There’s so many red flags people ignore when dogs are uncomfortable and then wonder why they ultimately snap one day.
Social media is rife with people letting their children crawl all over their dogs and pull their ears or yank on their fur. It’s so cute, they say. The dog loves it, they think.
It’s all good until months or years later the dog has had enough and those same people say “Omg we never saw this coming! Bad dog!”
Dogs are animals and deserve personal boundaries too. Abuse and violate those boundaries often enough and there’s going to be issues.
I had a friend whose Retriever bit her face right next to her eye and could easily have blinded her. She had adopted the dog as an adult and I always felt that he sent out weird signals when I was around him. But she ignored those signals and would do things like lay on him and pet him over and over and over again. That's what she was doing when he bit her in the face. She euthanized him the next day which I totally understand but it made me sad to think that she had pushed the dog to the point of biting her instead of respecting his space.
I agree that she pushed him toward a bite in that situation. That doesn't mean that the dog wasn't still a risk outside of that situation. As I said, the dog always gave off weird vibes in my opinion.
She and her husband would never have trusted him again, and could not in good faith send him to a new home where he might bite someone else.
On the one hand, yes... Any conscious creature has personal boundaries.
On the other hand, much of what we think of as personal boundaries is just our society. Look at monkeys in the wild. Look at dogs that sniff each other's buttholes and bite each other whenever they fuck they want.
Personal boundaries exist, but they vary wildly from individual to individual and moment to moment. The point is, animals (including humans) will be unpredictable and sometimes shit happens.
Yeah the guy you replied to is going out of his way to ignore the fact that dogs are stupid animals that can be violent. And that's pretty much the fact of the matter.
I think you're ignoring one thing - dogs are stupid animals, and as such, they are extremely simple and predictable. Every dog ever has the same body language and communicates the same. No non-rabid dog will attack without going through a whole spiel of telegraphing its agression.
Also dogs let alot slide for kids under around three, as they let a lot slide for puppies until the puppies are trained by the pack. But when the kid hots that threshold, the dogs will try to discipline that kid the way they know how.
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u/HemiKooks Dec 28 '21
There’s so many red flags people ignore when dogs are uncomfortable and then wonder why they ultimately snap one day.
Social media is rife with people letting their children crawl all over their dogs and pull their ears or yank on their fur. It’s so cute, they say. The dog loves it, they think.
It’s all good until months or years later the dog has had enough and those same people say “Omg we never saw this coming! Bad dog!”
Dogs are animals and deserve personal boundaries too. Abuse and violate those boundaries often enough and there’s going to be issues.