“You know their triggers, so if you avoid them, things will be absolutely fine,” he says.
Melissa Hartley, supporting member, Pet Professional Guild and International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants
Owner, Sindar Kennel
Club affiliation: Weimaraner Club of America
Wagener, SC
“In canine behavior, a bite occurs at the end of a chain of events known as the ladder of aggression,” says Hartley.
“This ladder starts with the dog looking uncomfortable and showing behaviors of a fearful dog. Some of those are extremely subtle — yawning, lip licking, and looking away.
“You climb through the ladder of events if the threat is not removed.”
Next comes piloerection, or hair standing on end, she says.
“These are distance-creating behaviors. The dog attempts to gain distance between itself and the threat,” she explains. “Most dog bites occur out of fear. It is rare that it is caused by something else.
“If the offensive aggression does not occur, the final stage is a dog bite.
“The reason a dog continues up the ladder of aggression to a bite is because two things have or have not happened. Number one, the owner fails to recognize the early stages of the ladder of aggression. They do not recognize their dog is afraid. They do not understand the body language,” she says.
“I use forensic questioning — asking a lot of precise questions to get to the answers,” she continues. “People do not understand when their dog is uncomfortable.
“They are not experts on dog behavior and shouldn’t be expected to be. I often answer, ‘I’ve had my body my whole life, but that doesn’t make me a physician.’”
“They have to bite to make thing go away, because the person has not recognized the dog’s previous signs of aggression.”
And most bites occur with strangers, says Hartley.
“The second thing is, the owner has gotten advice from unqualified people to punish the dog when they growl or bark or snarl at people,” she says. “When you punish away the steps on the ladder of aggression, you no longer get those early warning signs, the dog suppresses them, because they have been punished for them in the past, so they go directly to a bite.
