potato-fanatics

[potato-fanatics]

It always really bothers me when I see “cute” dog pictures on here where the dogs are actually distressed or owners are promoting things that can cause reactivity.

Examples:

Pictures of dogs and babies together.

Yeah, sometimes there are some cute ones, but then you see pictures like this one.

The dog isn’t happy about this situation. Ears back, forehead wrinkled, showing the whites of its eyes, leaning away.

This isn’t exactly cute because the dog is not wanting to be in this situation. At all. I wouldn’t even let this situation happen if I had a baby. No matter how good a dog is with things like having its jowls lifted, babies aren’t gentle because they can’t be. They don’t have the motor control to be gentile. Also, the baby is a relatively new addition to the household that the dog doesn’t know well and can often be uncomfortable with in the first place because it’s loud and strange. Having a baby do this to a dog just isn’t safe. If the dog gets to a point where they are extremely uncomfortable, they will try biting after giving warning signals like this and growling. If you ignore that a dog is uncomfortable at this stage, it can escalate.

Another set of pictures where uncomfortable body language is even more obvious:

Lip licking, showing eye whites, ears back, tense body posture, looking away. This is really scary to me. This dog is having its warning signs be completely ignored, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it tried biting soon in order to be more obvious it wants the situation to stop.

And no, dogs that bite in this situation aren’t “bad”. Biting is an extreme reaction to say “STOP”. Dogs start with body language cues saying they’re uncomfortable, then if the thing they’re uncomfortable with continues they will growl, but only if they haven’t been punished for growling (it’s a huge problem to punish growling because then the dog may decide not to use that warning signal, and growling is a super obvious warning signal that many people recognize, so it can be dangerous to get rid of). Then, if the thing they’re uncomfortable with still continues, they’ll bite. It’s all how dogs communicate. The body language, the growling, the biting. This is how dogs communicate.

Pictures where people have cut holes in their fence so the dog can look out.

Having dogs be able to do this can cause barrier frustration. If there’s a person or a dog or a squirrel, or really anything your dog may want on the other side of the fence, the dog will likely become frustrated that they can’t get to it.

Barrier frustration can lead to severe reactivity. It’d start with the dog barking and making a fuss about something on the other side of the fence. Then, maybe when you’re on a walk and they see a person on the other side of the street and start barking and lunging.

This type of behaviour where a dog is that overexcited can lead to redirection as aggressive behaviour. Ever hear about a “bite out of the blue” where a dog jumps a fence and bites the first person they come across? That started as barrier frustration, then escalated to being so wound up that when the dog finally tried jumping the fence they redirected all of that energy into aggression and attacked the person that, usually, they were running back and forth barking at on the other side of the fence.

Basically, learning about canine behaviour has made it hard to really enjoy a lot of photosets of dogs because, whether it’s one of the above examples or something else, usually there’s some body language in there somewhere that shows a dog is very stressed or it involves a bad idea that could result in serious reactivity issues.

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[potato-fanatics]

This is infinitely better. (via stonedsurfer)

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rip vine :(

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me,swimming:wow this is amazing i love the ocean

me, when seaweed touches my foot: I imagine death so much it feels more like memory

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staff​ be like

[potato-fanatics]

so I work at starbucks right and I was making this old lady a taste test drink to help her decide if she wanted a bigger size and I give her this drink right and as she’s about to take a drink I deadass said “take a fu-” before I stopped and realized I was really about to tell this 78 year old woman to take a fucking sip, babe

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by WorldStar Hip Hop / WSHH (@worldstar)

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OHMYGOD 😂💀

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Melania: haha don’t peek donald!

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how much do islands cost i want one

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*sees an airplane at night* that’s a UFO

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[potato-fanatics]

everybody who has ever been funny online is getting taken out by the fbi within the week

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Whenever I walk past the checkpoint in a store, I get incredibly anxious the buzzers are going to go off and everyone will stare at me, even though I know Ive paid for my items and not tried to steal anything

[potato-fanatics]

Here we are witnessing an isolated squad of bouncing doggos. Unbelievably rare for this time of year. 13/10 for all

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