Caring for Rescued Ex-Street Dogs
How many times have you seen a photo online of a terrified dog at a shelter, or straight off a transport van, being held tightly by a total stranger? The human, smiling, full of joy to meet their new canine companion….the dog is wide-eyed, ears back, desperately turning her head away, panting, with tongue hanging out. The comments underneath saying things like ‘she’s so happy’ and ‘she’s smiling‘, show how far removed many of us humans are from understanding how the dog is really feeling.
You might be a new adopter, caring for your very first dog or you might have decades of canine experience behind you, either way it’s really important that we all understand what our dogs are communicating to us!
This information on canine body language isn’t just for full blown dog geeks! If you care for a dog, foster for a charity, carry out home checks, or volunteer at your local animal shelter, please read the following links, watch the short videos, and share them with your friends, family and colleagues. If you work for an animal charity you might even want to print some of them out and give them to new adopters?
Introduction to canine body language from Silent Conversations
Lili Chin. Free poster to download How Not to Greet a Dog
Is he Friendly? From Instinct Dog Behavior and Training
Lots of dogs tolerate being petted but don’t really enjoy it. Learn to read dogs’ body language signals and do a simple test to see if your dog really enjoys petting, or is just putting up with it. More info at my blog: http://eileenanddogs.com
Bite prevention starts with understand what a dog is trying to say! Please help us spread the word!! If you’re a trainer, a vet, a breeder or you work for a rescue org – you have our permission to share this information (just please be kind enough to link back to our website: thefamilydog.com.
The behaviours in this video are to always be read in context. It is very unlikely to see just one stress signal, you will see several together to interpret the dog’s behaviour. Unfortunately, some of the behaviours that dogs do to show they are stressed are also very similar to behaviours that they do when they are completely calm (similar to people saying ‘I’m fine!’ when they are most definitely not fine!), so it can be difficult to fully interpret their communication. As with all behaviour, it’s fluid, so you need to look at the dog as a whole, and, most importantly, is the dog choosing to approach, or keeping it’s distance. That will tell you a lot about what you need to know.
Learn how to read dog body language to keep your friends and family from becoming a dog bite statistic.
77% of dog bites come from a friend’s dog or the family’s very own dog. We want to change that number. Please share the video to EVERYONE you know to help protect kids and keep dogs safe too. Go to Stop the 77 for more information. Created by thefamilydog.com