When you are out and about with your dog, or even just on your own, sometimes a situation arises where a dog may approach you in an unfriendly or threatening way. This can be scary and potentially dangerous.
Many reported dog bites have occurred at home and involve children. This highlights that it is very important to always supervise your children with your pets and to allow your pets some quiet alone space and time when they want it.
Below we have given some advice to help you keep yourself and your dog safe when you are out and about.
General advice to improve safety when walking your dog:
- Keep your dog on a leash. If your dog is not used to walking on a leash or seeing other people and dogs, it is a good idea to do some training to help them to be calm in these situations. See these articles on leash training and socialisation for more information:
What equipment should I use when teaching my dog or puppy to walk on a leash?
How can I teach my dog recall (to come when called)?
Is it important to train my dog? What sort of training would you recommend?
A short leash is best as it helps you to socially distance from others, avoids your dog getting too close to other dogs and people, thus avoiding fights with other dogs and people having to intervene. A short leash minimises risks of entanglement and also facilitates a quick retreat in case you are approached by a roaming or unfriendly dog or a person you want to avoid.
- Make sure that you have trained your dog to have good recall. You want to ensure that your dog will return to you in case you drop the leash, or they get away from you.
- Look ahead and survey the path you are taking to check for other people, dogs and traffic so you can be prepared. It is important to be respectful of others and recognise that people may be particularly concerned about dogs getting too close to them at the moment. If your dog tends to get excited or nervous about pedestrians, cars, cyclists, or other dogs approaching, move to a place that avoids close encounters until they pass, i.e. cross the road. Alternatively, use your voice to calm and ask your dog to sit until they pass.
What signs should I look out for?
It is important to know what clues to look for that indicate a dog might be anxious or uncomfortable, as feeling stressed or fearful can lead to aggressive behaviour.
Watch out for these early signs that can warn you that a dog is anxious or uncomfortable so you can take early avoidance action:
- Licking their lips
- Ears backwards or flattened on the head
- Yawning
- Showing the whites of their eyes (“whale eye” – this is a white half-moon shape around the coloured part of the eye)
- Turning their face away
- Trying to move or turn away
- Standing crouched or walking low to the ground
- Low or tucked tail
- Head held low and avoidance of eye contact
- A tense body position, shrinking away
- Lunging towards you (not a friendly bouncing towards you like a dog that wants to play but a lunge forward, often with a stiff tail, tense body position, ears forward and/or flat, direct eye contact).
Signs that a dog is not just anxious or uncomfortable but likely to be aggressive include the following:
- Growling
- Snarling
- Snapping
- Baring teeth
- Lunging
A dog who is restrained on a leash has less choice to remove themselves from a situation which they find stressful. This may lead them to feel uncomfortable around other people and dogs. Consequently, it may make them more likely to behave aggressively to try and maintain their space and sense of security in a situation they find stressful.
Avoiding an unfriendly or aggressive dog when walking your dog
It is best for you to walk away calmly but quickly. Try to avoid getting too close to the other dog and, if possible, put a visual barrier between you and the other dog (for example, a car, gate, hedge or fence).
Our Dog conflict toolkit below gives advice for a situation in which you are unable to avoid conflict between the dogs.
If your dog is aggressive to someone else or their dog
It is important to know the warning signs that your dog may give if they are feeling stressed or uncomfortable. This will help you take action to prevent your dog initiating an aggressive interaction with someone else or their dog. See What signs should I look out for? above.
Our Dog conflict toolkit below gives advice for a situation in which you are unable to avoid conflict between the dogs.
You should never punish a dog for growling as this is the dog communicating to you that they feel uncomfortable. You need to know this so that you can remove them from the stressful situation and avoid escalation. A growl is often a last attempt of a dog to tell you they need to get out of a situation before they resort to biting. Often the dog will have tried to warn you in other ways first (see the examples given in What signs should I look out for? above) but these may have not been noticed or were ignored. If you punish a dog for growling, they may learn not to growl. Then, if early signs of anxiousness or stress are not recognised, the dog may appear to bite without notice.
If your dog is aggressive towards another dog or a person, it is important that you take precautions to avoid this happening again.
- If it has never happened before, carefully think about the incident to determine if your dog might have reacted in that way because they were afraid (e.g. perhaps the other dog was very large or approached your dog in an overly energetic or threatening way). If there was a clear reason, then this is something you should work on in training with your dog to habituate them to that situation in a safe way, so they do not react aggressively if it happens again.
- It is a good idea to contact your vet, to check if there could be some medical reason for their reaction.
- If there is no clear reason, or this is not the first time, consider consulting with an accredited behaviourist or a trainer who uses reward-based training. Working with them can help train your dog to cope with a variety of situations without them feeling fearful and threatened.
Post time: Aug-12-2024