Know Your Pooch
VK Joshi
The writer is former director, GSI, and an avid animal lover. His understanding of man's best friend comes from over six decades of dedicated association with it
Aggression is an issue of behaviour, not an issue of obedience. If you have an aggressive dog then be prepared for so many problems. Your neighbours will hate you; your relatives will avoid you and no maid or help will be available to you! The list of problems is endless, but at the end of it you may also become a victim of your dog or he may maul your child!
Aggression is an instinct and dogs have survived in the animal world due to their powerful instincts. Some dogs/even breeds are aggressive. But it becomes difficult for a novice owner to guess whether the puppy he has selected will remain normal or turn out to be a ferocious brute. However, an eight-week-old puppy will certainly show one or more or if threatened all of the following signs:
Freezing
Growling or snarling
Lip curling
Whale eye (where you can see the whites of their eyes more than when they are relaxed)
Hard stare
Ears flat back
Body stance forward
Body hunched; tail tucked under
Snapping and biting (not to be confused with normal puppy biting though).
Many of you must have seen some of these signs in your puppy and may be thinking, ‘Is my puppy aggressive?’ Let me clarify that there is a difference between the signs of aggression and the signs of play. A carnivore has to survive on the kills it makes and by escaping the attacks of other marauders. Your dog is a carnivorous animal, thus many of the behavioural[t1] patterns are ingrained in his mind. Watch the puppies at play. They growl and snarl at each other with lots of movement, changing positions; as if challenging and threatening the opponent-come near and you will be eaten!
Whereas an aggressive pup/dog will freeze and give deep-throated growls. He will curl his lips menacingly and you will notice him staring at you in a strange manner-that is more of the white portion of the eyes will be seen, than the black pupil. This type of stare is called ‘Whale eyed’. You will notice that he gives a hard stare, without blinking. His ears will be drawn backward and his body will lunge forward, with a hunch back and tail tucked between his hind legs. And if he gets an opportunity, he will not hesitate to bite. Mind you all this happens within seconds and takes less time than what you took in reading the above lines!
You all must be wondering then what is the tell-tale sign to know if the dog on the street is aggressive or not! The other day, in Delhi I went to a relative’s house in a vast housing society. It was a concrete jungle full of stray dogs. The present law is such that one cannot harm a dog in any manner, while it gives a free hand to dogs to do whatever they wish to do with humans. The outcome is that there is always strife between dog lovers and dog haters. Anyway, coming back to my experience I came out to board my car, there was a narrow ramp to reach the road. I was carrying a paper bag in my right hand and held the rail with the other. Suddenly a dog appeared out of nowhere. He was perhaps looking for some food in the foyer of the block, near the lifts. My bag attracted him and, despite the fact there was hardly any space for the dog to pass by side, he came forward, sniffing. I noticed his cross-eyes. That sounded an instinctive alarm within. There was no chance of running down the ramp and there was no scope to defend self.
Realising that the pariah was an aggressive one, I froze. As it brushed past my bag, he gave a threatening growl, like the ruffians on the street corner do if a car/two-wheeler stops to ask for the way. I kept walking and, in the process, my bag hit the hind portion of the dog. He took a U-turn immediately. He had raised his heckles, body was curved peculiarly because of the slope. I saw all this within a split second and kept walking at the same pace. The dog was perhaps puzzled that he couldn’t scare a biped! And the moment I sat inside the car, he lunged at the car with a loud bark with all teeth bared.
Had I not sensed that a cross-eyed dog can be aggressive, I would not have been typing these lines today!
In my opinion, most aggressive dogs are cross-eyed. I have checked my claim several times. While working in Himachal Pradesh, we climbed about 3000 feet and landed in a village. We were warned about an extremely aggressive dog in the village. My colleague was chary of dogs and said, ‘wish we knew earlier’. We crossed the village without uttering a word. On the outskirts, I asked a local about the dog, and he said ‘That demon must be lurking somewhere or may have gone out in search of food.’ We were sort of relieved and went ahead along the Ridge.
On the return journey, we took a path along a lower contour than the village and were happy that we escaped the ‘wrath’ of that dog. Being geologists, we were looking for certain rocks that were eluding us due to dense vegetation. Suddenly I saw a part of the rock exposed behind a dense bush. Since the fear of the dog was over, I went ahead and parted the bush with my hammer. Suddenly I was looking into the eyes of the demon. He was cross-eyed, staring at me, holding a chunk of bone and flesh between his front paws. He would have certainly charged had I shown any signs of fear or aggression.
I backed out in slow motion, eyeing the beast from the corners of my eyes, and after I stood up I walked casually. That moment he barked aloud and came running after me, with blood of the flesh he was devouring, dripping out of the sides of his mouth. My colleague and guide had run away. I just froze with a tight grip on the hammer handle to hit him hard on the head. Thankfully, none of this happened. After ‘shooing’ me away he went back to his food. And I walked casually to meet my friends farther away. The local guide said that it was unusual that I escaped his fangs.
However, for me, it was not unusual. It was a normal reaction of a dog disturbed during his meal. Even your untrained house pet will not hesitate to attack you if you try to snatch his food bowl. Some even resent the presence of a human/dog nearby while the pet is having his lunch.
Aggression and control thereof are a vast subject. To cut it short, I will give some simple hacks to make your dog behave well while having his food. The idea is to teach him from the very moment you start feeding him. As a dog breeder, I used to wean the puppies around 21 days of age. As the pup licked his milk porridge bowl clean, I used to assist him by holding the bowl and pushing the porridge sticking to the walls of the bowl towards the centre. This made the pup understand that the hands or fingers that feed are not going to snatch his food. Secondly, the command of Stay always comes in handy in controlling the dog. I am not repeating it here, as I have repeated it several times. Still, if some readers wish to know more, they can communicate through the Editor I will be glad to help.
Leave a comment