Kathy svarar på frågvisa frågor...

Jag var tvungen att skriva till Kathy och fråga vad hon tänkte angående mina frågor.

The dog has a ladder: freeze, growl,aso. But if a dog is displaying just freeze and then go straight on to the bite, should that be trained, to show all the steps, I meen if You are supposed to train the dog to become calmer - it must be easier if it can show all the signs.

Hi Jenny, This is a great question. I think it is a good idea to encourage dogs who typically bite without much warning to display some warning signs(such as snarling or growling). This is not always possible, though, if the dogs never emit these behaviors. They can be hard behaviors to shape unless the dog occasionally does them on his own.

Question two: When a dog in our vetclinic starts go growl, we just put on a muzzle and ignore the behaviour and continue our job. Are we then causing the dog to stop showing the warning of the growl, and that should in worst case cause the animal to go straight to the bite and skip the growl nexttime...Am I thinking right?



Yes, you are thinking right. :)But I'm not sure what other options you have in the vet clinic. I'm not sure you should reward the dog for growling (though I think this actually might help the dog be less fearful over time). But it looks TERRIBLE to the owners if you feed their growling dog! They will think you are encouraging aggression. So maybe the best you can do is what you are currently doing.

Best, Kathy .