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That's reductive. Dogs have a surprising degree of individuality, intelligence, and personality. There are dogs with anxiety disorders, psychological disorders,

by 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.
  - pxc 5y ago
    > 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. A dog who doesn't like to be touched by random strangers is not a bad dog, and strangers are not entitled to touch her! I'm 100% with you on this one. Many people seem to think that all dogs should actively enjoy all kinds of invasions to their personal space (that they themselves would never tolerate), and it's ridiculous. You're also not, in my opinion based on this description, ‘making allowances’ for any unacceptable behavior. You're just keeping your dog (and people around her) safe and comfortable, despite the misplaced sense of entitlement of some strangers.
    - Nevermark 5y ago
      Regarding your last paragraph, the owner is making an allowance for potential inappropriate behavior (biting) from a specific dog based on its unique personality (likely startled and very stressed by sudden petting from a stranger). That is a reasonable thing to do. Dogs like people get allowances within reason for having unique failure modes. We all have them.

by Taywee 5y ago

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.
- pxc 5y ago
  > 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. A dog who doesn't like to be touched by random strangers is not a bad dog, and strangers are not entitled to touch her! I'm 100% with you on this one. Many people seem to think that all dogs should actively enjoy all kinds of invasions to their personal space (that they themselves would never tolerate), and it's ridiculous. You're also not, in my opinion based on this description, ‘making allowances’ for any unacceptable behavior. You're just keeping your dog (and people around her) safe and comfortable, despite the misplaced sense of entitlement of some strangers.
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    Regarding your last paragraph, the owner is making an allowance for potential inappropriate behavior (biting) from a specific dog based on its unique personality (likely startled and very stressed by sudden petting from a stranger). That is a reasonable thing to do. Dogs like people get allowances within reason for having unique failure modes. We all have them.