Some people would say that dogs can’t talk. That would be the same as an English speaker saying that a German speaker can’t speak because the American doesn’t understand the language. Dogs communicate. It’s just that they use a language that not all of us understand. It may not be as sophisticated as human language, but it is language nonetheless.
So when someone says that a dog attacked another dog for no reason, I hesitate to agree with that observation. Dogs use body language to communicate with each other. The slightest movement of an ear, eye, tail, head, or body gives a lot of information to any canine in sight.
They not only communicate through body language, but also through smell and sound. A female in heat gives off a strong scent that can carry a great distance. A frightened or injured dog gives off a scent that can keep some dogs away or encourage others to try to help or protect.
So when a dog attacks another dog, there is always a reason. However, those of us who are not well versed in canine language may not see the subtle signal emitted by one or both dogs. And we certainly don’t have nearly the ability to smell the subtle changes in a dog’s chemistry that they themselves have.
Dogs have more than 220 million olfactory (olfactory) receptors in their nostrils, while humans only have about 5 million. Therefore, they are far superior to us in their ability to smell changes in body chemistry, which is demonstrated in the ability of some pets to indicate areas of cancer in humans by continually sniffing and licking a specific area of the person’s body. .
So when a dog approaches another dog, sniffs, and then attacks, there is a reason. If a dog sees a dog in the distance, runs towards it and attacks it, there is a reason. If a dog lives with another dog in peace and then one day attacks the other dog, there is a reason. We just don’t always understand what that reason is.
Sometimes a dog will attack another of its kind due to some kind of health problem in the attacking dog. If a normally non-aggressive pet suddenly starts attacking other dogs, a veterinarian should examine it thoroughly to rule out any physical cause.
If there is no obvious physical cause for the aggressive behavior, the owner should examine their own relationship with the dog. Does the owner show weakness and lack of leadership so that the dog feels that he needs to take charge, lead and protect the pack? Is the owner calm and assertive when confronted with a strange dog or does he tense up, allowing fear and apprehension to travel through the leash to the sensitive dog on the other end, indicating that the strange dog is a bad thing and does it need to be? watch out”?
Nobody likes to see 2 dogs fight, and it’s never safe to try to intervene with your bare hands. This is when a canine pepper spray comes in handy, or even a stun baton that extends to 21″ so you can reach out and stun one or both dogs to end the fight. It may sound cruel, but it could very well save a life.
There are so many ways that dogs communicate with each other that although we may not always be aware of the reasons, there is always a reason why one dog attacks another. He may have been trained to attack certain types of dogs, he may feel threatened by another dog of the same sex, feeling the need to assert his position of dominance and leadership. He can feel a weakness, an illness, a fear, anything out of the ordinary that we cannot recognize with our lesser abilities of observation and smell.
We as humans use our vocal cords to do most of our communication. We don’t need our sense of smell and observation of each other as much as dogs do because we communicate through speech. I wonder how much easier it would be to understand their language and how much closer we could bond with our dogs if we spent less time talking to them and more time observing their body language as they observe and react to ours and other dogs.
I wonder if we would then understand why a dog attacks another dog and what we can do to prevent this aggressive behavior.