Educating for cooperation and non-aggression
Topics
1. How can you tell if what you thought you saw was "AGGRESSION"? and what to do about it.
2. Why can big dogs take larger bites than tiny dogs?
3. Selective Breeding for impulsive dog-violence
4. Cautions about verifying and trusting the meanings in statistics
5. Other items .....
Understanding "aggression" in deaf and blind dogs – getting rid of misunderstandings
In a nutshell: Dogs build relationships on trust. Much of what we perceive as aggression is really just communication. The solution to most aggression problems lies in trust-building. A number of false beliefs about dogs is partly the cause of aggression problems. Deaf dogs and blind dogs are no different from any other dog as far as this goes.
Introduction
We are lately being taught to be afraid of our dogs – any dogs, all dogs. When another vicious mauling or killing by a dog hits the news, we’re told ‘well, ya know, all dogs bite.’ As if any dog that lashes out will also automatically scalp you and rip your face off. We’re presently being taught that all dogs are pretty much like the ones in the news: tight wound springs that can go off anytime. It’s no wonder that some people believe that the slightest handicap, such as deafness, will make a dog into an even greater danger. Others tell us that if you aren’t ‘dominant’ over a dog, the dog will eventually attack you to take over leadership.
That is nonsense and unfair to dogs entirely – including the deaf ones and the blind ones. Most of our dogs don’t want to bite us, let alone maul or kill us. They aren’t waiting to go off any second – they want relations to be peaceful and friendly. We make lots of mistakes, and they love us anyway.
To understand what’s going on when our dog does something that scares us, that looks to us like aggression (to us or to another dog), we need to understand how the dog social system works. Once we understand, we can see the meaning of our dog’s behavior and know better how to deal with it.
How the domestic dog social system works Dog social interactions are based on building predictability and trust with each other. They do this by following three simple crucial dog-rules:
1) We will not use real aggression (uninhibited biting) in social interactions.
2) We do not enter each other’s personal zones without permission.
3) We respect each other’s preferences once we know them.
When a dog knows that everyone in the room (or on the playing field) will follow these rules, the dog feels safe and secure. When a dog feels safe and secure, she has no inclination whatsoever to get aggressive. For a more detailed explanation, please see: http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1-3.html
Dog Language: How can I tell if what the dog did was aggression? Dogs have a whole language of their own to communicate about the rules – to tell each other how they feel at any given moment. They ask and give (or withhold) permission to come closer. They tell each other ‘I really want to keep this thing I’ve got’ or ‘Please Stop doing that!’ A lot of this takes place without us noticing it, even when it’s directed at us. We do fairly well at understanding when our dog is asking us for something or even nagging. But we often don’t notice when our dog is telling us he’s feeling uncomfortable or even scared about something we’re doing. Then ‘suddenly’ he growls or even air-snaps in our direction, and we’re taken aback, shocked, feel like he’s being “aggressive” towards us.
Here are the signs ordinary dogs use to say ‘I’m feeling very worried about your intentions, please keep distance until I feel reassured’:
· freezing up
· staring
· growling
· wrinkling or lifting an upper lip (sometimes for a split second)
· retracting the lips so that teeth are bared
· standing on stiff straight legs so that the body shows a high posture
· lifting the tail to a position higher than horizontal
· opening the jaws wide, teeth exposed, while moving the jaws around the face/neck of the other, or batting the other with the open jaws
· the delivery of an inhibited (soft) bite
When a dog uses these signals, he thinks he’s only telling us – in clear but non-aggressive dog-language – that he’s very worried about what we’re intending and to please back off a bit. If he’s really desperate and does a grab, leaving only a bit of spit on our sleeve, he still thinks he’s being clear (by not chomping down) that he doesn’t want to have to bite for real.
These are all signals that the dog uses as an attempt to avoid having to defend himself by really biting. Dogs understand this and take these signals from each other in stride, including a “whacking” that only leaves some spit on their coat. To a dog, it’s not aggression but just a conversation, unless the other dog has seriously bitten him (wounds bigger than a tiny nick somewhere).
When a dog growls, air-snaps, sleeve-grabs, she’s telling you she’s feeling anxious about your intentions. She doesn’t mean this as aggression, just as communication. To dogs, it’s not aggression until someone start biting (chomping down) for real. And normal dogs will only do this if none of the other things work (or if they were taught in the past that none of the other things will work). A dog in this situation is baffled as to why we aren’t obeying the Personal Zone Rule. The dog thinks we’re the ones who are being rude or even aggressive.
In a nutshell: Many of the signals we experience as "aggressive" are, in fact, the dog’s attempt to avoid having to really bite. Real aggression is an uninhibited, chomping-down, damaging bite. Everything else is an attempt at communication to avoid escalation.
How do deaf and blind dogs fit into this? Deaf and blind dogs are no different – no more inherently aggressive – than any ordinary dog. They are, however, more vulnerable to harm caused by the ‘dominance’ myth. This ‘dominance’ nonsense is the cause of problems between us and many dogs, but more so in respect to deaf or blind or blind-deaf dogs.
[Please see: http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1-2.html http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1-3.html
See also: http://beyondcesarmillan.weebly.com/ ]
When people get a deaf pup, they often don’t know the pup is deaf. As the pup fails to respond to his owner’s attempts to train verbal commands, the owners often assume this is because the pup is ‘dominant’. The owner ends up in the spiral of ‘if only I punish him enough, he’ll understand his rank and do what I say.’ The deaf pup starts to learn that people are arbitrarily hostile and violent. After all, he didn’t hear anyone say ‘come here’ or ‘sit’ – the human is suddenly jerking him around on the choke chain or beating the crap out of him for reasons he doesn’t understand. Because his environment is arbitrarily hostile and violent, the dog becomes frightened by human approach. He learns to snap as the first surprisereaction. After all, there’s always danger, and he always has to be on the defensive.
Blind dogs have different reasons for worry. They can’t (anymore) see our body language. This may not be a problem with someone they’ve known a long time, but it might make them feel anxious when a stranger approaches or tries to touch them. Older dogs who start to have arthritic or other pain problems can become grouchy because certain kinds of touch have started to be painful to them. It can be painful for them to get up to get out of the way if a child or another dog is playing rambunctiously very close to them, so they get grouchy about having this happen nearby where they’re lying.
In a nutshell: IF a blind or deaf or old dog is more aggressive than some other dog, it’s generally our failure to understand his world that is the cause. Nothing to do with inherent aggression in the dog itself, nor with ‘dominance’, nor with deafness, nor blindness.
What to do if my deaf or blind dog growls at me or snaps at me? When a dog asks us to keep distance our first concern must be ‘What’s making her feel so worried?’ Understanding this is essential to solving the problem. There are several steps to taking away her worry (and thus stop the growling etc).
The very first step is don’t punish the dog for telling you she’s feeling worried. That would:
Step three is to read some of the other pages on this site, as well as looking for information elsewhere about trust-building exercises. Jean Donaldson’s book ‘The Culture Clash’ is an excellent how-to source for many of these exercises. There are many good sites and books about how to help a dog understand that s/he doesn’t need to be worried.
Of course the final step is to start doing these exercises with your dog. What a dog needs is for things to be predictable and safe. A deaf or blind dog doesn’t need this more than any other dog (since all dogs need this). It’s just that the way we make their world feel predictable and safe for them is a bit different in some ways, just simply because they lack one or two of senses that help other dogs keep track of their environment and anticipate what’s coming. So we learn with them to use their other senses, while we also teach them that no bad things are going to happen. [As described on the site’s “deaf” and the “blind” pages, blind dogs learn to use their noses and hearing (like bats and dolphins use sounds and echoes) to “see” their places, and deaf dogs use their noses, eyes and eight or nine alternative ways of detecting vibrations (sounds) to map, understand and react to their where they live. The stories of over 5,000 blind dogs adapted to nearly normal life were described on the Internet last year, and more than 3,000 deaf dogs. Especially one-ear partially deaf (useful-hearing) dogs are often thought to have ordinary hearing by their owners and could compete according to the AKC rules in 2010. ]
Most dogs are just as upset at feeling they have to growl at us, snap at us, or even bite us as we are at being growled at, snapped at or bitten. This is not how dogs want things to work. They are greatly relieved when people follow the steps above to take away their feelings of apprehension and build predictability and trust.
Note: If your dog has growled or snapped at you, this doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of her all the time after that. The dog is not going to suddenly attack you out of the blue even if she growled in a certain situation. The very fact that she did growl means that she doesn’t want to bite and won’t do so without giving some warning first.
But do also remember the deaf or blind dog mantra… 1. It’s a dog, 2. It has a breed and the breed traits, 3. It has its own personality, and 4. Way way way last…it’s deaf or blind (or deaf-blind).
The fact that a dog is blind or deaf does not make it into a different breed of dog. If you have a dog of a breed that has through the centuries been selected for aggressive traits, the deaf or blind dog will still have the breed traits – just as a deaf or blind border collie is still a border collie. These particular breeds had a task to do (e.g. pit fighting, bull baiting, guarding extensive farmlands from lions, taking down escaped slaves, etc) which meant that – unlike other dogs – they had to lose all reservations about launching attacks. These tasks also meant that it was better if the dog didn’t warn before attacking, nor go through any of the usual intermediate slow-escalation steps – the attack had to be instant, unannounced and immediately full-out. These traits, which are abnormal in the domestic dog were essential to those dogs’ survival. They would otherwise be killed while doing their job, or killed by humans for failing to do their job. This selective breeding has changed parts of these breeds’ brains and bodies that have nothing to do with hearing or seeing, and those changes aren’t undone by deafness or blindness. [For more extensive explanation see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14810086/Heritability-of-Behavior-in-the-Abnormally-Aggressive-Dog-by-A-Semyonova ]
While it is very sad that we’ve done this to these dogs, it’s a mistake to deny that they are different from other dogs. These breeds and their mixes are responsible for about 80% of all serious and unprovoked attacks on humans, and 90% of reported maiming and killing attacks on other dogs. Because of the tasks they were bred for, these breeds have the body size and muscle mass to do extensive, often fatal damage when they attack.
If your deaf or blind dog is one of these breeds, it’s still a good thing to love it. But it’s important for your own safety (and those around you, including other dogs) not to ignore all these breed facts. While not all dogs of these breeds do sooner or later attack a human, most of the ones that do were trained in the right ways, then their inheritance caught up with them (and their victims). You must be just as careful with a deaf ‘bully’ dog as you would be with a hearing ‘bully’ dog. You should be aware that if it shows signs of aggression, you can’t deal with it as you would with other dogs – that you need professional help.
What this can mean for other deaf dogs if we aren’t honest about the real problem
It says some not so good things about us that we thought up this use for dogs in the first place. But then came another disaster for these dogs. In particular the fighting and baiting breeds were bred for white coats (at first to better show the blood spatters, later as a fashion item), which has meant an increase in deafness in these breeds (just as in other breeds bred for almost all-white coats and other exotic coat colors).
[See: http://deafdogsforever.weebly.com/dog-defects.html ]
As shelters are more and more flooded with fighting and baiting breed dogs dumped by their original owners, the proportion of deaf dogs up for adoption among them reflect this color breeding choice. This means that as more and more people are adopting these breeds of dogs, also more and more people are adopting deaf fighting-baiting breed dogs. When – as is sometimes the case – these breeds make up 50% of the dogs in a shelter, we can expect them to also make up at least 50% of the deaf dogs at the shelter.
This adds a new dimension to understanding the statistics about the behavior of deaf dogs. As the proportion of these breeds among the general deaf dog population increases, there is the risk that their aggression (if and when it occurs) could be wrongly blamed on their deafness, rather than on the fact that a deaf dog is 1) a dog, but also 2) its breed and breed traits.
This would be unfair and a disaster for deaf dogs in general. There is no reason to be afraid of a dog just because s/he is deaf or blind. There can be reason to be cautious of a dog because of its breed. You don’t have to be more afraid of or careful with your beloved adopted ‘bully’ just because it’s deaf or blind. You do have to be just as careful with it as you would with any other ‘bully’, and – for the sake of all deaf or blind dogs – not blame incidents on the lack of hearing or sight.
Summary: Deaf and-or blind dogs are no more inherently aggressive than any other dog – and dogs are generally not inherently aggressive. The key to dealing with what we “perceive” as aggression from our dogs is to understand where it’s coming from, what it really means, and what kind of help the dog needs from us. This includes acknowledging both human mistakes (even if it wasn’t us but a previous owner), and acknowledging our dog’s breed traits. Don’t blame aggression on deafness or blindness when something else is really the problem.
Alexandra Semyonova, Baltimore, April 2011
1. How can you tell if what you thought you saw was "AGGRESSION"? and what to do about it.
2. Why can big dogs take larger bites than tiny dogs?
3. Selective Breeding for impulsive dog-violence
4. Cautions about verifying and trusting the meanings in statistics
5. Other items .....
Understanding "aggression" in deaf and blind dogs – getting rid of misunderstandings
In a nutshell: Dogs build relationships on trust. Much of what we perceive as aggression is really just communication. The solution to most aggression problems lies in trust-building. A number of false beliefs about dogs is partly the cause of aggression problems. Deaf dogs and blind dogs are no different from any other dog as far as this goes.
Introduction
We are lately being taught to be afraid of our dogs – any dogs, all dogs. When another vicious mauling or killing by a dog hits the news, we’re told ‘well, ya know, all dogs bite.’ As if any dog that lashes out will also automatically scalp you and rip your face off. We’re presently being taught that all dogs are pretty much like the ones in the news: tight wound springs that can go off anytime. It’s no wonder that some people believe that the slightest handicap, such as deafness, will make a dog into an even greater danger. Others tell us that if you aren’t ‘dominant’ over a dog, the dog will eventually attack you to take over leadership.
That is nonsense and unfair to dogs entirely – including the deaf ones and the blind ones. Most of our dogs don’t want to bite us, let alone maul or kill us. They aren’t waiting to go off any second – they want relations to be peaceful and friendly. We make lots of mistakes, and they love us anyway.
To understand what’s going on when our dog does something that scares us, that looks to us like aggression (to us or to another dog), we need to understand how the dog social system works. Once we understand, we can see the meaning of our dog’s behavior and know better how to deal with it.
How the domestic dog social system works Dog social interactions are based on building predictability and trust with each other. They do this by following three simple crucial dog-rules:
1) We will not use real aggression (uninhibited biting) in social interactions.
2) We do not enter each other’s personal zones without permission.
3) We respect each other’s preferences once we know them.
When a dog knows that everyone in the room (or on the playing field) will follow these rules, the dog feels safe and secure. When a dog feels safe and secure, she has no inclination whatsoever to get aggressive. For a more detailed explanation, please see: http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1-3.html
Dog Language: How can I tell if what the dog did was aggression? Dogs have a whole language of their own to communicate about the rules – to tell each other how they feel at any given moment. They ask and give (or withhold) permission to come closer. They tell each other ‘I really want to keep this thing I’ve got’ or ‘Please Stop doing that!’ A lot of this takes place without us noticing it, even when it’s directed at us. We do fairly well at understanding when our dog is asking us for something or even nagging. But we often don’t notice when our dog is telling us he’s feeling uncomfortable or even scared about something we’re doing. Then ‘suddenly’ he growls or even air-snaps in our direction, and we’re taken aback, shocked, feel like he’s being “aggressive” towards us.
Here are the signs ordinary dogs use to say ‘I’m feeling very worried about your intentions, please keep distance until I feel reassured’:
· freezing up
· staring
· growling
· wrinkling or lifting an upper lip (sometimes for a split second)
· retracting the lips so that teeth are bared
· standing on stiff straight legs so that the body shows a high posture
· lifting the tail to a position higher than horizontal
· opening the jaws wide, teeth exposed, while moving the jaws around the face/neck of the other, or batting the other with the open jaws
· the delivery of an inhibited (soft) bite
When a dog uses these signals, he thinks he’s only telling us – in clear but non-aggressive dog-language – that he’s very worried about what we’re intending and to please back off a bit. If he’s really desperate and does a grab, leaving only a bit of spit on our sleeve, he still thinks he’s being clear (by not chomping down) that he doesn’t want to have to bite for real.
These are all signals that the dog uses as an attempt to avoid having to defend himself by really biting. Dogs understand this and take these signals from each other in stride, including a “whacking” that only leaves some spit on their coat. To a dog, it’s not aggression but just a conversation, unless the other dog has seriously bitten him (wounds bigger than a tiny nick somewhere).
When a dog growls, air-snaps, sleeve-grabs, she’s telling you she’s feeling anxious about your intentions. She doesn’t mean this as aggression, just as communication. To dogs, it’s not aggression until someone start biting (chomping down) for real. And normal dogs will only do this if none of the other things work (or if they were taught in the past that none of the other things will work). A dog in this situation is baffled as to why we aren’t obeying the Personal Zone Rule. The dog thinks we’re the ones who are being rude or even aggressive.
In a nutshell: Many of the signals we experience as "aggressive" are, in fact, the dog’s attempt to avoid having to really bite. Real aggression is an uninhibited, chomping-down, damaging bite. Everything else is an attempt at communication to avoid escalation.
How do deaf and blind dogs fit into this? Deaf and blind dogs are no different – no more inherently aggressive – than any ordinary dog. They are, however, more vulnerable to harm caused by the ‘dominance’ myth. This ‘dominance’ nonsense is the cause of problems between us and many dogs, but more so in respect to deaf or blind or blind-deaf dogs.
[Please see: http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1-2.html http://www.nonlineardogs.com/100MostSillyPart1-3.html
See also: http://beyondcesarmillan.weebly.com/ ]
When people get a deaf pup, they often don’t know the pup is deaf. As the pup fails to respond to his owner’s attempts to train verbal commands, the owners often assume this is because the pup is ‘dominant’. The owner ends up in the spiral of ‘if only I punish him enough, he’ll understand his rank and do what I say.’ The deaf pup starts to learn that people are arbitrarily hostile and violent. After all, he didn’t hear anyone say ‘come here’ or ‘sit’ – the human is suddenly jerking him around on the choke chain or beating the crap out of him for reasons he doesn’t understand. Because his environment is arbitrarily hostile and violent, the dog becomes frightened by human approach. He learns to snap as the first surprisereaction. After all, there’s always danger, and he always has to be on the defensive.
Blind dogs have different reasons for worry. They can’t (anymore) see our body language. This may not be a problem with someone they’ve known a long time, but it might make them feel anxious when a stranger approaches or tries to touch them. Older dogs who start to have arthritic or other pain problems can become grouchy because certain kinds of touch have started to be painful to them. It can be painful for them to get up to get out of the way if a child or another dog is playing rambunctiously very close to them, so they get grouchy about having this happen nearby where they’re lying.
In a nutshell: IF a blind or deaf or old dog is more aggressive than some other dog, it’s generally our failure to understand his world that is the cause. Nothing to do with inherent aggression in the dog itself, nor with ‘dominance’, nor with deafness, nor blindness.
What to do if my deaf or blind dog growls at me or snaps at me? When a dog asks us to keep distance our first concern must be ‘What’s making her feel so worried?’ Understanding this is essential to solving the problem. There are several steps to taking away her worry (and thus stop the growling etc).
The very first step is don’t punish the dog for telling you she’s feeling worried. That would:
- punish her for simply telling you, without hurting you, that she’s feeling apprehensive and needs you to keep distance until she trusts your intentions
- punish her for trying not to have to bite anyone
- teach her she can’t warn you that she’s feeling so uncomfortable, i.e. can’t give you information you really need
Step three is to read some of the other pages on this site, as well as looking for information elsewhere about trust-building exercises. Jean Donaldson’s book ‘The Culture Clash’ is an excellent how-to source for many of these exercises. There are many good sites and books about how to help a dog understand that s/he doesn’t need to be worried.
Of course the final step is to start doing these exercises with your dog. What a dog needs is for things to be predictable and safe. A deaf or blind dog doesn’t need this more than any other dog (since all dogs need this). It’s just that the way we make their world feel predictable and safe for them is a bit different in some ways, just simply because they lack one or two of senses that help other dogs keep track of their environment and anticipate what’s coming. So we learn with them to use their other senses, while we also teach them that no bad things are going to happen. [As described on the site’s “deaf” and the “blind” pages, blind dogs learn to use their noses and hearing (like bats and dolphins use sounds and echoes) to “see” their places, and deaf dogs use their noses, eyes and eight or nine alternative ways of detecting vibrations (sounds) to map, understand and react to their where they live. The stories of over 5,000 blind dogs adapted to nearly normal life were described on the Internet last year, and more than 3,000 deaf dogs. Especially one-ear partially deaf (useful-hearing) dogs are often thought to have ordinary hearing by their owners and could compete according to the AKC rules in 2010. ]
Most dogs are just as upset at feeling they have to growl at us, snap at us, or even bite us as we are at being growled at, snapped at or bitten. This is not how dogs want things to work. They are greatly relieved when people follow the steps above to take away their feelings of apprehension and build predictability and trust.
Note: If your dog has growled or snapped at you, this doesn’t mean you have to be afraid of her all the time after that. The dog is not going to suddenly attack you out of the blue even if she growled in a certain situation. The very fact that she did growl means that she doesn’t want to bite and won’t do so without giving some warning first.
But do also remember the deaf or blind dog mantra… 1. It’s a dog, 2. It has a breed and the breed traits, 3. It has its own personality, and 4. Way way way last…it’s deaf or blind (or deaf-blind).
The fact that a dog is blind or deaf does not make it into a different breed of dog. If you have a dog of a breed that has through the centuries been selected for aggressive traits, the deaf or blind dog will still have the breed traits – just as a deaf or blind border collie is still a border collie. These particular breeds had a task to do (e.g. pit fighting, bull baiting, guarding extensive farmlands from lions, taking down escaped slaves, etc) which meant that – unlike other dogs – they had to lose all reservations about launching attacks. These tasks also meant that it was better if the dog didn’t warn before attacking, nor go through any of the usual intermediate slow-escalation steps – the attack had to be instant, unannounced and immediately full-out. These traits, which are abnormal in the domestic dog were essential to those dogs’ survival. They would otherwise be killed while doing their job, or killed by humans for failing to do their job. This selective breeding has changed parts of these breeds’ brains and bodies that have nothing to do with hearing or seeing, and those changes aren’t undone by deafness or blindness. [For more extensive explanation see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/14810086/Heritability-of-Behavior-in-the-Abnormally-Aggressive-Dog-by-A-Semyonova ]
While it is very sad that we’ve done this to these dogs, it’s a mistake to deny that they are different from other dogs. These breeds and their mixes are responsible for about 80% of all serious and unprovoked attacks on humans, and 90% of reported maiming and killing attacks on other dogs. Because of the tasks they were bred for, these breeds have the body size and muscle mass to do extensive, often fatal damage when they attack.
If your deaf or blind dog is one of these breeds, it’s still a good thing to love it. But it’s important for your own safety (and those around you, including other dogs) not to ignore all these breed facts. While not all dogs of these breeds do sooner or later attack a human, most of the ones that do were trained in the right ways, then their inheritance caught up with them (and their victims). You must be just as careful with a deaf ‘bully’ dog as you would be with a hearing ‘bully’ dog. You should be aware that if it shows signs of aggression, you can’t deal with it as you would with other dogs – that you need professional help.
What this can mean for other deaf dogs if we aren’t honest about the real problem
It says some not so good things about us that we thought up this use for dogs in the first place. But then came another disaster for these dogs. In particular the fighting and baiting breeds were bred for white coats (at first to better show the blood spatters, later as a fashion item), which has meant an increase in deafness in these breeds (just as in other breeds bred for almost all-white coats and other exotic coat colors).
[See: http://deafdogsforever.weebly.com/dog-defects.html ]
As shelters are more and more flooded with fighting and baiting breed dogs dumped by their original owners, the proportion of deaf dogs up for adoption among them reflect this color breeding choice. This means that as more and more people are adopting these breeds of dogs, also more and more people are adopting deaf fighting-baiting breed dogs. When – as is sometimes the case – these breeds make up 50% of the dogs in a shelter, we can expect them to also make up at least 50% of the deaf dogs at the shelter.
This adds a new dimension to understanding the statistics about the behavior of deaf dogs. As the proportion of these breeds among the general deaf dog population increases, there is the risk that their aggression (if and when it occurs) could be wrongly blamed on their deafness, rather than on the fact that a deaf dog is 1) a dog, but also 2) its breed and breed traits.
This would be unfair and a disaster for deaf dogs in general. There is no reason to be afraid of a dog just because s/he is deaf or blind. There can be reason to be cautious of a dog because of its breed. You don’t have to be more afraid of or careful with your beloved adopted ‘bully’ just because it’s deaf or blind. You do have to be just as careful with it as you would with any other ‘bully’, and – for the sake of all deaf or blind dogs – not blame incidents on the lack of hearing or sight.
Summary: Deaf and-or blind dogs are no more inherently aggressive than any other dog – and dogs are generally not inherently aggressive. The key to dealing with what we “perceive” as aggression from our dogs is to understand where it’s coming from, what it really means, and what kind of help the dog needs from us. This includes acknowledging both human mistakes (even if it wasn’t us but a previous owner), and acknowledging our dog’s breed traits. Don’t blame aggression on deafness or blindness when something else is really the problem.
Alexandra Semyonova, Baltimore, April 2011