DOG BITES | Weekly Pet Roundup

0:00 Hi everybody, welcome back to the weekly Pet Roundup. My name is Jessica. I'm with the Pet Parenting Reset. This is Isabel with covered and pet hair and Hi. So this week we were talking about dog bites. And I think, I mean, obviously there's a lot of like dog bite prevention that can be talked about. But I know last week when you were suggesting this, you were like, we need to get kind of in the nitty gritty of this and like realize that this is not sometimes you have to make really hard decisions. So yeah, I'm going to let, I'm going to let you start off with like where you want this I think to go because it's a big, it's a big topic and it it can be a very emotional topic as well.

0:51 Yes. So trigger warning for today, first of all, because we will probably discuss behavioral euthanasia, which is when you put a dog and we're talking about dogs specifically today when we when we put a dog down because of a behavior, because of escalating behaviors, because of bites and bite histories, because that dog is incompatible with life as we know it. So that is behavioral euthanasia as best as I can explain it. There are many reasons for behavioral euthanasia. But today we'll talk about bite related euthanasia. And the reason I wanted to talk about this topic is because a friend of mine from the DC area reached out and she says that a friend of hers found a dog.

1:38 The details escaped me right now. I read them when the Facebook message came in, but and the dog ended up staying with them. And the time frame again, I'm not 100% on, but over the time that they've had them, let's say in the past year or two, the dog has bit resource guarding was mentioned around meal times. And immediately I thought, OK, management, but I didn't dig into the situation because I don't want to make this a personal discussion about this case. I want to talk about it more generally. But one of the recommendations that this particular family has received is behavioral euthanasia. So I thought this is a conversation that a lot of people have and it's actually a lot more common than many people maybe think.

2:32 And I know that people have conversations about behavioral euthanasia relating to fear as well and separation anxiety when like it just escalates so bad that the pet is a danger to himself and others, him or herself and others. So, but we'll talk about, you know, like just bites in general and when a dog is biting so often and in ways that make it really hard for training to work. Yeah. What we do as humans to set them up for failure often and how we can set them up for success.

3:12 So first I think the most important thing is to understand that what a bite is. So I did look up and if you have any experiences with this kind of stuff, please join in comments either on Facebook, on YouTube or on Instagram and we'll we'll get to you as soon as there's a little pause. But there are bike scales out there. The one that I always kind of refer to is the Dunbar bike scale dog bike scale. It's Ian Dunbar is a really well known dog trainer. I've heard him speak at at a couple conferences. I have a lot of respect for him. I've kind of lost track with him of him for over the past few years. He's one of your OG like positive trainers. He.

3:57 Is and I, I've taken a few of his courses online and I think the reason that you have, you may not have heard from him in a while is because he, I think his son is taking over the business. Probably retirement age, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure there's some difficulties in that, you know, because it's not the same person, though I'm sure he has the same style of training because that's what he grew up with, that's what he knows. And yeah, I think I, I still get emails pretty regularly from them. I say them because I think his father is still involved in some ways and making like, not necessarily the everyday content, but like if they need to do like a YouTube video or, you know, put out a course or, or whatever, like his, I think his father is still involved in that. But yeah, I, I think he's probably one of my favorite resources for, for dog training.

4:56 Absolutely. Same. So he, he and one. One would think that there would be this would be kind of well known, but I know for a fact most pet parents don't know about the Dunbar bite scale. I know that professional pet sitters may not even know about it. Some of the newer ones I know the ones who've had a lot of studying and and done a lot of education in the industry do. But it is something that I feel like people don't know about. And I think it's so important that every single pet parent know about this scale, because a snap. Is considered. A bite. And yeah.

5:38 A lot of people are like, oh, he didn't bite, he just snapped. And what I love about this scale is that it is considered level 1 is a dog to snap and make no contact. That is level 1 bites. And what that's so important for pet parents to know because people don't take notice until you get to like a Level 3 and then. And. Sometimes it's really the a lot of damage has been done. Not to say it's too late, but a lot of damage has been done. So pet parents, dog parents, if your dog is one that snaps Satchmo, my the dog that I just took from my sister snaps all the time, which is one of the reasons why he doesn't live with a toddler right now.

6:29 He lives in my house where my kids are older and literally just ignore him. They've been told to never pet him and they don't. But you can't tell a toddler that who's 16 months, right? On the contrary, he looks like a stuffed animal. So that toddler would just go after him. And a lot of people are like, oh, just teach the toddler. That just tells me you don't have toddlers, you have no experience with toddlers. They're like, they have a death wish. You can tell them not to jump off a Cliff and they will. So that's why you hold on tight to them. So, yeah, so the bite levels for the Dunbar Dog bite scale start at level 1, which is again a snap. There is a an aggressive reactive open of the mouth, snap of the teeth or even just a redirection that looks aggressive. And there is no contact made on the person or pet or animal that they're being they're trying to bite or that they're trying to warn because of a lot of us call it warning. Warning bites too, right?

7:25 Yeah, and I, Kim has done this. I'm not going to like, I'm not going to lie. And I took, I took it very, very seriously. And I think that's one thing that pet parents often don't do is they're like, oh, that's cute, that's funny. That's not cute, that's not funny. It's it is natural. Like we are putting a dog in an environment that is not natural to them, giving them no real instruction that they understand. Just saying no to them all the time, right? Without telling them what they should be doing instead, or showing them what they should be doing instead. And then expecting them to act the way we want them to act without having taught them any of it. Like that's in my opinion.

8:10 And a lot of people will be like, well, it's communication. He's communicating. And I'll say he just because it's easier for me to refer to dogs in general as he. I think actually in the pet industry or in the dog training industry, usually they refer to dogs as female like cars and stuff. But I literally, if you're going to compare a dog to a car and call it female just because of that, I'm going to do the opposite. So it is I'm just going to refer to all of them as as he in this scenario just so I don't have to correct myself. But yes, your dog is communicating when they do a level 1 bite, which is AKA a snap aaka, a warning bite, AKA a request for space. It is communication.

8:50 The problem is that that dog should have other ways of communicating that don't get to the level where it's almost a bite. And what we're seeing when a dog almost bites in a level 1 is that either you ignored the communication that became prior or that dog doesn't have the tools to communicate prior, which is something that I'm not. You can't always blame the human. A lot of the times you can blame the human. But like with Satchmo, I saw him, I witnessed him ages ago jump on my grandmother's lap. She did not, she does not like dogs. She did not invite him up.

9:34 She did not want anything to do with him. And then she kind of looked at him. And as she looked down, she moved and he snapped her. So he. Very Chihuahua thing to do. I know he's not a Chihuahua, but yes, that's a. Very. That's a very confused and secure, unsocialized, under socialized dog thing to do. He jumped on her because it was storming. But then he got there and he was like, but don't touch me. Right. Yeah. Right. So he doesn't have the tools. He doesn't have the communication. In his case, my grandmother did nothing wrong. And obviously she was in a rock and a hard place because if she had been like, get off of me, he would have been on her for real.

10:18 So she was just kind of like, oh, she doesn't like pets. So she didn't want him on her at all. She's the only one in my family of significant pets lovers that is like, I don't care about dogs and cats. Like I don't care about them. A cat attacked her when she was little. So from that, from then on, it was like terrified, petrified of pets. That probably didn't help the situation either because he thought he maybe he thought he was jumping on my mom and he ended up on the lady who doesn't like him. And so there's a lot of psychology at play, right? But at the end of the day, if they're communicating by snapping at you, they're that's why we take that so seriously, because that means that either you're disrespecting your dog's boundaries and you're ignoring other communication that comes before the bite, like licking the lips, like yawning, like looking away, like whale I all those appeasement signs that we refer to as appeasement signs, you're ignoring all of those.

11:11 And then you're pushing your dog to this. Right. Yeah. Your dog doesn't have the words, which also does happen and like we need to. And those are the dogs that I think are at highest risk for behavioral euthanasia because those are the dogs that are so unpredictable that sometimes we end up in the situation where it's like, I don't know when he's going to bite. I don't know what triggers the bite. So now I'm really scared of this dog escalating and hurting somebody and not having the tools to solve it. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think yes, aside from those dogs who don't have those tools, who, who don't, don't have any warning signs because they just don't know they those types of dogs set those aside for a minute. And, and like, when I think about so many of the bite cases, it is all I can see in my mind are like these videos that people post on social media of, you know, their children, their toddlers, like pulling and jumping on top of the backs of. And it's like, this is not funny. This is not cute.

12:26 This. And, and, you know, you can see in this animal's body language, in their eyes that they are so uncomfortable and they are trying so hard not to bite. And those are the ones that like just break my heart because that's going to be the very first time that dog bites. They're going to get put down when? That happened to me with a friend. Friends were over ages ago with their toddler and my dog's socks had a bite history and we had never seen her bite anybody. But she bit like a neighbor because the mailman was coming and the dog Walker had her on too far thing.

13:08 And it was like that perfect storm and the lady was too close and she like snapped and she did a Level 3, a single bite with a shallow wound. It was a tiny little nick, but it was still a Level 3. We're not going to make excuses for her. But but that was like that had been like 3 years prior. We hadn't seen any kind of behavior like that. We had had the dogs away. We take them outside because it's about to storm. And so we're like the Fort starts raining. Let me let's let's let them pee. We're going to put them back into the room where they were in and the toddler starts really getting into that. Of all the four dogs we had the one with the bite history, I got distracted and Chris was monitoring. Chris was my husband was, was supervising, which was our first mistake.

13:54 I'm the one with the pet experience. I'm the one who has done dog training and who's learned dog behavior. I was getting something for one of my guests playing Hostess, right? And Chris was like, hey, don't she doesn't. Socks doesn't like she's scared of strangers or something. And the mom was very chill about the situation. And Socks actually walked with cameras in our home just because we had two dogs that didn't super get along. So we always wanted to see like, if something happened, we want to be able to replay it. They were craving separately when we weren't there. It's usually what happens usually was when we were there, there was like a scuffle and we wanted to see what happened. So we had cameras.

14:38 And when I watched the camera over, I saw how Sox was walking away from the child, but the child kept following her. And then you hear the mom saying don't, don't climb the dog. So she saw that he was about to kind of climb the dog and you see my dog tense up and go and it she in this case thank God it was a level 2 where the teeth made contact but did not break the skin. She was a 65 LB dog and he was a toddler. If she wanted to hurt him, she ABS 100% would have hurt him. Yeah.

15:22 Angels, our ancestors, our angels, our spirit guides. Everybody. Somebody was. Everybody was there to protect that child, but I was told it was unprovoked until I saw the video and I said it's not unprovoked. She's walking away and the child is following her and so is the mom who she doesn't know. So even though for the mom it was like I'm supervising my kid now. It's two strangers, not just one, right? So like it's mom's mom was completely right to be right there guiding the child. But the dog is like 2 strangers and Chris was there but he was kind of mind them so it socks his mind.

16:06 He wasn't there to reinforce anything or protect her because she was too far away. He was between these two threats. In her mind they were threats. And this is a dog that had been trained with shock choke prong collars, a dog with a ton of stranger danger. And so in her mind, it was 1000% provoked in my husband's mind. And what the obviously the toddler, it's not his fault in any way. Like he like we should never have set him up in that way or her really human adult human failure. And obviously the mom was way too cool with like don't climb the dog.

16:49 Like if I'm super paranoid about dog kid relations. So I'd be like, how dare you even get near the dog? Walk away now, right? Like if I have to tell you not to climb a dog, you're way in the dog space completely. So like everybody kind of like dropped the ball and myself included. And the kid got fit. And everybody who did not know dog behavior said it was unprovoked when, when I watched it back and I sent it to a friend of mine and my then business partner who had just gone through like Karen Pryor and Victoria Stillwell's training. And she was like unprovoked and she was and you know, because she, she knew Socks, my, my former business partner. And she said, I'm so proud of socks. Did you see her walking away?

17:32 Did you see her be like, I don't like this, I'm going to walk into the other room? And it was so funny because, yes, somebody with that experience and that knowledge sees that the dog tried to avoid it and the humans set her up for failure, right? Yeah. And the same thing happened with Noah and Socks a few years later. She was resource guarding me. I said to Chris, this is getting tense. I could see her. I could see her. And by the time Chris men make his way over, she snapped at Noah. And that's when I actually had to consider behavioral euthanasia for Socks, which she had never she had gotten to a level 2 once and we're going to go into it goes to level 6 guys and I even had to consider behavioral euthanasia with this dog.

18:19 I thankfully did not have to make that decision because she got we managed it really beautifully. And then one day she just got sick and died of unrelated things. She was older, so we did not have to face that, but she only got to a level 2, which is teeth make contact but do not break the skin with my son. But after that was the second level 2 with a toddler and I had a toddler and I was pregnant with my second. It was very, very concerning, right? Concerning that this dog is incompatible with toddlers. But I'm the most experienced pet owner she could probably have, right? Like where else does she go from my house? Right.

19:01 Like yeah, yeah, other than somebody without kids. Well, but then still because. She still had a blind history. Right. Who was going to take her? Right? So she had years before bitten the neighbor because the mailman blah blah blah. Yeah. Who was going to take her with like now 2 level 2 bites and one Level 3 bite Nobody like. So it was one of those situations where you run out of choices. So Level 3 again is a single bite with shallow wounds. And that's what this and like the person that sucks bit who was a neighbor, we didn't know them but like obviously we the dog Walker gave the information because once there's any kind of puncture you need to get like the rabies certificates and all that.

19:43 So all that was done and we paid like her co-pay. She went to like urgent care, they cleaned it out and it was like a non issue like $35 or something. It was not a big deal, but it did obviously it becomes the second that there is any kind of puncture, any kind of wound, it becomes an issue with animal control rabies certifications or certificates, you know, making sure that's why socks like even though I wanted to tighter test her, I always got her vaccinated because I couldn't risk that she would not have that certificate because she had a bite history and I knew that dogs with a bite history tend to bite again and if.

20:26 She had a rabies certificate. She could quarantine at the house. If she didn't, she could end up somewhere else quarantining or they could force us to euthanize if there was enough of these incidents. So I really was very scared to vaccinate her every three years, but I had to for her sake. That's the only dog that I've ever had where I was like, I have to do this every three years. And then level 4 is a single bite with deep wounds. And obviously that's like either 1 puncture or like, you know, the whole, all of the both canines or something like that that goes in pretty deep. Level 5 is multiple bites with deep wounds. They went in once and they went back and they went back and they went back. And then level 6 is obviously the death of the victim and or flesh consumed.

21:16 And like we, we refer to those as maulings. Level 6 is a. Mauling yeah, I couldn't imagine. I really. I mean I I understand it happens but of. That of for everybody involved. I have a friend who she was mauled by a dog. She was a professional pet sitter for longer than I was and then she's never been able to take care of dogs again. She's such a she's such a fear. She recognizes where she went wrong, but still like it's just too scary right. Like her faith in, in, in knowing how to prevent it when like she lost faith in herself knowing how to prevent it, right.

22:00 And so she felt until that incident that she was prepared with her education, her experience to manage or to kind of. And she says that she could, I mean, she could have died. She got a level 5. Thankfully he never got her down on the ground. But in her mind, if he had succeeded in pushing her down to the ground, he would have gotten to a level 6. And the thing about pet sitter is dog walkers is that you're alone in the house. So there's nobody else to help you, right? So like that's really when these level fives and sixes happen is when you're alone or like, you know. Or.

22:46 You're walking in your neighborhood and a dog attacks and you don't don't have anybody near you to help you. It's you and your dog. And again, bite levels are just bite levels. It doesn't mean against a human, it could be against another dog and it could be another animal like a cat. We kind of take it less seriously. I feel like if a dog bites a cat because it's like they're, they're like out in the wild versus obviously in your home, very different because then where, where was the management? Where was the intro? But like, I feel like if a dog bites another dog at a dog park, it's a lot more severe than a dog gets off leash and like chases a cat and like catches it, right?

23:26 Like very different situations, scenarios. And so but but a bite level just refers to a bite, no matter who's on the receiving end of it. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I've definitely heard of people having dogs and cats in the same house and the dogs killing the cats. That's that's a thing. And I can understand how traumatic that would be as well. And that even though that is especially for some dog I actually worked with a couple many years ago who fortunately did not have cats in the house, but would go crazy on a walk if it came across a cat.

24:16 And it was a big dog and it was a mixed breed dog. And as soon as I got there, I could see I was like, I I realize this is a mixed breed dog, but you could see the Ridgeback on this dog. And I'm like, will you have? Yeah, mix with a Rhodesian Ridgeback and these dogs were bred to hunt lions. And so this is another reason why I am, even though it seems silly and frivolous to get DNA tests on dogs, like, you know, I, I, I actually really, really like them because it can give you a lot of insight into what, even if it's a bunch of different breeds, like what were those breeds bred for? What should you expect in the behavior of this animal? And I, and it reminds me of like, I think there was actually ATV, one of the shows that Jackson Galaxy did where he trained multiple Rhodesian Ridgebacks in a home that had cats.

25:17 And like, it was about management. It really was about management. And I think it was, yeah, because they were like, they wanted to give their cats a really good life, but they couldn't because they had these dogs. And, and I, I only bring that up to say that like, there are a lot of reasons. It's not just aggression. It's not just poor socialization. It's not just you did something wrong, though I do feel like that is the case in a lot of situations. Just because we don't know, we're not trained, we're not very well prepared, honest to goodness, like, you know, you take a baby home, you take a dog home, you take a cat home, you get no training on how to do any of this right And, and honestly. We we've been.

26:05 I think there's people who, like my grandmother, will never forget that it's an animal. In her mind, it's an animal. Like cats are filthy. They belong outside. Dogs eat garbage. They belong outside, right? So like in her, she's like an extreme. And then we have the other extreme where most of us are on the people who love pets and share our lives with them. Is that where they're like our babies? Yeah. They're not our babies, they're animals, right? Like they're just like we are. And when the second we start accepting that they're animals and our different species of animal than we are the better equipped we are to handle things. But when we are like, we are that, that cloud that those pink colored, those rose colored sunglasses on where they're like our sweet little babies. They're not our sweet little babies. Like they have huge canines that were designed to like tear flesh.

26:58 And that's for both cats and dogs. And the bigger the dog, the bigger the bite, right? So like the reason why more big dog dog bites fall on the bigger dogs is because they have the bigger mouths and the bigger jaws and they make more of a dent. If we just, if we were to just analyze all the Chihuahua bites, they would talk about of, of biters, right? But that's not, they're kind of inconsequential sometimes. And luckily a lot of people don't suffer any like long term, like with a cat bite, you have to be super careful because cats have so much bacteria in their mouth. And a lot of people with dogs, it's not as bad. They don't puncture as far. So like it doesn't become like that huge issue. Even though you should always seek veterinary medical attention or veterinary attention if your dog gets bitten or cat gets bitten.

27:48 But we're more scared of cat bites than we are of Chihuahua bites, even though they're about the same size. But then we're of course, super scared of a pit bull bite or a Rhodesian ridgeback bite because these are very powerful dogs that can really do some damage. But all dogs bite. All dogs bite for many reasons, like you said. I'm a pet first aid instructor, and the first thing I say is you want to get bit. Start administering first aid to a dog that's injured without muzzling it. Like you want to get bit. That's a really good way to get bit because one of the biggest things we do is teach how to use like a leash or something as a muzzle to wrap it around the mouth and do this and do that. Or we set like in my classes, I would sell these little just like long felt things that you could keep in your in your first aid kit.

28:37 Like if you're hiking with your dog and your dog gets something, some kind of puncture or something, you don't go in and start bandaging your dog or putting some kind of antiseptic on that wound unless that dog is muscled because the dog that is moved into pain or is in pain will bite you. Absolutely. That is just one of the million reasons why a dog will bite you. It and and that brings up a good point because you may not even know your dog is in truth, meaning they could be older and experiencing arthritis. They could have twisted their leg and you don't know it. Like there are a lot of reason they could have something internally going on that you don't.

29:20 They can have cancer and you don't know, you know what I mean? Like there are so many reasons why a dog could be in pain and you don't even know and. They're in pain. That's why I think people do see more bites as their dogs age, because they start as like little warnings and then they escalate, not only because we continue to ignore them, but also because as they get older, their tolerance gets smaller. Yes, absolutely. Right, like and they're not now it's I have less tolerance. I have more fear around my pain or around my just like knowing that I'm not as agile as I used to be. I have maybe cognitive decline where I don't remember how to manage this situation. So like all of it just compounds. And now we see these old dogs biting and the first thing I would say, if your dog is old and biting, go to the vet immediately go to the vet, tell your vet. I was I was touching him here and he bit me like the only time that no, that Noah Titan and Noah, I always I was confused them Titan, my first love, the love of my life, the reason that I'm in this industry.

30:23 Titan, the only time he ever snapped at me again, level one, I'm going to call it a snap, but it's a bite, was when I was like touching his paw or something. And I didn't cut his nails because I knew he was super. But I like I, I think I went to like see if he they had like cut it too short or something. And he kind of like was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't touch it. And I hadn't even touched it yet, but it was like don't touch it. And he had never done that to me, right. But now he was 15 years old. So now there were a lot more layers, a lot more reasons to defend himself than there were maybe when I did the exact same thing and he was 5. So we have to remember that like, and then people get really, they take it personally. I did not take that personally at all. Like it did not mean to me that Titan didn't love me anymore. It didn't mean like, it didn't mean that he's a jerk. A lot of people put like a lot of human emotions around dog bites.

31:23 What they are is a communication and it's something we need to pay attention to, but it's not personal unless we know we can recognize like, I did something wrong. I put my dog in a bad situation and then it's a moment of self-awareness that you need but it's not something you take personally. It's like, Oh my dog didn't like that and I need to respect that. But a lot of times I find that after multiple bites people start resenting the dog, which. Yeah. Does not help the situation at all. No. And, you know, again, it's the psychology of humans and not understanding, not, I think that's not understanding like what's going on with your dog. And just thinking that very similarly to like, you know, how we, how so many people think of like cats going outside of a litter box as being like they're, they're they're upset about something.

32:25 They're trying to get back at you. You're like, no, that's not what's happening at all. And I think that's very similar with, you know, dog behaviors that people don't understand. And so they're like, well, you know, there's there's a problem. They're being mean. They don't like me. They're they're angry about something. Well, yeah, they may actually be angry about something, but they're they're really trying to communicate with you in the best way they know how. And they just may not know a better way to to get that across to you. And like you said, the older they get, the less tolerance they have. Same with cats. Same. With and I mean same with. Well, yes, I'm telling you, yes.

33:06 I go to AI, go to an assisted living community twice a week. My grandmother is an assisted living and old people do not hold their tongue. They're constantly fighting somebody about something. Their tolerance levels are low. They have to have things very routine. They have to have things the way they want it. So this is not just our pets. This is just an aging thing, right? It's part of aging in any species is where we become less adaptable as we age. We become less inhibited as we age, and we often have less control of our reactions and our emotions as we age.

33:52 My grandmother is like so sad all the time. Whereas in the same situation 20 years ago, she might have made the best of it, right? So like, it's one of those things where like she really struggles. And I've seen, I've seen couples hit each other at assisted living where I guarantee you they may have had a toxic marriage, but they weren't like on a random day just slapping each other with a, with a purse, right? So like, you know, people, people expect so much of pets when we're seeing it in humans where they can't control their emotions. And if you've ever had like an aging parent or relative, you see that they start like cursing and where you may have never seen them cursing your whole life, they start, you know, being aggressive.

34:34 So they might have been the happiest person on the planet. And that's usually because of cognitive decline, some kind of neurological situation, which they can, we can actually notice in humans because there are changes to their behavior and to their vocabulary. And so they can tell you, I don't remember that or I can, our pets can't tell us what they can and cannot remember. So like, now we're just guessing. And that's why the older the pet gets, the less I want them around children. Especially. Especially if they've never had children. An old dog does not care about your cute new baby or toddler. They don't care. They don't care. They don't want to be besties with it. They don't want to take pictures with it. They don't want to lay in the same bed with it. They don't want anything to do with it. If your dog is the Super duper exception, I'm sorry. I'd rather you not know it.

35:28 I'd rather you. Preserve this child. To the point where you are like militant around your dog and children, especially if the older they get. Titan was I think 12 when Noah was born, maybe a little, maybe 11. And I can tell you it ruined his life. He was like, what have you done? What are you doing? None of my dogs. I had four when Noah was born, 2 when Mila was born, and none of them were really that impressed with a new baby. And the only one that I think will be really impressed is if you get a puppy once your toddler or young child is already a young child or whatever.

36:10 And then of course a puppy's going to love kids because they have similar energies and they're whatever. But like, the biggest concern for me with fights is always pets and children. And it's always the younger the child, the bigger the even if it's a small dog. Like I remember there was a Jack Russell that mauled a baby to, you know, fatally mauled a baby. And it was like, why was that baby left? Like where the Jack Russell could, could, could reach it because maybe he had never even exhibited any signs of anything. But like, that's why you are so duper, super, duper careful about pets and kids.

36:52 And and then there are kids who, even if you supervise them, just don't know how to deal with dogs. I've seen that happen multiple times. I've seen a friend of a friend who like does not stop until they get what they want from the pet. Like if they want the pet sitting on their lap, they're going to do it whether the pet doesn't want to. And if your pet, your kid is still 12 years old doing that, your kid has no business being around a pet. And if you're that way as an adult, then you have some really big waking up to do like the pets are. Aren't these pets our pets, our dogs are not in our life to just to do everything that we want them to do. And the more we push them, the more we're going to see bites.

37:33 And if you see your dog is biting, you have to know why they bit. And like with kids, a lot of it is the resource guarding. You let your toddler crawl around and then they go in the dog crate. Ha ha ha. Pictures, pictures so cute. The dog is the kids in the dog crate. My kid this morning, my 7 year old sitting right next to the dog bed. And I was like, I've told you 500 times. And not just because of the dog because it's covered in fur and you're about to go to school, but also that is her bed. You have a million places to sit down that sucks his bed. Get away from there and you see them on the on the dog bed, on the dog, on the dog, on the bed, on the crate, in the crate with the dog putting their hands in the water bowl, putting their hands in the food bowl.

38:23 And you're like of course the dog is biting. He has like 3 resources in this house. His bed, his crate and his and is food bowl and that your child is attacking all of them. And so if you know, oh, your dog has one time growled, make sure your dog, your kid does not put that hand in the food bowl again. Because that next time it's going to be a level 1, and the next time after that it's going to be a level 2 until it gets to who knows what. Yeah, there was, since you bring up the, the food bowl and the resource guarding. I, I mean, I've, I have worked with dogs like that and it takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. And, and I think it does work better when you have older children, if you have children, because they need to be able to understand not just that they need to stay away, but why they need to stay away because you know, kid, you know, kids, right? They're, they're going to push boundaries and always, I mean, that's their job.

39:21 That's literally. And they have, yeah, they're learning. And they're learning by making mistakes. Like you can tell your kid all day long not to do something, but they're going to do it anyway just because not that they don't believe you or trust you, but they have like this like almost innate need to learn it on their own and be like, OK, So what happens if I like poke myself with this pencil? Like, oh, it does her OK. She was right. Yeah, but I do. So my late husband, his daughter, he's always tell me the story that when she was young like toddler age he was not home from work yet his ex-wife fed.

40:02 The dog did not pay any attention to what was going on. The toddler went while the dog was actively eating and stuck her hand in the food bowl and the dog literally like bit her face. She had to go to the hospital, get stitches, all the things. And they did decide to, they, they gave the dog to a couple that didn't have children. And for me, like I understand that I, I do feel badly for a dog in that situation, like to, to be moved from the only home they've ever known, probably into a new home for really, honestly, in my opinion, no fault of their own because that child was not being managed properly.

40:51 That child was not being taught in like that was a very teachable moment to No, we don't There's a. Reason why? Like, where's the supervision? We just take it for granted that these are like little fluffy little toys. They're not. Yet. An environment like how easy would it be to put up a baby gate to where a toddler can't even get to the area where a dog is eating right? Like that is the simplest thing you could do if you are not. And look, I'm not a parent so I'm not here to say one way or the other what a parent should or should not do. But like environmental management is the easiest thing you can do. If you don't, if even if you don't want to be a parent and teach your child what what is right and what is wrong, put up a fucking baby.

41:41 I'm sorry, put up a baby gate. I agree with you, I 100% would put up the effing baby gate. Like when after I had always managed Noah and Socks, after that resource guarding where they were resource she was resource guarding me. I just walked out to the yard. I have a big enough yard that Chris was with Noah and socks was like sniffing and then I walk out and she's like mom's here and then my son is like mom's here. And so they both came at me and I saw her kind of glance at Noah competition and I immediately said this is getting tense. Come get him and Chris. My husband is neurodivergent and a guy. So his reflex time, I swear, is so slow compared to like a new mom who's just like, ready to like, you know, Mama bear everything. And so he takes a second to literally think through what I'm saying as a neurodivergent brain holder. And by the time he reached me, it had already happened. And we were like, that was too close. Like that was too close.

42:43 That could have been horrible. And even though we did everything right, I noticed I called him. He came as quickly as he knew how. It still happened. So from that moment on, we never had them in the same room at the same time. Titan could be in with if he wanted to. But if we were going to like, let's say Titan was laying down, we wouldn't bother him, but we would say, OK, Socks, let's take you over here, put you outside because she loved to sniff. So we'd put her outside while Noah was playing. And then eventually Titan, the second a noisy toy would get on, like go on, he would just go to the door so he could go join Socks. Or we would immediately just bring everybody outside with treats because management was the only option at that point. It didn't matter how much we recognized her sign, how quickly we moved.

43:33 It was too close for comfort and it could never happen again. And so I am all about the baby gate. We had baby gates all over the house because also we have a two-story house, so that helped. So it's like, OK, so we're upstairs, the dogs can be downstairs and vice versa. And then there's that baby gate where I can let my toddler crawl wherever he's wants to crawl and I can maybe like put away laundry and I'm not worried about like watching everybody interact. So baby gates management and and you don't have to have babies to use baby gates like if you have. I have baby gates, yeah. I have two dogs before we even became parents who did not get along. And so when we left the house, only one could be left out.

44:14 And honestly, the one that was the troublemaker was the one that got created because I knew Kira wouldn't attack the other two. But I didn't. I didn't trust Socks to not attack anybody, even the the friend she'd had since six months old, because I'd seen her be unpredictable and reactive. And I was like, just to be on the safe side for everybody, she's going to be created. And she was 12 years old and she was still created and it was for everybody's safety. And this was a dog that never passed a Level 3 bite one time. And still it was like one thing I always say it will escalate. It's not going to ever go. They a dog that bites one time is probably going to bite again.

44:56 Yeah. And instead of going back from A3 to A1, they're going to go from probably from A3 to A3 or A3 to A4. Like that's what they're going to do. It's going to escalate. It's not going to de escalate. And sometimes the frequency gets bigger because they get more reactive. Every bite is a reinforcement that they have every right to be upset and and scared. I talked to a dog trainer after the first fight that Sox and Kira had and she was like, dogs do not want to bite. They don't want to bite. They never want to bite because a bite is an invitation for a fight and they don't know if they can win that fight. So no dog goes in looking for a fight.

45:36 They know they're better off peaceful. That's the a healthy dog with a healthy survival instinct is not going to bite Willy nilly. They're going in for a bite because they feel threatened and because they feel like if they don't engage, they're going to get mold themselves, right or they're going to get hurt themselves. And I think, I think it would it, I think it's important to acknowledge that yes, there are horrible people out there who, yes, do train dogs to fight. And yes, a lot of these dogs can be rehabilitate. Not all of them, but a lot of them can be rehabilitated and do wind up in loving homes.

46:20 Often times those homes do not have children. But it, it is possible. Yes, there are dogs. Again, as Isabel just said, a healthy dog that has healthy boundaries that has never been through like that kind of trauma, they never want to go out and seek a fight. That being said, yes, there are dogs who have been raised and bred and really horrible things done to them. Yes, to guard dogs that like are literally like trained to do that. Like, they have no discernment at that point. But your pet dog, your pet dog will never want to start a fight.

47:01 It's like at the dog park, if you see, you know, that dog that's bullying everybody, that's not a healthy dog. That's not a dog that is OK. And it's kind of like the bully in the playground where you say that poor child's probably bullied at home, and that's why they're coming over here asserting their power. And like, you know, once you understand psychology, you're just kind of like that poor bully is being bullied and this is what they're learning. And so that the same thing happened for a lot of dogs where they, you know, maybe they're being kind of like alphaed at home, right? Like submissive. What is it? The submissive roles? What do they? Call them alpha roll, the alpha roll where they alpha roll them and like pin them down to like show them who's boss. Like if that's, that's why we are so against all of these like force forward or forceful types of training, because what you do is you're teaching that that's the norm. And then if they're going to go interact with another dog, that's what they're going to do to them. So it's very dangerous to like set those tones. But we have 10 minutes left and like we talked about management, we talked about obviously dog training. Dog training is so important for if you notice a dog bite. Yeah.

48:21 And going to a dog trainer who is positive reinforcement based. I know that there are people out there who will tell you some dogs need force. I am completely in disagreement of that. And I think that the dogs that need the least amount of force are the ones that are biting. Like, please, let's not give them any more reason to be scared of the world in which they live, to distrust humans. I think you and I are always in agreement on that. Like we are not trying to beat bites out of the dog like that. Does that sound like ridiculous or does that sound ridiculous? Like I can't beat my child into being kind. That's insane. So that's the same thing.

49:02 And then a good dog trainer who is positive reinforcement based, the first thing they're going to do is muscle train. That's the first. And do not be turned off if your dog, if your trainer says your dog has a level 123, they need to be muzzle trained immediately. Like if they say that, trust them. That is good advice so long as it's done like properly where your dog accepts the muzzle. They have really comfortable muzzles for these dogs. They don't. You know, you, I was talking about like a like a ribbon for like a first aid situation. That's a temporary muzzle that you just put on for like addressing an injury. The muzzles that they have now that you can get them custom made, you can get them custom colors.

49:44 I mean, there's like a bunch of you can buy them just as is for 20 bucks. And it's like a, a cage muzzle that's very comfortable and breathable. They could still open their mouth, just nobody's going to get hurt. And it's really good too for the dog that like thinks a walk is a buffet. Those dogs can wear those too. And they can be so much better off. But like there are times, like in the case of the person that I, I heard about, I don't know this person, they were told there's nothing we can do. So the dog trainer, whom I don't know, I don't know what their text techniques are, but the dog trainer said my recommendation professionally. And I say professionally with a grain of salt because I don't know what this person's qualifications are, but they recommended behavioral euthanasia. Like the dog is a danger to himself and others and must be euthanized.

50:36 And I do believe that there are cases when that is the key, like when that is indicated. But I don't know that based on what I heard that it would be the case for this family. So I'm, since you're the one who has worked with pets, with parents, how do you feel about, you know, having to make that recommendation? Yeah. I mean, I personally have never been in a situation where I felt I had to make that recommendation. And I'm very grateful for that. Not only because I feel like it would be a really difficult thing to have to tell somebody, but also because I, I, I'm glad that I've never been in that position to be around a dog that yeah, that I have felt that absolutely. But I, I can understand like I have such a soft heart that I feel like it would take a lot for me to get there. But at the same time, I do agree that that if a dog's quality of life is suffering, if there's no way that you're going to be able to give them a good quality of life, that no one that there isn't anyone that can give them a good quality of life that it's it's an option and like it.

52:08 It would be better, I think to humanely let them go then for them to live in a cage their entire lives or for you to be scared in your home for however long that dog is alive or like that you. To potentially put another family at risk. Yeah. Because I mean, I think we both agree and we've talked about this where rehoming is a really great option like you have, like Satchmo was rehomed back to me. I rescued him in Louisiana. He moved in with my sister in Spain. My sister recently had a child and he moved back in with me. But the reason I took him is because she couldn't safely give him to anybody else. Yeah.

52:51 Like, who was going to take him that would have as much experience with him that he already has, like an established relationship with that wouldn't put him over a threshold? Because you're talking about a dog that's super attached to my sister, who's been with her for eight years and whose life was uprooted by a child screaming every day, right? Because, like, babies cry so much and it's so stressful for pets, even the most chill pets, like, oh, God. And so you're talking about what then taking that dog who's in a different country now because my sister moved all of them to the US for a while during her maternity leave. What do you just like hand them over to some stranger and be like, good luck? Because now that stranger might get bit and that dog might get put down. So when she started talking about like, I don't think he's compatible with my toddler, which I completely agreed.

53:35 And I said before the toddler even got here. But then I met the toddler and I was like, ah, ah, this is not going to work. I said the only she was like, I might have to rehome him. And I looked at her and I was like, to whom? Yeah, who are you going to give this potentially dangerous dog to? The only person is me. And if it doesn't work out with my my kids, you're going to need to know that there may not be anywhere else for him to go. Like that was the conversation we had. Because it has to be the right family, maybe be with or without kids, right? Because like even, I mean, obviously we don't want kids to be mauled, but we also don't want like young professionals to be mauled either. Like we don't want like retirees to be mauled. Like all the people who don't have like growing kids, those demographics.

54:27 We don't want them to be hurt either. We don't want neighbors to get hurt. We don't want lawsuits. You know, you could lose your house your whole life if your dog mauls somebody. Like you can get sued to the point where you have nothing left. I mean, it's a huge risk to have a dog that bites like that. So like if it is not possible to safely rehome the pet, like finding a a house without kids, like that's pretty simple to do. I mean, like one day my kids will move out and I could potentially take like a dangerous dog, quote UN quote. And that's a spectrum, right? Like depending on how dangerous, because I think that I consider Satchmo a little dangerous dog. Like I think he's a little bit of a dangerous dog, mostly because he's unpredictable.

55:15 But if there is no other family and like with Socks, I called my ex. I had I shared this in the past that Socks and Titan I got in a previous relationship and we shared custody of them and when. He. When when Socks bit, when Socks bit Noah back, I think I was pregnant with Mila. I remember having the conversation calling my ex and being like, Socks just bit my child. Like we had been in touch. So he knew that I had had a child and we really just like updated each other. I updated him on the pets because they were with me now and so he knew I had a child. And he was like, I can't take her as much as I would love to because he adored her. I have a dog with what was that?

56:02 What's that condition where they they they throw up their food? Oh that like. Megasophagus, megasophagus she has it was a female socks did not jive with female with other females. She had like very severe situation where she had to like wear some contraption. It was it was a big deal. So he was like, I would love to take her, but like, I'm not doing that to my current dog, right? Totally understandable. We both said, like, if anything changes, you know, let me know. And so like, my other choice was management. And so we did it beautifully. It worked out great. But like, if she had done something like a level 4, Level 3, I would have immediately had to make a decision because there was nobody else who could take socks.

56:51 Thankfully, I didn't have to. But like I think that the level of the bite matters. I think your resources matter. Like if you live in a big city and you have a ton of support and a ton of training and a ton of trainers and you have really great behavioral veterinary, like a veterinary behaviorist that you can work with. I mean, there are only like 100 in the in the country, but a lot of them do virtual now. But like back in that day there was that wasn't really an option. So I was really like between a rock and a hard place. So yeah, like I immediately considered behavioral euthanasia. She was 11/12 and she had a bike history and I couldn't find any place to re home her to. And I said let's try management and if something happens, like we are going to need to make some really hard choices. Thankfully for us, that did not pan out. But I have a client who had to behaviorally euthanize her dog because she had a traumatic incident. And since that traumatic incident, she got pinned under a car and she just became completely, completely reactive to everything.

58:07 She just got so scared. I don't know that they tried like an SSRI for the dog. That would have been my recommendation to start with, like, let's get her spider flight down. Let's get her cortisol down. Let's let's figure out a way to bring her down and and then manage. But she had to say goodbye because she was like, I, I don't trust this dog anymore. She's constantly biting me. And she was also older, right? So she was like, I think that dog was like at 12 and she was like, there could be something else happening. And like now I'm scared of her. I'm scared of my own dog and like I can't rehome her and so. That's such a hard place To me it was. It was a really hard thing to do, I think. But what it when it gets harder is even when they're young, when they're young, that's when it gets really, really hard because that's, you know, they have this. Huge amount of life in front of them that needs like this huge amount of time that you need management and you don't know like how much management is it going to get like worse as they get old like and of course it probably not always but probably is.

59:12 If you don't educate yourself, it will get worse. If you continue to allow your dog to experience triggers, It will get worse if you stack triggers like with socks. It was like the stranger and the male truck and the this all at the same time. It was trigger stacking. That's why she, I mean, and I had told the dog Walker she needs to be on a super short leash. I mean she was on a six foot leash, but like I would shorten it to like 2 feet from me. She was always right there. She did not get any any give. And he gave her too. Much give and he didn't believe me right like a lot of people don't take the warning seriously enough and so a lot of people think I'm like super overprotective and like you know doomsday but. I only I am that way because I've seen it. I've seen the results of taking risks and I don't like to take risks for other dogs.

1:00:08 And just this popped in my head, so I want to mention it. I know we're already over time, but this is another reason why you have to do your research when you are choosing a dog trainer. And in my opinion, and in Isabel's opinion, you do want a positive reinforcement dog trainer because there are dog trainers out there that may call themselves balanced or whatever. And they will use methods like flooding that will at some point the dog will freeze and they will take that and say, look, your dog's not reacting anymore. Well, they're not reacting right in that moment because they're frozen. But you are just what Isabel said. You are triggering them so badly that the next time you have no idea what that dog's going to do. That dog could have been in a level 1 and by using a flooding technique, they could jump to a level 5 or 6 like like that without going through the steps because you have done so much damage to them.

1:01:13 And so you just have to. Put somebody in front of their like, their trauma and like, yeah, like. Like if you're letting them know, like, yeah. You know what, you're a SA survivor. I'm going to put you in front of your attacker without, you know what I mean? And like expecting that to go well, like that's what, that's the equivalent of what we're doing to these dogs. You're afraid of small spaces, so you get buried alive, correct? You know what I mean? Like that's what that is. Let's. Do that. Yeah. Like, it's crazy. So a lot of us don't understand and like I'll say this, like being in the dog in working with dogs professionally and prepared me for having children and having children has reinforced so much of what I learned about dogs because there's so many similarities cognitively. Like it's so similar.

1:02:03 Like our brains work so similarly. So you have to people are like, but we're not talking about training children or humans. We're talking about training dogs. But like if you put yourself or your child in the position that your dog trainer is recommending and you feel uncomfortable, I would say red flag, red flag. If you wouldn't shock your kid into submission, don't do it to your dog. If you wouldn't, you know, hit your husband on the face with a newspaper because he didn't, you know, put the toilet seat down, don't hit your dog because he peed in the house. These are all very like common things like if you wouldn't spray your child in the face with vinegar when they, you know, made it like spilled something, then don't do that to your child or to your dog because he like counter served. Those are the techniques we use.

1:02:52 We other people use as like totally normal dog behavior stuff of when we wouldn't do it to human and are the differences between humans and and dogs and cats when it comes to trauma are really really very there's very little difference. Dogs do a little bit better about recovering, but if they're being exposed to the same trauma and trigger all the time, being hit, being shocked, you know, the dog in the back is like threatening them through the fence. Like if we keep just like exposing them to the same trigger over and over again, they're not going to forget it anymore. Like, it's not going to be like dogs live in the moment. No, that dog lives in fear of going outside. That dog lives in fear of being hit. That dog associates peeing with being hit. So now the dog doesn't want to pee ever and is making themselves sick, right?

1:03:39 Like there's so much that we do to dogs that we would go to jail for for doing to our kids or be like, you know, CPS would show up knocking on our doors. So if a dog trainer makes recommendations, even as desperate as you are, because if you have a dog that you are, you know, deciding whether or not they can live in this world, you might be desperate enough to try anything. But I would say, and I know that there's probably research to back me up. I can't cite any of it at this moment, but I would say that if you were to try the aggressive methods, you probably end up euthanizing. Like you will probably just go ahead and euthanize. Just if you are at a point where it's either I use a dog trainer that shocks my dog into submission, or I humanely euthanize, please humanely euthanize that dog. Because what you're going to do is put the community in more danger by trying those methods and traumatize yourself that, that all you're doing is signing up for paid trauma. You're going to pay this dog trainer to train you how to suffer and how to make your pet suffer. And the end result is going to be the same or worse. It's going to become a more desperate situation. So, and, and, and a really trusted dog trainer who is genuinely here for the, for the dog, the individual and the community is going to be able to look at that dog and look at you and say, I've exhausted all of

1:05:13 the positive reinforcement, we've exhausted the veterinary care, we've exhausted the medication. We've, we've tried everything and there is nothing left to be done. This dog is not compatible with our world. And as hard as it is, you and your family and the community at large will be safer without this dog in it. And as hard as it is for a dog trainer to tell you that a reputable, truly dedicated, educated dog trainer will have that conversation with you if they see that it is time. And if they genuinely believe that it's just like your family's not a good fit, They will also recommend like rehoming like that's, that's that's what it is. But I don't feel like we should get to that point. Like we shouldn't get to the point where we're deciding on behavioral euthanasia.

1:06:13 Instead, I would like it to be, let's start really paying attention to those growls to those level ones. So we never get to those conversations. That's really, if there's anything that I've obviously a lot of people are beyond that point now. But if anybody's listening who has like a puppy or like a younger dog or like, you know, you stumble upon this video because your dog snapped for the first time and you're like a really responsible pet parent and you're like, Oh my God, what does it mean when my dog snaps? Hopefully the Google gods show you this and you say, oh, shoot, that was OK. That was a level 1. So now I need to work on this right now. I need to figure out what caused it, what happened, what in the mind of the dog?

1:06:55 What dog trainer can I find in my area? Michael Chicoshio is a specialist in aggression. I really like him. He started off as a balance trainer from my understanding only uses positive reinforcement. He is not super divisive so he will like work with. He has had balance trainers at his conferences and stuff. So I think he's gotten a bad rap that I may be speaking completely out of ignorance, but from my understanding, there was like some some controversy with Michael Chicoshio because he invited balance trainers to a conversation and like the positive only group was like, no, we shouldn't give them a platform.

1:07:35 But Michael Chicoshio has always been the person that I refer to when there is like a level of aggression that's that severe. Because he started as a balance trainer, he's seen that aggressive dogs can be rehabilitated with positive reinforcement training. And he uses positive reinforcement methods. He trains a lot of dog trainers to specialize in aggression. And it takes a very special dog trainer to work with these dogs that are levels 456. They're, I mean, I don't know how many dog level bite, bite 6 level 6 bite dogs. Really engaged anymore? Like, I don't know that they exist. I think a level 6 is usually behavioral euthanasia immediately, but I think that Michael Shikoshio is a great resource if you find yourself in this situation and if, you know, pay attention to who's commenting.

1:08:26 Also, if you go on social media and you see Michael Shikoshio, pay attention to who's commenting and follow those trainers too, because a lot of them are learning from him. They also have, you know, experience themselves. It's not just Michael. He's trained 1,000,000 people at this point. So there are there's a big group of dog trainers out there that is qualified. Are you going to go to a a dog trainer that specializes in puppies for aggression? No. Are you going to go to Melena de Martini? As much as I adore her, she's a specialist in separation society. Do not go to her for aggression. She wouldn't take you anyway like her and her team would probably refer you elsewhere. But just find a dog, a dog trainer that's that's positive reinforcement based, but also specializes in aggression. Because if you're really deciding between life and death, you need to bring out like the big guns, which is not just like any dog trainer.

1:09:21 Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. And we are so over time, but that's OK. I think we're going to kind of continue this conversation next week with a Texas A&M Veterinary Medical and Biomedical Sciences article study showing that more than 99% of US dogs have behavior problems, and we're going to talk about that next week. And if you have a dog and your dog has a behavior problem, we'll probably be talking about it. So have you read the article yet? Does it talk about what the behavior problems are like the top ones or? Yeah, it's, well, it's the top categories are aggression, separation and attachment behaviors and then fear and anxiety behaviors.

1:10:11 And they, they gathered all of this information from the dog Aging project. So if anybody is familiar with like Rodney Habib and Dr. Karen Becker, they pull a lot of information from the dog Aging project. So I think that's a really, they have a pretty, a pretty good database of, of information on dogs. And I think this is so this is going to be something cool to. Well researched piece. It's absolutely. Well, thank you guys for joining us. If you have any follow up questions and or comments, concerns, referrals, like you've had a really great success with a dog trainer that helped you with aggression cases, please tag them. Let's keep the comments kind.

1:10:56 You don't have to agree with us, but you also don't have to argue with us. So just be kind. I know dog training that's very, people get very sensitive, people get very reactive. So let's keep the reactivity to a minimum. And if you're just mean, we're going to delete what you say. So. All right. Thank. You all right? Yeah. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Bye.