Sadie is sometimes snarky. So am I. Aren’t you? Aren’t we all?
(I know. Snarky is not a real word. But, it should be. It just so onomatopoetic.)
Have you ever met someone who just rubbed you the wrong way right from the start? At first meeting they enthusiastically get real close, violating your personal space with ‘friendliness’ and curiosity. They didn’t intend to be obnoxious. They just were. You put your hand up like a traffic cop to stop them and say, “Excuse me?” hoping they will take the hint and back away. Then, minutes later, as if they didn’t hear a word you said and were totally oblivious to the impact they had had on you, they’re in your face again! This time you turn your reaction up a notch with a staccato, “Get. Away. From. Me. Please!”
Who’s being inappropriate here? Do ‘friendly intentions excuse obnoxious behavior? Are you rudeness incarnate? Or, are you merely asserting your right to your comfort zone?
I’m sure the nice lady with the Porteguese Water Dog puppy thought Sadie was being bitchy today when she snarked at the puppy as it squeezed its nose between me and the car and toward Sadie’s kennel while Sadie was still in it. In Sadie’s world that is the height of uncouthness.
I know Sadie doesn’t like dogs sniffing around when she’s in her kennel in the car. That’s why I tried to block the PWD as I saw her and her person head in the direction of our car, and why I was feeding Sadie treats. It was, I had hoped, a little classical conditioning moment. Sadie while in her kennel sees a dog and salmon jerky lands in her mouth. But that puppy’s head wiggling towards Sadie was too much for Ms. S. Whatever conditioned emotional response we might have been working up to unraveled. That pushy puppy sent Sadie over her threshold. Sadie let go with a few growly ruff-ruff- ruffs, “Go away!”
Minutes later we arrived at the trailhead. The puppy, now about 50 yards in front of us and off leash, as was Sadie, turns and runs full tilt towards Sadie, who, for her part, just stood there in the face of the onrush and pivoted her head away. I wondered if this puppy had been to puppy kindergarten. Surely learning not to rush into other dogs head-on, especially those signaling “I don’t like this,” would have been a lesson learned. Sadie, still not aggressing, tolerated subsequent butt sniffing for about, oh, three seconds. Then she ruffed at the puppy as if to say, “Enough!” I had again tried to make this a rewarding moment by clicking and treating Sadie for being tolerant. But, I was one second late with the clicker. I clicked just as Sadie snarked! Great.
The puppy’s person called to her PWD, “Apollo. Apollo,” and Sadie and I walked past them without incident. I apologized for Sadie’s outbursts, but I could tell by the woman’s pursed lips that she was having none of it. Looking at the situation from her point of view, her fluffy puppy was being friendly and playful and my dog ‘attacked’ for no good reason.
I’ve played this scene over and over. I wish I had thought to give Sadie her “turn” cue when I saw the puppy running at her, and we could have walked off in the opposite direction. But, the PWD still would have caught up with Sadie and likely would have startled her from behind and Sadie still might have needed to tell Apollo to stop!
Or, maybe, especially in light of the snarky episode at the car, I should have waited until the PWD was out of sight before setting out on the trail. What’s that they say about hindsight? It’s 20-20?
We met six other dogs on that same walk, all ‘sans snark’. A beautiful maniac of a Weimaraner that raced in circles around Sadie. A Border Collie mix puppy that tried to herd Sadie as she chased after her ball. A Boxer and an Australian Shepherd, neither of which wanted anything to do with Sadie or her them. A Golden Retriever and a chocolate Labrador that raced at Sadie and submissively licked at her muzzle.
I hate it when Sadie snarks. But I also think that people, as I’m sure was the case with the PWD’s person given her expression, have unrealistic expectations that dogs should tolerate obnoxious behavior without complaint, especially when ‘my sweet 6 month old puppy is just being friendly.’
What do you think?
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Deborah I couldn’t agree more! With Cleo’s size and alpha nature, she is more often than not the one expected to be more “mannered” when it comes to canine interactions on our walks.
Not fair! It’s amazing to me that humans have cohabited with dogs for thousands of years and we still don’t understand their behavior and codes of conduct. We really have unrealistic expectations. Kinda like if a woman expresses anger even when provoked she’s a bitch. Huh?
I am constantly apologizing for Brit (my jrt)’s obnoxiously over friendly meetings with other people’s dogs! Just because she is teeny (12″ tall and 9.5 lbs), cute and appears to be being friendly does not excuse her in my opinion and I NEVER say anything to anyone whose dog snarks at Brit because if I were the other dog I would snark at her too! I also know that Brit is not as cute and friendly as she appears to the average person and my guess is that the other dogs are able to size that up when she rushes towards them and just don’t want to agree to be bossed around by the little tyrant 😉
You are very understanding 🙂 I know I shouldn’t, but I keep being surprised by people who appear to be utterly clueless about canine etiquette. But then, I didn’t know much until Sadie came alone and insisted that I learn. Still, I hate it when she has to snark. Her bark is mighty! It sounds like she’s going to take the other dog out. But, I’m confident from our vast experience that that outcome is highly, highly unlikely.
Makes me think of the walk a friend and I took our pups on last night. Off leash walk. We saw a group of about 10 people ahead of us, and we noticed that they reached down to pick up their 3 dogs. My friend got a bit “snarky” with her reaction. She yelled to them, “You know, you should just let your dogs meet ours. You shouldn’t pick them up like that every time. Just let them be dogs.”
Now, I know this friend well, and while when she says inappropriate things like this I always cringe, I’m never surprised by it. In fact I agree with her. In my head I was thinking, “Come on, people. Put your dogs down. Can you not read my golden retriever’s body language? Tail relaxed, up and wagging, lips pulled back in an appeasing smile, shoulders aren’t leaning back or forward, and she’s not rushing at you, she’s walking past your group. She will not eat your chihuahua. In fact, she will most likely have to lay her head down on the ground to get lower than your pup if he demands it of her. She’s very perceptive and polite around small dogs, and isn’t interested at all in status. If you’re worried that your little pup is aggressive, mine is the perfect pup for you to “practice” on, since she knows exactly how to handle insecure dogs.”
I wanted to have a conversation. Not scold people for getting irritated that we allowed our dogs to run around “free” on the trail. I didn’t say anything, though (mainly since they were all speaking Spanish and I figured the language barrier wouldn’t get us very far). With hindsight, I wish I would have called the dogs back to us. Should’ve taken that moment as practice for my own pups’ recall.
Ah, well. But still, people. Put down your dogs for gosh sakes. If mine doesn’t get the “hint” and yours has to defend her territory, I get it. I’m not going to blame you or your pup. It was a good lesson that Sadie taught to that PWD pup that day, whether the owner knows it or not! She should have said, “Thank you” for the lesson, rather than getting all bitchy.
I run an in-home dog daycare, and when we have over-exuberant puppies, I tell the owners, “Bella is extremely tolerant of puppies crawling all over her, biting and pulling at her ears, jumping on her… but when she’s had enough she’ll first give them a little snarl-growl as a warning, and if they don’t stop, she’ll then do the bark-lunge.” She never does more than that. The owners always (ALWAYS) tell me, “That’s perfect. My pup needs to learn how to be polite. Thank you.”
If only this lady could have thought this way about her PWD’s lesson.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You remind me, and I should have mentioned this in the post, that over half the time that Sadie ‘corrects’ an overly friendly pup, which isn’t all that often, people say, as your clients do, “My dog needs to learn.” But, as I’ve mentioned in my other replies, it’s quite something how many people think ANY snarl-growl from a dog means the dog is aggressively attacking their dog. I think we need to institute an “understanding dog behavior” curriculum in schools. There are so many dogs in our lives these days living with us a full-fledged members of the family, we owe it to them to learn their language.
Yes!
New dog owners should take a course on dog body language just so they aren’t fearful of letting their kids out to play on the “scary” playground.
I’ve written a couple of time (the latest, a guest post at Champion of My Heart) that Buster and Ty are fearful of other dogs … Buster only when he is on leash, and Ty only when he is awake (!). We try to anticipate events before they happen, sometimes we have to apologize. But both are getting better at responding to our “Leave it” command. The frustrating thing is that Buster and Ty are better for me than for Amy. They at their worst when all four of us are walking together. The best situation is when I am walking just one of the dogs. It all seems like such a crap shoot.
Crap shoot indeed! How wonderful it would be to be the producer, writer and director of our dogs’ interactions. But, alas the real world serves up real life.
BTW, I loved your interview with Roxanne (Champion of My Heart).
I think that dogs have to right to dislike things, whether it is deserved or not, but particularly when it is deserved.
I think what we aspire to with our dogs is the higher level of dog communications. There is always more than one way to deal with an unpleasant situation. Some dogs seem to have highly ‘sophisticated’ way of dealing with things. They will use calming or neutral signals or simply avoidance and if can work quite well.
Can a dog ‘learn’ this or is it a personality trait that a dog needs to be born with? I think that under the right circumstances they can learn this. Meanwhile though, I believe that dogs have the right to be dogs.
Yes, I agree. And I think we humans have a obligation to our dogs to learn to understand their behavior and how they communicate. They are masters at subtleness–usually.
Well now it’s my turn for a brief snark (which I think is a perfectly acceptable word) — and not in response to your post, Deborah, but to Natalie’s comment. I’m always encountering dogs off leash on the trail when they’re not supposed to be off leash, and when they come to say hello to my fearful dog, Frankie, who hides behind me they say, but oh, he’s friendly. Well, you know, your dog may be giving all the friendly body signals in the world, but my dog doesn’t want to engage. So although I don’t pick Frankie up, I feel completely irritated by the owners who say (or even think), “Well, just let your dogs be dogs and play.” Maybe the people who picked up their dogs don’t read the signals correctly, but that’s not the point. It’s disrespectful to assume that every dog wants to engage with another dog, friendly or not.
I’m totally with you about dogs off leash in leash-only areas. I depend on dogs being on-leash in leashed areas because an off-leash dog coming up to Sadie when she’s on-leash is, to say the least, not a good moment for her. Also, I agree with you that we should not let our dogs run up to other dogs without first asking if it’s ok. That means a dog’s recall has to be really good. In Natalie’s defense, she did say she wishes in hindsight that she had called her dogs back to her.
Your comment triggered another thought though about the people picking their dogs up. We never know what another dog’s or person’s experience has been. If we’ve had a bad experience in the past we try to avoid it in the future. Maybe that’s why they picked their dogs up.
And, yet another thought just occurred ot me about big and little dogs who don’t know each other. It’s happened in Boulder that an otherwise friendly, non-aggressive big dog’s chase/prey drive kicked in when he saw a little dog chasing a ball at the dog park. The big dog killed the little one. So, big and little dogs off-leash running around can be an especially unfortunate mix.
I understand your concern when it comes to leashed areas. The area where this occurred was basically in forest-service land and is an “unofficial” off-leash dog park. Again, I understand, but I wanted to clarify the situation. 🙂
Thanks, Natalie.
Thanks, Deborah. You’re right about the prey drive. When I first got Frankie and didn’t know better, I introduced him to my friend’s generally sweet greyhound, who must have associated him with the rabbit that she’d been bred to chase. The look on her face wasn’t pretty. Luckily, she and Frankie were easily parted.
But you’ve reminded me too of another type of problem I had the other day with an offleash dog. This big mixed breed (maybe German Shepherd and lab?) came bounding over to Frankie out of nowhere. The owner tried to recall him — by shouting of course! — and then finally ran over and got him away by practically choking him, which upset me further. The dog was being friendly, even though Frankie wasn’t interested, and the owner punished him for being a dog.
Arrrgh. So the woman choked the dog for not coming when she called. I wonder how much time and effort, it takes a lot, she put into her helping her dog be successful at recall. You touched on a nerve with this example. It’s one of my pet peeves–dogs rushing up out of nowhere. I’m glad Frankie was okay with it. I feel sorry for the dog, though, being choked for her person’s failings.
Edie, I don’t feel it’s my place to tell you what you should or shouldn’t force your dog to encounter. Last year, I’ll admit I felt differently, and probably would have supported my friend more. But this blog, Deborah, has given me a whole new perspective, and I thank you for that. The reason I originally checked out this blog was because I thought I had a fearful dog… turns out, I have a daredevil compared to most here. I never knew what a struggle so many of you go through, and it makes me realize that in the end Bella isn’t suffering by not being the most outgoing in the group, especially since I work on helping her overcome her “mini” fears and insecurities, rather than forcing her to get over it.
I’m right there with you in that people are often lazy when it comes to letting their pup off leash, especially if that pup is even the slightest bit of a bully. I’m a pet sitter, and have had off-leash pups come up to me and the dog I’m walking out of nowhere. Out of necessity I’ve gotten VERY good at blocking approaching dogs, and I highly suggest that you keep working on that skill, and wish you luck with it, too! I know, I’m preaching to the choir.
THAT BEING SAID…
When I saw those folks pick up their dogs, I assumed exactly what Deborah mentioned here. That they probably had a bad experience in the past, and they need to do what they need to do to make sure their dog has an enjoyable walk. If I make the effort to put myself in your shoes when I see you pick your dog up on the walk, Edie, I expect you to do the same for me. Rather than assuming that I’m some lazy bum of an owner like the above, I expect you to put yourself in my shoes and consider, “Huh, that lady’s letting her dog run on over. I bet it rarely crosses her mind to worry about her pup having a bad experience with this greeting stuff.”
I just don’t like it when I get the finger point at me saying, “Those Off-Leash People” are so rude and inconsiderate.
I absolutely DO assume that most of the dogs we come across are more than happy to say hello, since 98% of the time, it’s been true for me. You seem to be demanding that I change my assumptions, but assumptions arise out of experiences, and I haven’t had those negative experiences like you have, so how would I know? Why should I lessen the freedom & fun my dog has on her walk just to avoid upsetting that other 2% out there?
*Deborah, just to clear something up, I actually don’t feel I SHOULD have recalled Bella just to make sure I didn’t upset the other walkers. I just feel I COULD have used it as recall practice, plain & simple. Bella didn’t, and wouldn’t (I know this 110%) push the other dogs’ boundaries. She doesn’t rush up to other dogs if they give even the slightest signal of being uncomfortable. Edie, I’m sure you’ve encountered polite dogs like this, even off-leash. Haven’t you? Seriously, I’m really sorry if you haven’t.
I’m not going to call my dog back to me every single time we encounter another dog on the walk when we’re in an off-leash area. That’s unrealistic for anyone to expect. I’m trying to teach Bella to be more outgoing, that she doesn’t need to look to me every single time we meet another pup on a walk. Doing what you’re asking would be counter to the training B needs.
*************
There is no perfect solution here, other than 1) be honest about your pup, and if he’s a bully you should keep him on a leash, 2) keep learning blocking techniques against “pushy” dogs, 3) keep finding dogs like my Bella that your pup can have GOOD experiences with, and 4) be aware that other people simply have different experiences than you, and it’s unnecessary to complain or be rude to them if their perception doesn’t match yours. We all have enough stress just trying to create the best life for our dogs.
Natalie, I’m sorry if you felt insulted. I’m sure Edie didn’t intend that. I think this is a topic we all have strong feelings about and there are some things we agree on and others we don’t, which if fine. I know for me it’s sometimes difficult to have a discussion in the comments section of a blog because, again for me anyway, it’s not as easy to explore and understand each other’s assumptions as it is in a face to face conversation.
Your comment has made something clearer to me and raised a question–what is proper dog etiquette in both on-leash and off-leash areas? Here’s the situation in Boulder–and right now this is a HOT political issue. There are designated on-leash trails and off-leash trails in Boulder Open Space. (I’m talking trails here, not dog parks.) On the off leash trails dogs are required to be under voice and sight control. Part of what this means is that your dog is not supposed to approach another dog unless you and the person with the other dog agrees that it’s okay for the dogs to meet. Really. Those are the rules/laws. Does everyone follow them? No. But, if there is a ranger around and the dog meeting is not ‘consensual’ and the dogs get into a tussle, the people might just get a fine. So to be on the safe side and to ‘follow the rules’ most people most of the time either keep their dogs separated in V&S areas or ask if it’s ok for the dogs to meet. So, while acting on previous experience is what we do most of the time in most areas of our life, doing so in Boulder with our dogs on trails is probably not wise because it’s not about experience, it’s about the rules.
This is a HOT political issue here because there is a move afoot to eliminate V&S control, in other words, no or many fewer off leash trails. So people who want to keep V&S (me!) are really being vigilant about dog:dog interactions, picking up your dog’s poop and dog:people interactions.
I mention this because I suspect every town is different in terms of the rules/laws and the social norms regarding dog:dog interactions, and both of those things influence our assumptions and perceptions. I know they do mine. Thus, I would say that it is the thing to do to call your dog back from dog:dog interactions unless the people agree it’s ok for the dogs to meet. Now, to be clear, this doesn’t happen in Boulder all the time. But, I do think it’s something people generally aspire to especially in the current political climate.
As for when both dogs are on leash or one dog is on leash and the other isn’t—–I expect people to ask before letting the dogs interact. Many dogs on leash behave differently than when they are off leash. It’s not worth taking a chance.
I hope I didn’t further muddy the waters 🙂
Not muddied at all!
I really need to learn to edit my posts so they don’t come off as “defensive,” since I wasn’t worried/insulted by Edie. Sorry if I was harsh there!
*I wrote this whole scenario up to question Boulder’s “greeting law” and then just reread your comment & you said “if there’s a tussle”. Well, that makes sense, and I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree. Pet owners should definitely have recourse if anything is to happen to their pup because of an irresponsible pet owner who allows their (even slightly) aggressive or prey driven pup out on an off-leash walk.
You know, the reason I commented a second time is that I think there just needs to be some understanding from “the other side.” I’m not offended at all when someone gives me The Look when Bella approaches them. Rather, it’s just a matter of giving the other side my perspective. After all, wouldn’t we all rather have positive experiences on our walks? Isn’t it more positive to think the best of strangers, rather than assuming that they are inconsiderate buttheads (is that ok to say here)? 😀
HI Natalie–I think I need to clarify. If there is a tussle between dogs, it’s too late. No one wants that to happen whether or not a ranger gets involved. The idea behind the Boulder rule is to avoid bad interactions. So that means we are supposed to always ask the other dog’s person if it’s okay if our dogs greet before they do and not assume it’s okay.