody's parents. Dogs aren't simple machines.
  - pxc 5y ago
    Let's review some of the examples in GGP: > "My dog would never bite. He just snarls and snaps like that when he's nervous." If you ever hear this, the dog is being socialized in a bad, counterproductive way before your very eyes. The owner is ignoring manifestly severe distress, as well as generally unacceptable behavior in public. > "My dog is a good dog at heart, but she's a rescue so you have to make allowances." The word ‘allowances’ here is kinda strong, in that it sounds like you're not only giving up on eliminating certain negative behaviors/feelings in your dog, but also in managing them. But it's really close to something that I think is fair to say, which is that you can't expect your dog to instantly recover from trauma, and that you will have to make gradual progress on teaching your dog that the world is safe for them and how you expect them to behave in it. At the same time, it's your job to manage those behaviors along the way, so I'm not sure that counts as ‘making allowances’ in the sense of simply permitting otherwise unacceptable behavior. So it might be fair to give that one to the GGP, too. > "My dog is only growling because you are showing fear." This is useless information even if it's true, and it pushes responsibility for the dog's behavior and comfort onto others (probably including random strangers, given the character of the examples). This is poor socialization in action again. (Aside: growling is good. It is good for dogs to give warning. You probably want to address the thing they're growling about (food possessiveness, fear, anxiety, mistrust of strangers), which may not be good. But you probably don't want to suppress growling per se or treat growling as bad behavior. That's a good way to get a less predictable dog.) > "If you got bit, you must have done something to the dog. No dog bites without good reason." If someone says this about their own dog, they're showing a stunning level of disinterest in their own dog's behavior, comfort, and impact on others. If someone tells you your dog bit them, you need to be very interested in all of the details so you can figure out what was going on and what you need to do about it.
    - Taywee 5y ago
      Yes, you're right, given the context. I hadn't properly followed the chain of comments, and every one of those statements is unreasonable. I just hear a lot of dog people who subscribe to the belief of "no bad dogs, only bad owners", which is cute, but not 100% realistic. You can do a lot to properly train and manage dog behavior, and much bad behavior is the fault of the owners, but there are special cases that really aren't that rare. I have a dog who, as far as I know, has never been abused and she has intense anxiety around new people and other dogs, despite following all the rules and doing everything right to try to socialize her properly for years. I get the ugliest stares from people when they ask if they can pet her and I say that she has anxiety problems, and that she's never bitten somebody, but I can't guarantee that she never would, because people she doesn't know stress her out quite badly. I've made a lot of progress with her, but I doubt I could ever get her to a point that she'd be perfectly comfortable around strangers.
FactolSarin 5y ago
Plus everyone, even dogs, can have a bad day. I feel I'm a pretty judge of dogs, having grown up around them all my life. I know when a dog is barking to alert an owner vs when a dog is barking and is about to bite. But even with that in mind, I remember the one time my dog was playing with another dog, and suddenly the play turned to aggression on a dime, and I had to pull those dogs apart, and one ended up with a piece of it's ear gone. Neither dog had a history of aggression, neither has done anything like that ever again. There was no warning, it just happened. Why? I have no clue, and I never will, because dogs aren't people. I can't even know what another human is thinking when a violent outburst happens, much less another species. So are drug-sniffing dogs reliable? I bet they are, but just like people sometimes they can be wrong, or they can have a bad day, or they can give the answer they thought the trainer wanted. Who knows? We don't know how they experience the world enough to even make a guess.
Spivak 5y ago
I don’t even like dogs and I think you’re being uncharitable to what are complex living beings with histories and trauma just like humans. For bad but obvious reasons we have different levels of empathy toward different trauma responses. A child who freezes or fawns will get love and support while someone who lashes out or has emotional episodes will be called a bad kid or crazy when they need love and support too. You don’t have to ever consider the behavior acceptable and it’s never your job in particular to deal with it or be around them but that doesn’t mean that the owner’s empathy is invalid. And it sucks when owners are unwilling or incapable of helping their dog. But they’re also right — dogs really don’t bite for no reason.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  > I don’t even like dogs and I think you’re being uncharitable to what are complex living beings with histories and trauma just like humans. Actually it's the exact opposite. We reduce these complex living beings to a "all dogs are good, only people are bad". > But they’re also right — dogs really don’t bite for no reason. People don't assault and kill for no reason either, doesn't mean their victims, or the person bitten by the dog is at fault. DDG "dog kills child" and come back to this thread.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "dogs really don’t bite for no reason." Back in Russia a neighbour's pibull would regularly attack and bite small children playing on the playground, drew blood, left scars. They refused to believe there was anything wrong with the dog's behaviour. Only when the dog attacked their own kid at home, they finally accepted the fact and, sadly, put down the dog. Some people are crazy, some dogs are too. Indeed, nothing happens for no reason, but the reason might be screwed up chemistry in the brain. Or it might be traumatic upbringing, or something else totally unrelated to the person that suffered.
pxc 5y ago
People who do this stuff might think they're trusting their dogs, but they're neglecting them. > "My dog would never bite. He just snarls and snaps like that when he's nervous." A dog who is snarling and snapping is doing the canine equivalent of screaming ‘GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME RIGHT NOW’. Actually trusting that dog would have to mean believing it when it tells you it is uncomfortable and feeling threatened. If you trust someone and they tell you they need to be removed from a situation, you do it. > "If you got bit, you must have done something to the dog. No dog bites without good reason." Honestly, this is the other side of people ‘trusting’ dogs too much. Most people who get bit by dogs are doing something extremely stupid, and most people who get bit by other people's dogs are doing something extremely presumptuous and invasive. If what you're interested in is whether a dog is vicious (i.e., how easily it can be rehabilitated or accommodated so that it never bites anyone again for the rest of its long, happy life), the secondhand judgment of someone who got bit by the dog is generally unreliable unless it's accompanied by a detailed account. Unfortunately, being a ‘dog person’ or someone who ‘loves dogs’ or ‘has had dogs their whole life’ doesn't at all assure that a person can read basic canine body language, either.
- marvin 5y ago
  I got bitten by a dog that looked at me from six meters away when I came out of the owner's car (with the owner driving! We were chatting amicably at the time), then with no other warning than standing very still for two seconds ran at me and bit my leg to the point of bleeding. Then, when I met it again three years later, tried to do the same thing but by that point they'd wised up and anchored its leash to something. Although, you know, maybe there existed a more constructive solution. And my cousin was bit three times (required stitches) by a dog she never approached, and backed away from carefully after it became obvious that it was unfriendly, running away after it bit her the first time. She did accidentally enter the owner's property, though, while jogging. The property boundary wasn't marked. I don't think you can generalize this stuff, unless you've made a detailed survey of the conditions concerning situations where dogs have bit people.
  - pxc 5y ago
    I wrote a big long reply but my browser ate it. Anyway my point is not to deny someone that they've had unpleasant or even traumatic experiences with dogs, but to point out that moderately detailed stories, like the one you just shared, are much more informative than judgments given without context.