An open letter.

[theweaselking]

Dear owner of the snausage-with-legs that attacked Piper:

Your pug has been returned in one piece because my dog, unlike yours, responds to voice control and knows that I am allowed to take food away from her.

By "food", of course, I mean "your dog, after it bit her".

Piper now gives me this look because I took her squeaky wriggling meat toy away:



Obedience and socialisation training: Just because I *can* grab your dog and chuck it like a football does not mean I should have to.

No love,
Me.

(For the record: No harm done, to either participant. Defective fuzzy rat-creature returned to apologetic owner. Piper now distracted by The Mystery Of Is There A Squirrel and once again all is right in her mayonnaise-witted little doggy world.)

Comments

[maelorin]

she may be mayonnaise-witted, but those wits have been well honed by someone-who-cares. well done there.

if only more people recognised that it is the responsibility of parents/adults/owners to *teach* their kids/pets how to behave. to not do so is childish...

i wonder, does apologetic defective fuzzy rat-creature owner realise that their failure to be responsible for meat-popsicle's welfare could yet lead to them being responsible for said gushy-food-eating-gushy-food-on-legs picking on the wrong playmate?

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I think she understands, but I DON'T think she understands how to fix the problem. I think she's got the common failing of people with kickable dogs: Because the dog is kickable, they think they don't have to be able to do anything but kick it.

This is why "pit bulls"[1] are so dangerous. It's not that they're more aggressive or more capable of doing harm - in fact, they're much LESS aggressive than small dogs and much LESS dangerous than large dogs.

What they ARE, is small enough that an adult human can usually restrain them physically, and large enough that a child or surprised adult *can't*. And so, since an adult can usually control them physically, some adults do so, and don't train them to obey. And since they're not trained to obey, they don't. Which means that when they disobey, and nobody is there to wrestle them to the ground and yell at them, they can do some real damage.

A larger dog would do more, but *nobody* thinks a Rottweiler or GSD or a Mastiff can get away without training - and so, untrained large dogs simply don't get into the kind of situations that a medium-dog gets into. And when an untrained small dog misbehaves, that's considered cute and funny because you can pick it up with one hand and hold it.


[1]: A fake breed. There is NO SUCH ANIMAL as a "pit bull". The term means "medium-sized short-haired dog". Medium-sized dogs that are not short-haired are "pit bull crosses".

[maelorin]

ignorance is inheritable. but curable.

what you describe here coincides with some views on parenting. self-discipline and social skills and norms have to be taught.

part of the problem is the 'cuteness factor'. some people think they shouldn't, mustn't 'ruin' the cuteness by teaching good behaviours. but the earlier you instil them, the easier - and the better your relationship later.

a small dog may be controllable, but they can do serious damage to hands and feet (and ankles and wrists). i've seen the mess a chihuauhaua can make of it's owners thumb and forefingers: irreparable nerve and ligament damage. 'restrainable' doesn't equal 'safe'.

the sad thing is, it's the pet who suffers for not having been trained. several dogs have been put down in recent years because people failed to train them (a few were also insane choices for family pets).

there may be no such breed as 'pit bull', but the average joe tends to understand what such a dog looks like, and what they're expected to expect them to behave like.

[swwoodsy.livejournal.com]

I thought one of the large kennel clubs recognizes the Pit Bull Terrier or Bull Terrier and the other only recognizes the Staffordshire Terrier or some such thing. "Pit bull" is a breed with its own recogition. And pit bulls, like other terrier and bullish breeds, tend to be more aggressive toward other animals (not people); are loyal, strong, smart, and fearless; and they can be fierce. Training and socialization are what have these dogs become socially acceptable and well behaved.

Brown Dog is part pit bull and part Lab--I have no idea, he was kind of a stray from a reservation in California. He looks like a Lab because he has a longer muzzle, but you can totally see the pit in him, too. I register him as a Lab mix to avoid the "pit bull stigma." I worked really hard to socialize him and train him as a puppy. He is now an obedient 11 year old dog with very nice manners. Even people who do not like dogs say he is a good dog. He is friendly and non-aggressive to other dogs, but wants to play. He will let you take food from his mouth or from his bowl, and he will actually spit out a treat if you're sufficiently serious and fast enough (he tends to gobble them). Technically, he is a large dog, because he weighs about 70 lbs., but I think that is medium sized.

Responsible dog owners train their puntable fuzzballs. Granted, most puntable-fuzzball owners are not responsible and just let them get away with anything. I have never had a large dog snap at me unprovoked, but those little yappy bastards have nipped me for just walking by. "Oh, isn't he cute! So fierce!" "No. He is an ill-mannered little beast that is about to become airborne. I bite back. Fair warning." *gasp!shock!dismay!* Dumbasses.

[cyprinella]

I believe it's the UKC that recognizes the American Pit Bull Terrier and the AKC only the Staffordshire and Bull Terriers.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should be clearer: While there are several dogs with names CLOSE to "pit bull", when you hear about a "pit bull" on the news, it's almost never a Staffie. It's a "medium-sized short-haired dog", which is all it takes to get ANYTHING classified as a "pit bull"

[cyprinella]

Oh, I know. Anything with short hair and a blocky head (gosh, just like lab mixes!) is a "pit bull". I was just answering the question about what the recognized breeds were where.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Related: I'm strongly tempted to head over to her house tomorrow and offer to show her the basics of dog obedience. She's my neighbour, so the dog is always around. And she doesn't know how to control the dog without picking him up.

[maelorin]

that simple gesture might transform her life in ways she can't imagine.

she probably has no idea that she has allowed (and encouraged) her pet to play up for attention. and that mommy will carry it if it annoys her enough.

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Please do this.

My in-laws live right next to someone who runs a kennel with a horde of untrained miniature pinschers. The owner does zero discipline training to the rat-creatures, and they run wild in the yard.

Couple of years ago the alpha bitch of the pack made a slip through a crack in the fence, and dashed to my in-laws yard; it wouldn't have been so bad, if the bitch hadn't started to harass their dog.

A dog which is approximately a generation and half removed from a wolf.

Now, Inu -- the said wolfbeast in question -- had been trained, and was known to treat female dogs with awed reverence, no matter what size they were. But when the rat-thing began to get to his face...

*chomp*

It was just a single bite, but because of size difference one tooth punctured the rat-thing's lung. The dog managed to make a dash back to her own yard (Inu was properly leashed, so he couldn't follow and wasn't particularly interested to follow, either, he just wanted the damn thing gone), and the owners took the loudrat to the vet, but the injury ended up killing the dog anyway.

The neighbors did not raise a stink about it -- it was their fault in every possible way: the hole on the fence was on their side, the dogs were outside without supervision, the dogs were unleashed, and they had not trained the ratbeasts to behave or obey commands.

Out of all things that went wrong? They fixed the fence. And that was all they did.

I'm honestly astonished that anyone buys dogs from them -- it is not just lack of obedience training from the larval stage, but the owners do not keep bitches and males separated, and there seems to be quite a lot of incestuous crossbreeding going on.

[hel]

Depending on your existing relationship with this person, it might be better if you dropped off a note or brochure to a local training school (where better is defined as most likely to lead to her finding out how to train her dog and doing so). Otherwise it might come off as (regardless of intent) "I have come to tell you that you are Doing It Wrong and I Know Better". And while it may be true, people generally don't respond well to things they read as being told "You're Doing It Wrong".

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

It drives me crazy when people don't train their dogs just because they're small. I'm glad no one was hurt.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I hate it when owners of ratty type dogs believe their little balls of toothy fluff don't need training. Just because I can punt said fluff over the wall doesn't mean I want to have a little buzzing ball of teeth nipping at my ankles

There's a theme that bigger dogs are gentler, but I wonder if that's just because their owners are more careful about training them

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Big dogs really do tend to be gentler, because they are smarter, and because an aggressive large dog does not get allowed to breed - but mostly it's training.

[senorcameltoe.livejournal.com]

This article seems like it fits right in here (the study isn't your typical list of dobies, rotts, etc.):
http://www.k9magazine.org/most-aggressive-dog-breeds/

Unsurprisingly, when looking at aggression, the small breeds are taking over. My sense is that it is a combination of zero training plus these "purse dogs" get put into a lot of situations where they are uncomfortable. Several incidents of defensive biting or snapping, followed by the owner reinforcing that behavior instead of correcting it create a pattern. Of course, I'm also not surprised by breed ambassadors or breeders saying, "I've never seen anything like this!" Right, you haven't because you're a responsible dog owner and you properly train your dog. The people you're selling puppies to don't!

On the flip side, however, ill-trained big dogs are downright dangerous. Two weeks back I was walking my 60lb shepherd mix who is a sweet, submissive dog. A 120lb mastiff pushed an unlatched gate open, raced across the street, and tackled my dog. She was just mouthing and showing dominance behavior so no damage was done, but it scared the living shit out of me. I tried and was unable to pull her off my dog as the owner came running over. He is probably a 200lb guy and could barely control his dog. He was very apologetic, offered to pay for a vet visit to make sure everything was ok, and promised to keep better tabs on his gate. He didn't, however, offer to send his dog to obedience training.

The lesson here is that some people are lazy and irresponsible - some of them own big dogs, but I'm guessing more of them own small dogs because they think they require less work.

[chrisrw109.livejournal.com]

My neighbors have exactly this type of loud-aggressive little dog, and are >< close to having a visit from animal control. Their little dog is aggressive, and apparently hates me to dickens. So when I'm walking up the path to my door he often goes berserk barking and hopping around behind their glass front door.

On two occasions the dog has been off-leash and charged me, barking around me in circles etc while my neighbor *finishes what she's doing* and then retrieves her dog. The second time the dog tugged on the jacket I had draped over my laptop bag.

If there is a third incident, said owner is getting a visit from animal control. If said rat bites at something I'm actually wearing, I am not guaranteed that my love of animals will over-ride my EXTREME aversion to being chewed at.

I don't understand people who have these rats instead of dogs, and those that do make the choice seem to universally buy in to that 'I don't need to train my dog, he's too small to hurt anyone' bs.

[jerril]

I used to live around the corner from a similar dog, with similar owners, and I had to walk by their house to get to the bus stop. I think it eventually ran off a little too far and got hit by a car, which is downright tragic - entirely the owners fault.

[snap-wilson.livejournal.com]

I was in a similar situation that didn't turn out so well. Molly, a German Shepherd owned by a friend of mine, killed a small but violently aggressive chihuahua as her and I looked on horrified. Molly was a completely gentle and obedient dog and didn't make a move on the chihuahua, and was backing up until I (mistakenly, in hindsight) interjected myself between them and the dog started attacking my leg. Then it rushed to my defense, grabbed the chihuahua by the throat, snapping its neck right away, shook it once, dropped it and looked up at us like nothing had happened.

The owner freaked out and threatened to sue and have Molly put down but there were a number of witnesses to what happened who promised to testify if that happened (and apparently the recently-deceased chihuahua was a menace who had bitten a couple of neighbors), and she never did.

Anyway, happy for Piper and you that it all worked out.

[cyprinella]

I have so much hate for people who do things like that with their dogs. Also for the assholes that let their dogs run off-leash in national parks where there are giant signs about all pets being on leash. Because, as much as I love my dog, she's a shelter dog with issues and while she's much better than she used to be about other dogs, she also will not brook off-leash dogs running up and getting in her face in "greeting" (aka being extremely rude/possibly threatening in Dog). Puppies get a pass but everyone else doing that gets snapped at. When I'm 20 feet off a trail and up a hill to avoid that asshole's dog? I'm going to be really pissed to have do deal with the fall out of that asshole freaking out if Fluffy gets bit.

[senorcameltoe.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more. I'll never forget walking with a friend and her large, black lab in a park (where leashes were required). Her dog had aggression issues with other dogs that they were trying to correct (an unfortunate history from previous owners). She was on leash and we were keeping our distance, working on distraction training. An off-leash dog suddenly came running toward us to say hello. The woman yells out, "It is ok - my dog is friendly." My friend replied, "Well mine isn't!"

Since there were two of us we were able to keep the dogs separated despite some threatening barking and growling. When the owner finally made it over to us she got all indignant suggesting that we shouldn't have an aggressive dog in a public park. I lectured her on having her dog off-leash and reminded her that SHE was the one who was actually violating the dog ordinance and I would like her name to report her. That shut her up pretty quick...

Unfortunately, I'm sure that she didn't learn her lesson. I've seen her jogging with her dog since, off-leash, and not trained to respond to voice commands. It darts off and runs up to crowds of people, completely ignoring her. It is a cute (but stupid) golden mix that is completely friendly, but she just doesn't grasp that that doesn't make it ok.

[jasmine-koran.livejournal.com]

One of the last times I took Grendel to the dog park, we were confronted by a woman with a jack russel. This woman proceeded to ask me if it was a good idea to bring such a "dangerous animal" (i.e. Grendel, a rottweiler, and the gentlest dog I have ever known) out in public. This is while her jack russel was busily chewing on my ankle.

My response: "My dog's not the one biting people."

"HE'S NOT BITING HE'S PLAYING."

...right then.