Training for Soft-inhibited bites
Soft-Bite – Education, Learning and Training
March 22, 2011 (17 contributors[i])
1. Ordinary puppy learning and education among dogs
2. Education by mother dogs
3. Soft-mouth- inhibited-bite education and training in manners by adult dogs
4. Soft-mouth- inhibited-bite education and training by concerned people
5. Rescues and shelter dogs
6. Adapting for deafness or blind difficulties of dog-dog communication and cooperation
Introduction: “Soft-bite” and bite-inhibition refer to the results of dogs’ learning self-control and discipline to use only as much mouth-grip as indispensable for the task. Generally the discussed concerns and education concepts are likely to apply to all dogs, with some adjustments for deaf or blind dogs living with humans. Dominance/ submission, operant-conditioning and such are misleading in the extreme when misapplied to this crucial education that is vital for every dog living with other dogs, other animals or humans.
Preferably each puppy learns it from its sibling playmates by mutual experiences. Otherwise, it must learn from its mother or an adult dog, or as last choice from a caring human. Here we discuss the typical phases of learning bite-inhibition and in turn comment and the usual events of remedial education by unrelated adult dogs or by humans. Occasionally any dog, whether deaf dogs or blind dogs, need to get refresher education from their humans, most often if the dog was fostered, rescued or otherwise experienced erratic, chaotic living conditions where normal peaceful dog-rules of non-aggressive play and companionship were routinely violated.
A dog with effective soft-bite can learn to accept a treat from a human friend without touching anything but the treat if the bit is held out on a fingertip. A family dog acting to protect a child restrained a large man from causing pain to a child, by gripping the man’s arm without breaking skin. Education, training to play and work with humans and experience are the ingredients for mutual shared family and companions’ happiness.
1. Ordinary puppy learning and education among dogs
Puppies with brothers and sisters learn soon after two weeks of age that each of them has sharp defensive tools[ii] that can cause their play-mates serious pain, and that their playmates retaliate by accident or on purpose. Puppies teach each other unless prevented by humans. [Odd science – K Lorenz, Nobelist, in popular books asserted about 1954-55 that soft-bite was a genetic instinct. He was rebutted by observations of Scott & Fuller about 1965. Meanwhile the puppies world-wide continued to teach each other to play nice with soft-bites or get bitten or rejected from the puppy-games.]
Singleton puppies (without a sister or brother) will suffer severely as they grow up until or unless they are taught proper soft-mouth behavior, from their mother, dog-relatives or their humans. Because a singleton is likely to be a juvenile or older when it falls into the company of dog-relatives or humans, it will usually have some poor habits, and its education will usually be less fun for it. Failure to learn can result in their death, sooner or later.
As puppies begin to move about on stubby legs, they “taste” everything they encounter, including a brother’s or sister’s ear, paw, tail or whatever can be got into a mouth. Its teeth closing on tender skin cause screams and quick departure of the wee victim, thereby teaching the first lesson that biting too hard causes the fun to Halt. Soon after or before, the puppy will experience its own scream of pain when punctuated by a playmate, and experience fleeing to escape pain. Because puppies are very social creatures, being left alone is undesirable, and they soon learn that the fun continues only until somebody loses self-control and nips too hard. After that any severe nips causing “real pain” screams almost always cause instant halt of all activities in the play-room, and a mad scramble with licking, soft nipping and nosing to investigate and restore proper behaviors.
Ordinarily, being forced to stay by itself (ostracizing or puppy-time-out) and refused a share in play with the other puppies educated each puppy to nip gently but firmly. We witnessed occasional harmless tail-towing and “wrestling”, usually with the vocal sound effects of mayhem but always without injured skin or detectable bloodshed. We never positively saw a young puppy apparently deliberately turn to bite an antagonist in retaliation. However, by six weeks of age, most puppies had discovered the game of “puppy-bumping” which did involve mutual exchanges of chasing each other, and exchanges of soft-mouth nips on exposed anatomy such as ears and tails. Very rarely, we saw a few events in a litter when an over enthusiastic offender refused to let a screaming victim flee, and the other puppies scampered from all around the room to mob and nip a persisting offender. [Looked like a Soccer scrum.]
We learned to let the puppies learn from each other under their mother’s supervision. If anyone was actually suffering unacceptably, their mother responded to their sounds by separating the playmates, and sometimes “scrubbing” the one we thought had been too rough or occasionally having as go at each in turn, perhaps with a “shoulder-mouth” carry or an energetic push toward the sleeping quarters for a time-out.
2. Education by Mother dogs: First-time mother dogs who have maybe never seen puppies up-close, without the company of trusted dog-relatives might seem to be amazed at what their “children” get up to, until one or another tries on her reachable anatomy their nip or sharp tooth innocent grip antics. Learning about the need for proper education in soft-mouth inhibited-bite, by new mothers and puppies, is quite rapid as the puppies learn that a bite on a delicate part of mother means immediate, temporary weaning….
Experienced mothers are likely to begin educating their puppies on soft-mouth from the first day, mostly by nudging away or loosening the grip of anyone that is innocently causing her pain, or drawing blood. Likely she may intervene in any more grown up puppy wrestling and nipping if their sounds indicate real pain that exceeds her ideas of proper behavior, even if there was no bloodshed. We witnessed motherly nose nudges and fore-paw pressure on shoulders occasionally, or a firm soft-mouth grip across the shoulders to enforce her instructions. Rarely, an outrageously behaving (in the mother’s opinion) puppy was pushed energetically across the floor by mother’s nose toward its sleeping box, or marched toward its nest while pacing under her chest between the mother’s front legs.
As part of the soft-inhibited-bite education, usually an experienced mother will attempt to teach the puppies proper dog-manners, such as don’t jump up on an adult’s face with those sharp wee toenails, or cause pain with any nips or bites.
3. Soft-mouth- inhibited-bite education and training in manners by adult dogs: Sometimes related adult dogs and visitors, or strangers at a dog park or on sidewalks might feel an obligation to assist in correcting a mother’s short-falls in the education of puppies, most often when they encounter uncouth juveniles or even unsocialized adults. An adult dog might feel obligated for their own well being and the juvenile’s to teach the juvenile proper soft-inhibited bite, self control, cooperation and the essential physical doggish body language and vocal comments that are used among ordinary dogs of almost all breeds.
Usually, if the adult dog is larger and older than the juvenile or un-educated adult, the education sessions are likely to resemble a series of professional wrestling sessions, replete with “throws”, pin-downs, role-reversals, imitation shrieks and yelps, and so on without any intentional bloodshed. Occasional pauses are likely, if one or the other gets on the receiving end of an unusually strong grip, while both dogs wag tails and again offer to continue energetic play-educations. The dog receiving the education may seem not quite as enthusiastic as the other.
However when a large breed uncouth delinquent dog meets a small breed adult intent on educating the big-one, adult human supervision may be vital to minimize expensive injuries if the big dog has been spoiled and permitted to engage in brute-force conflict with humans or other dogs. [Excellent insight is available from Alexandra Semyonova’s book mentioned of the Reviews page.]
4. Soft-mouth, inhibited-bite education and training by caring people: If education of puppies or juveniles needs improvement, as perhaps with singletons, their people of course need to educate the dog that behaviors, which were tolerable among dogs, must be changed for their cooperation and sharing in enjoyable living with their people. Dogs at first when they begin living closely with humans can lack an understand that unlike dog-hide, human skin (especially kids!) is delicate, easily injured, and can result in very distressing reactions all-round.
How a puppy was raised can make an enormous difference. Puppies from small, infrequent litters raised by private families, perhaps with family and local children guests, possibly will have the best familiarity of proper behavior and soft-mouths with humans of all-sizes. At the worst “extreme” are puppies raised with almost no human contacts in commercial almost agricultural meat-production facilities, commonly called puppy mills that were widely “condemned” by US humane societies, public media and others. Whether a puppy or juvenile has an AKC registration or not was reportedly no assurance about how the dog was raised [See Review page: McCaig, The Dog Wars.]
Each young dog is unique, and might have had personal experiences that deserve tailored tactics for its education about using soft-mouth with humans. Soft-mouth is not an instinct from birth as academic authorities asserted as recently as 1950 in popular books. Several traditional tactics were advocated by experienced families. For example, if a young dog used too much “mouth”, the humans should pretend-simulate the reactions of other young dogs, by faking loud high pitched screams of pain, firmly but gently pushing the dog away, and refusing to play with it for a while, and so forth. Perhaps soon after when a young dog offers to “kiss” or lick hands, and seems generally dismayed, their people may begin to slowly cautiously (as though pretending to be an offended playmate) invite playing peacefully together again. IF the dog is slow to leave-go of a nip or grip, many people suggested firmly rolling a dog’s outer lips under its own teeth, so it without harm realizes more clearly what part of its actions were unacceptable. ….
Situations that for the dog seem very different will often need reminders by their humans for the dog, to help it to “generalize” and permanently realize that “soft-mouth” ought be used at all times, because the humans are wiser, can read the labels on the dog’s medicines, and have opposable thumbs that can open food cans and bags.
5. Rescue and shelter dogs: Each dog can be reliably assumed to have a unique, often unknown, set of experiences that flavor its actions and reactions. Many or most probably can be successfully adopted. There are advice generalizations available, but apparently NO universal instructions or advice will guarantee success with every dog that arrived in a rescue of shelter.
Rumors seem to exist that blind dogs and deaf dogs might deserve to be kept apart from abuse and bullying by ordinary dogs, because any or all of the dogs might understandably feel highly anxious and confused about their own safety and security.
a. Within rescue places and shelters. We suggest that each dog should be taken care of so far as possible, according to its personal experience:
1) Many of the dogs will come from a good home that can't keep them any longer, where they were trained and socialized with adults, children other dogs and other animals. With usually excellent success, those can be educated or retrained for a soft-bite much as though they were still living in an ordinary home.
2) Others will arrive as unwanted throw-aways or "cast-offs" from homes where they received little or no training, socializing or care. Those need a more extensive bonding and socializing to cooperate and play properly as part of the soft-bite education procedures. Generally, good success was reported although longer time was often needed.
3) The most diffcult group were likely to be the dogs severerly abused, poorly or untrained, and perhaps trained as "fighting-dogs." Breed and age of the dog does matter espceially for the last group, because large more adult abused, poorly trained or mistrained dogs and "fighting-dog" breeds are physically capable of far greater harm to humans and other animals. Success may be impossible for some of the third sort, in education for inhibited-bite and cooperation or re-education. [To be expaned as possible.]
[We encountered a few "combat-oriented" claims that penning all of the dogs regardless of size or temrament together will guarantee that they all, after a few minor wounds and some bloodshed) will emerge properly educated for a soft-bite inhibited bite (with other dogs , anyway), and after that each dog can eventually be educated to be nice when biting adult humans and children. We DO NOT recommend that "Survival of the biggest or fittest" method because it is likely to be expensive if the injured dogs and possibly injured humans receive medical treatments.]
b. Adopted from rescue or shelter, or long term fostered. We suggest that a fundamental vital foundation for improving its soft-bite, of rescued and shelter adopted dogs is the establishing for a new dog that it has at last found a safe, secure place with caring reliable people, about which we suggest visiting the page about “bonding” and the startle reflex. Reports of adoptors and fosters with the already well educated and trained dogs of the first and second group were almost always good, with at most an ocassional re-homing because of a unforeseen conflict among the animals.
However, if the education or re-education at a rescue or shelter was inadequate (as was most likely for the third sort of dogs) a serious challenge or even ocassional failures might be experienced by the adoptors or fosters, especially if they had other animals already in residence. When working with an already seriously mistreated dog, perhaps abused or neglected from birth, an adoptor or foster who tries their best, ought not feel like a personal failure if nothing can be done for the dog. [To be expanded, as possible.]
6. Deafness or blind difficulties of dog-dog communication, dog-human and human-dog communication and cooperation: A discussion of possible forms of aid to help deaf and blind dogs who might have received inadequate education as puppies in the niceties of soft-bite, and proper dog-social behaviors with dogs and humans. Ordinary dogs use vocalizing and body language to communicate with each other. As mentioned about puppies, the observations of ordinary puppies indicated that their vocalizations appeared to be an important part of their education for soft-bite and other proper dog social behaviors.
Deaf dogs:
Deaf puppies would presumably lack the useful initial simple sound-stimuli and reactions of the other puppies to excessively energetic nips and bites. An offending deaf puppy’s social rejection and avoidance by the offended puppies, however, would be unmistakable. Any persistent delinquent behavior could provoke “mobbing” by its siblings, who were “summoned” by the cries of a suffering puppy (deaf puppies can cry as loudly as ordinary puppies). Further, with an experienced mother dog, a deaf puppy would almost certainly get its share of “scrubbings” and get to see its mother’s teeth real close to its ears. A repeated dose of motherly hot humid “dog-breath” ought to add to the puppy’s understanding that a soft-mouth for its playmates and mother was vital. Thus among puppies there was no obvious reason why a deaf pup might suffer from inadequate education by its siblings and mother.
Similarly, a deaf dog’s inability to hear as human and ordinary dogs do, the vocalizations of other dogs would cause a mentally sound dog to rely on the body language of the other dogs, and the humans, until eventually it might succeed in developing its alternative means of perceiving mechanical vibrations (sound) [See Adapting page]. Deafness has no known consequences for an otherwise physically ordinary deaf dog’s instinctive generation of its own “proper” body language (such as tail wagging, play bows, dental tooth displays, lip lifting) and breed-normal vocalizations such as growls, howls, whines, “lost-calls” and the rest of the breed’s genetic vocal “kit.” [Some deaf dogs have personal unique “calls” that because of their deafness they can’t adjust to fit into their family’s “chorus.”]
When deaf dogs encounter communication difficulties with other dogs and humans, it seems from observations that quite often the diffulties happened from the “other’s” (human or dog) demanding that the deaf dog instantly behave as demanded by the “other.” As mentioned, some adult dogs have an urge to “educate” dogs that don’t react precisely as the adult expects. If the adverse adult dog wasn’t well educated for a soft-bite and proper self discipline, unpleasant expensive results can happen to all of those involved. Thus their owners perhaps ought to be careful for their companion if they are approached by an unfamiliar dog who seems to have potential “education” or hostile notions on its mind. Small dogs and very large adult dogs (in our experience) were roughly equivalent in their potential to misjudge and victimize deaf dogs.
Blind dogs:
Unlike deaf puppies, blind puppies seem likely to have received very nearly the same soft-bite education as ordinary puppies from their playmates and mother. When blind dogs encounter communication difficulties with other dogs and humans, it seems from observations that quite often the difficulties happened from the “other’s” (human or dog) arbitrarily demanding that the blind dog instantly behave as expected and demanded by the “other.” As mentioned, some adult dogs have an urge to “educate” dogs that don’t react precisely as the adult expects. If an adverse adult dog wasn’t well educated for a soft-bite and proper self discipline, unpleasant expensive results can happen to all of those involved. Thus owners of blind dogs ought to be careful for their companion if they are approached by an unfamiliar dog who seems to have potential “education” or hostile notions on its mind. Small dogs and very large adult dogs (in our experience) were roughly equivalent in their potential to misjudge and victimize blind and blind-deaf dogs.
Education by people, of deaf dogs or blind dogs, would (excepting the potential threat from other, unsocialized dogs) be much the same as for ordinary dogs as described in other places; [see Reviews of the Book and research by Alexandra Semyonova])
[i] Because each (every) dog is unique with unique experience, usually shares the “styles” of its breed and may live with unique people, this page can only offer generalizations based on experience. Anyone who wishes to contribute their observations, and describe what worked for them, is invited to contact us.
[ii] Tools: Puppies soon after birth have needle-sharp “milk-teeth” and fish-hook shape toe-nails. They nurse by rolling their tongues into tubes (like a soda straw) to suck milk from their mother’s nipples. About four weeks of age puppies usually can begin to learn to eat soft foods, and lap up liquids from bowls. Their toenails are vital at birth and for weeks after, for each puppy to pull itself across the nest to its’ mother and then hold-on as it nurses. By an age of about two weeks their toe-nails begin to break off the recurved tip and become quite ordinary in shape but remain sharp. Their milk teeth are usually replaced by roughly four months by their adult teeth.
March 22, 2011 (17 contributors[i])
1. Ordinary puppy learning and education among dogs
2. Education by mother dogs
3. Soft-mouth- inhibited-bite education and training in manners by adult dogs
4. Soft-mouth- inhibited-bite education and training by concerned people
5. Rescues and shelter dogs
6. Adapting for deafness or blind difficulties of dog-dog communication and cooperation
Introduction: “Soft-bite” and bite-inhibition refer to the results of dogs’ learning self-control and discipline to use only as much mouth-grip as indispensable for the task. Generally the discussed concerns and education concepts are likely to apply to all dogs, with some adjustments for deaf or blind dogs living with humans. Dominance/ submission, operant-conditioning and such are misleading in the extreme when misapplied to this crucial education that is vital for every dog living with other dogs, other animals or humans.
Preferably each puppy learns it from its sibling playmates by mutual experiences. Otherwise, it must learn from its mother or an adult dog, or as last choice from a caring human. Here we discuss the typical phases of learning bite-inhibition and in turn comment and the usual events of remedial education by unrelated adult dogs or by humans. Occasionally any dog, whether deaf dogs or blind dogs, need to get refresher education from their humans, most often if the dog was fostered, rescued or otherwise experienced erratic, chaotic living conditions where normal peaceful dog-rules of non-aggressive play and companionship were routinely violated.
A dog with effective soft-bite can learn to accept a treat from a human friend without touching anything but the treat if the bit is held out on a fingertip. A family dog acting to protect a child restrained a large man from causing pain to a child, by gripping the man’s arm without breaking skin. Education, training to play and work with humans and experience are the ingredients for mutual shared family and companions’ happiness.
1. Ordinary puppy learning and education among dogs
Puppies with brothers and sisters learn soon after two weeks of age that each of them has sharp defensive tools[ii] that can cause their play-mates serious pain, and that their playmates retaliate by accident or on purpose. Puppies teach each other unless prevented by humans. [Odd science – K Lorenz, Nobelist, in popular books asserted about 1954-55 that soft-bite was a genetic instinct. He was rebutted by observations of Scott & Fuller about 1965. Meanwhile the puppies world-wide continued to teach each other to play nice with soft-bites or get bitten or rejected from the puppy-games.]
Singleton puppies (without a sister or brother) will suffer severely as they grow up until or unless they are taught proper soft-mouth behavior, from their mother, dog-relatives or their humans. Because a singleton is likely to be a juvenile or older when it falls into the company of dog-relatives or humans, it will usually have some poor habits, and its education will usually be less fun for it. Failure to learn can result in their death, sooner or later.
As puppies begin to move about on stubby legs, they “taste” everything they encounter, including a brother’s or sister’s ear, paw, tail or whatever can be got into a mouth. Its teeth closing on tender skin cause screams and quick departure of the wee victim, thereby teaching the first lesson that biting too hard causes the fun to Halt. Soon after or before, the puppy will experience its own scream of pain when punctuated by a playmate, and experience fleeing to escape pain. Because puppies are very social creatures, being left alone is undesirable, and they soon learn that the fun continues only until somebody loses self-control and nips too hard. After that any severe nips causing “real pain” screams almost always cause instant halt of all activities in the play-room, and a mad scramble with licking, soft nipping and nosing to investigate and restore proper behaviors.
Ordinarily, being forced to stay by itself (ostracizing or puppy-time-out) and refused a share in play with the other puppies educated each puppy to nip gently but firmly. We witnessed occasional harmless tail-towing and “wrestling”, usually with the vocal sound effects of mayhem but always without injured skin or detectable bloodshed. We never positively saw a young puppy apparently deliberately turn to bite an antagonist in retaliation. However, by six weeks of age, most puppies had discovered the game of “puppy-bumping” which did involve mutual exchanges of chasing each other, and exchanges of soft-mouth nips on exposed anatomy such as ears and tails. Very rarely, we saw a few events in a litter when an over enthusiastic offender refused to let a screaming victim flee, and the other puppies scampered from all around the room to mob and nip a persisting offender. [Looked like a Soccer scrum.]
We learned to let the puppies learn from each other under their mother’s supervision. If anyone was actually suffering unacceptably, their mother responded to their sounds by separating the playmates, and sometimes “scrubbing” the one we thought had been too rough or occasionally having as go at each in turn, perhaps with a “shoulder-mouth” carry or an energetic push toward the sleeping quarters for a time-out.
2. Education by Mother dogs: First-time mother dogs who have maybe never seen puppies up-close, without the company of trusted dog-relatives might seem to be amazed at what their “children” get up to, until one or another tries on her reachable anatomy their nip or sharp tooth innocent grip antics. Learning about the need for proper education in soft-mouth inhibited-bite, by new mothers and puppies, is quite rapid as the puppies learn that a bite on a delicate part of mother means immediate, temporary weaning….
Experienced mothers are likely to begin educating their puppies on soft-mouth from the first day, mostly by nudging away or loosening the grip of anyone that is innocently causing her pain, or drawing blood. Likely she may intervene in any more grown up puppy wrestling and nipping if their sounds indicate real pain that exceeds her ideas of proper behavior, even if there was no bloodshed. We witnessed motherly nose nudges and fore-paw pressure on shoulders occasionally, or a firm soft-mouth grip across the shoulders to enforce her instructions. Rarely, an outrageously behaving (in the mother’s opinion) puppy was pushed energetically across the floor by mother’s nose toward its sleeping box, or marched toward its nest while pacing under her chest between the mother’s front legs.
As part of the soft-inhibited-bite education, usually an experienced mother will attempt to teach the puppies proper dog-manners, such as don’t jump up on an adult’s face with those sharp wee toenails, or cause pain with any nips or bites.
3. Soft-mouth- inhibited-bite education and training in manners by adult dogs: Sometimes related adult dogs and visitors, or strangers at a dog park or on sidewalks might feel an obligation to assist in correcting a mother’s short-falls in the education of puppies, most often when they encounter uncouth juveniles or even unsocialized adults. An adult dog might feel obligated for their own well being and the juvenile’s to teach the juvenile proper soft-inhibited bite, self control, cooperation and the essential physical doggish body language and vocal comments that are used among ordinary dogs of almost all breeds.
Usually, if the adult dog is larger and older than the juvenile or un-educated adult, the education sessions are likely to resemble a series of professional wrestling sessions, replete with “throws”, pin-downs, role-reversals, imitation shrieks and yelps, and so on without any intentional bloodshed. Occasional pauses are likely, if one or the other gets on the receiving end of an unusually strong grip, while both dogs wag tails and again offer to continue energetic play-educations. The dog receiving the education may seem not quite as enthusiastic as the other.
However when a large breed uncouth delinquent dog meets a small breed adult intent on educating the big-one, adult human supervision may be vital to minimize expensive injuries if the big dog has been spoiled and permitted to engage in brute-force conflict with humans or other dogs. [Excellent insight is available from Alexandra Semyonova’s book mentioned of the Reviews page.]
4. Soft-mouth, inhibited-bite education and training by caring people: If education of puppies or juveniles needs improvement, as perhaps with singletons, their people of course need to educate the dog that behaviors, which were tolerable among dogs, must be changed for their cooperation and sharing in enjoyable living with their people. Dogs at first when they begin living closely with humans can lack an understand that unlike dog-hide, human skin (especially kids!) is delicate, easily injured, and can result in very distressing reactions all-round.
How a puppy was raised can make an enormous difference. Puppies from small, infrequent litters raised by private families, perhaps with family and local children guests, possibly will have the best familiarity of proper behavior and soft-mouths with humans of all-sizes. At the worst “extreme” are puppies raised with almost no human contacts in commercial almost agricultural meat-production facilities, commonly called puppy mills that were widely “condemned” by US humane societies, public media and others. Whether a puppy or juvenile has an AKC registration or not was reportedly no assurance about how the dog was raised [See Review page: McCaig, The Dog Wars.]
Each young dog is unique, and might have had personal experiences that deserve tailored tactics for its education about using soft-mouth with humans. Soft-mouth is not an instinct from birth as academic authorities asserted as recently as 1950 in popular books. Several traditional tactics were advocated by experienced families. For example, if a young dog used too much “mouth”, the humans should pretend-simulate the reactions of other young dogs, by faking loud high pitched screams of pain, firmly but gently pushing the dog away, and refusing to play with it for a while, and so forth. Perhaps soon after when a young dog offers to “kiss” or lick hands, and seems generally dismayed, their people may begin to slowly cautiously (as though pretending to be an offended playmate) invite playing peacefully together again. IF the dog is slow to leave-go of a nip or grip, many people suggested firmly rolling a dog’s outer lips under its own teeth, so it without harm realizes more clearly what part of its actions were unacceptable. ….
Situations that for the dog seem very different will often need reminders by their humans for the dog, to help it to “generalize” and permanently realize that “soft-mouth” ought be used at all times, because the humans are wiser, can read the labels on the dog’s medicines, and have opposable thumbs that can open food cans and bags.
5. Rescue and shelter dogs: Each dog can be reliably assumed to have a unique, often unknown, set of experiences that flavor its actions and reactions. Many or most probably can be successfully adopted. There are advice generalizations available, but apparently NO universal instructions or advice will guarantee success with every dog that arrived in a rescue of shelter.
Rumors seem to exist that blind dogs and deaf dogs might deserve to be kept apart from abuse and bullying by ordinary dogs, because any or all of the dogs might understandably feel highly anxious and confused about their own safety and security.
a. Within rescue places and shelters. We suggest that each dog should be taken care of so far as possible, according to its personal experience:
1) Many of the dogs will come from a good home that can't keep them any longer, where they were trained and socialized with adults, children other dogs and other animals. With usually excellent success, those can be educated or retrained for a soft-bite much as though they were still living in an ordinary home.
2) Others will arrive as unwanted throw-aways or "cast-offs" from homes where they received little or no training, socializing or care. Those need a more extensive bonding and socializing to cooperate and play properly as part of the soft-bite education procedures. Generally, good success was reported although longer time was often needed.
3) The most diffcult group were likely to be the dogs severerly abused, poorly or untrained, and perhaps trained as "fighting-dogs." Breed and age of the dog does matter espceially for the last group, because large more adult abused, poorly trained or mistrained dogs and "fighting-dog" breeds are physically capable of far greater harm to humans and other animals. Success may be impossible for some of the third sort, in education for inhibited-bite and cooperation or re-education. [To be expaned as possible.]
[We encountered a few "combat-oriented" claims that penning all of the dogs regardless of size or temrament together will guarantee that they all, after a few minor wounds and some bloodshed) will emerge properly educated for a soft-bite inhibited bite (with other dogs , anyway), and after that each dog can eventually be educated to be nice when biting adult humans and children. We DO NOT recommend that "Survival of the biggest or fittest" method because it is likely to be expensive if the injured dogs and possibly injured humans receive medical treatments.]
b. Adopted from rescue or shelter, or long term fostered. We suggest that a fundamental vital foundation for improving its soft-bite, of rescued and shelter adopted dogs is the establishing for a new dog that it has at last found a safe, secure place with caring reliable people, about which we suggest visiting the page about “bonding” and the startle reflex. Reports of adoptors and fosters with the already well educated and trained dogs of the first and second group were almost always good, with at most an ocassional re-homing because of a unforeseen conflict among the animals.
However, if the education or re-education at a rescue or shelter was inadequate (as was most likely for the third sort of dogs) a serious challenge or even ocassional failures might be experienced by the adoptors or fosters, especially if they had other animals already in residence. When working with an already seriously mistreated dog, perhaps abused or neglected from birth, an adoptor or foster who tries their best, ought not feel like a personal failure if nothing can be done for the dog. [To be expanded, as possible.]
6. Deafness or blind difficulties of dog-dog communication, dog-human and human-dog communication and cooperation: A discussion of possible forms of aid to help deaf and blind dogs who might have received inadequate education as puppies in the niceties of soft-bite, and proper dog-social behaviors with dogs and humans. Ordinary dogs use vocalizing and body language to communicate with each other. As mentioned about puppies, the observations of ordinary puppies indicated that their vocalizations appeared to be an important part of their education for soft-bite and other proper dog social behaviors.
Deaf dogs:
Deaf puppies would presumably lack the useful initial simple sound-stimuli and reactions of the other puppies to excessively energetic nips and bites. An offending deaf puppy’s social rejection and avoidance by the offended puppies, however, would be unmistakable. Any persistent delinquent behavior could provoke “mobbing” by its siblings, who were “summoned” by the cries of a suffering puppy (deaf puppies can cry as loudly as ordinary puppies). Further, with an experienced mother dog, a deaf puppy would almost certainly get its share of “scrubbings” and get to see its mother’s teeth real close to its ears. A repeated dose of motherly hot humid “dog-breath” ought to add to the puppy’s understanding that a soft-mouth for its playmates and mother was vital. Thus among puppies there was no obvious reason why a deaf pup might suffer from inadequate education by its siblings and mother.
Similarly, a deaf dog’s inability to hear as human and ordinary dogs do, the vocalizations of other dogs would cause a mentally sound dog to rely on the body language of the other dogs, and the humans, until eventually it might succeed in developing its alternative means of perceiving mechanical vibrations (sound) [See Adapting page]. Deafness has no known consequences for an otherwise physically ordinary deaf dog’s instinctive generation of its own “proper” body language (such as tail wagging, play bows, dental tooth displays, lip lifting) and breed-normal vocalizations such as growls, howls, whines, “lost-calls” and the rest of the breed’s genetic vocal “kit.” [Some deaf dogs have personal unique “calls” that because of their deafness they can’t adjust to fit into their family’s “chorus.”]
When deaf dogs encounter communication difficulties with other dogs and humans, it seems from observations that quite often the diffulties happened from the “other’s” (human or dog) demanding that the deaf dog instantly behave as demanded by the “other.” As mentioned, some adult dogs have an urge to “educate” dogs that don’t react precisely as the adult expects. If the adverse adult dog wasn’t well educated for a soft-bite and proper self discipline, unpleasant expensive results can happen to all of those involved. Thus their owners perhaps ought to be careful for their companion if they are approached by an unfamiliar dog who seems to have potential “education” or hostile notions on its mind. Small dogs and very large adult dogs (in our experience) were roughly equivalent in their potential to misjudge and victimize deaf dogs.
Blind dogs:
Unlike deaf puppies, blind puppies seem likely to have received very nearly the same soft-bite education as ordinary puppies from their playmates and mother. When blind dogs encounter communication difficulties with other dogs and humans, it seems from observations that quite often the difficulties happened from the “other’s” (human or dog) arbitrarily demanding that the blind dog instantly behave as expected and demanded by the “other.” As mentioned, some adult dogs have an urge to “educate” dogs that don’t react precisely as the adult expects. If an adverse adult dog wasn’t well educated for a soft-bite and proper self discipline, unpleasant expensive results can happen to all of those involved. Thus owners of blind dogs ought to be careful for their companion if they are approached by an unfamiliar dog who seems to have potential “education” or hostile notions on its mind. Small dogs and very large adult dogs (in our experience) were roughly equivalent in their potential to misjudge and victimize blind and blind-deaf dogs.
Education by people, of deaf dogs or blind dogs, would (excepting the potential threat from other, unsocialized dogs) be much the same as for ordinary dogs as described in other places; [see Reviews of the Book and research by Alexandra Semyonova])
[i] Because each (every) dog is unique with unique experience, usually shares the “styles” of its breed and may live with unique people, this page can only offer generalizations based on experience. Anyone who wishes to contribute their observations, and describe what worked for them, is invited to contact us.
[ii] Tools: Puppies soon after birth have needle-sharp “milk-teeth” and fish-hook shape toe-nails. They nurse by rolling their tongues into tubes (like a soda straw) to suck milk from their mother’s nipples. About four weeks of age puppies usually can begin to learn to eat soft foods, and lap up liquids from bowls. Their toenails are vital at birth and for weeks after, for each puppy to pull itself across the nest to its’ mother and then hold-on as it nurses. By an age of about two weeks their toe-nails begin to break off the recurved tip and become quite ordinary in shape but remain sharp. Their milk teeth are usually replaced by roughly four months by their adult teeth.