Every time i could read closer into a story like this, it turned out there was some form of animal abuse going on. Keeping the dogs caged, beating them, training them for aggression, stuff like that. This isn’t behavior you see with a dog socialized to be a family dog and emotional companion, this is behavior you see with an animal that had the misfortune of ending up with humans that wanted to turn them into a weapon.
Our dog is normally a sweet little dude but has a resource guarding problem we haven’t managed to train out of him. He’ll snap and/or nip at me if I try to get him to drop something he picked up on a walk, if I walk too close to a meal he doesn’t want but also doesn’t want me to have, if I hand my mom something when they’re on the couch together (she is apparently a resource)
But he’s a dinky little toy mix and weighs 25 pounds max, so the worst it ever gets is a little nick on my toe. Scale that up to a dog twice that weight at minimum and a big bite and what would be annoying in my case is life threatening in hers.
Yeah they probably wouldn’t go for the kill on purpose, but again, when it’s a 50-150lbs dog with a wide jaw and a lot of force behind it, what might’ve been a wash and neosporin situation with a smaller dog could be lethal.
Some dogs are very reactive and no matter how good you are with them they are still a risk for biting. Sometimes they’re reactive due to earlier maltreatment, sometimes it’s something they were born with. Unlike with people, dogs don’t have the higher reasoning or communication skills to control a reactive tendency nor do they have mental health support options. And when the dog is large and strong, this is a very dangerous situation.
How bad do you have to be with dogs for your own to attack you? Like, they are psychologically so close to humans, they are social pack animals.
Every time i could read closer into a story like this, it turned out there was some form of animal abuse going on. Keeping the dogs caged, beating them, training them for aggression, stuff like that. This isn’t behavior you see with a dog socialized to be a family dog and emotional companion, this is behavior you see with an animal that had the misfortune of ending up with humans that wanted to turn them into a weapon.
Yeah, that is the behaviour of a severly abused animal. People just horribly mistreat them.
Our dog is normally a sweet little dude but has a resource guarding problem we haven’t managed to train out of him. He’ll snap and/or nip at me if I try to get him to drop something he picked up on a walk, if I walk too close to a meal he doesn’t want but also doesn’t want me to have, if I hand my mom something when they’re on the couch together (she is apparently a resource)
But he’s a dinky little toy mix and weighs 25 pounds max, so the worst it ever gets is a little nick on my toe. Scale that up to a dog twice that weight at minimum and a big bite and what would be annoying in my case is life threatening in hers.
Yeah, that common with dogs, but they wouldn’t kill you over it. Like warning bites are a thing.
Yeah they probably wouldn’t go for the kill on purpose, but again, when it’s a 50-150lbs dog with a wide jaw and a lot of force behind it, what might’ve been a wash and neosporin situation with a smaller dog could be lethal.
Some dogs are very reactive and no matter how good you are with them they are still a risk for biting. Sometimes they’re reactive due to earlier maltreatment, sometimes it’s something they were born with. Unlike with people, dogs don’t have the higher reasoning or communication skills to control a reactive tendency nor do they have mental health support options. And when the dog is large and strong, this is a very dangerous situation.