Josie’s body stiffened and she raised her tail slightly more. Her tail was already raised long before she bit. The puppy did not see the warning. Did you? The kids that are with her, who are experienced dog handlers and well-schooled in dog body language, did not see the warning either. It all happened so fast. Let’s just pretend for a moment that the puppy was a child and you were the parent sitting right there. Do you think you would have noticed the warning signs? Do you think that you would have been able to stop the bite, even if you had seen the signs? Dogs can bite in 1/40th of a second. It would have been all over before you even had time to react even if you were right there.

It is doubtful that anyone would have been able to stop the bite in this situation. However, we already knew that Josie does not like puppies. She had at various times in the past, got up and left the vicinity of a puppy, shown various signs of anxiety (which we will discuss later on this page) around puppies, and growled at puppies who approached her or her belongings. She had done everything possible to say “I am uncomfortable around puppies” and yet we allowed the puppy to come close to her while she was getting treats. This pushed Josie past her limit of tolerance and she snapped at the puppy. This did not hurt the puppy (other than his feelings) because he has lots of fur and because Josie did not intend to hurt him – just to warn him away. Various strategies could have been used to prevent this situation, all of them based on noticing and acting on the warnings previously given by the poodle. We ignored all these and allowed a situation to occur that resulted in Josie feeling that she had no choice but to tell the puppy off. Since they are dogs it is not a big problem. Dogs are good at sorting these things out for themselves.

Just imagine that the puppy was a child though. Children do not have fur to protect them and this kind of “don’t bug me!” bite could have very serious consequences. This was not an attack or even an incidence of serious aggression. This was a nice family dog, pushed past her limit of tolerance in that moment. It is analogous to a parent losing her cool and shouting “stop that right now!” to a child that has been pestering her or a sibling incessantly. There are many people in the Doggone Safe Victim Support Group who have found themselves in this exact situation with a dog that no-one thought would ever bite. Even a single bite can cause terrible damage to a child’s tender skin resulting in many painful plastic surgeries and lasting emotional problems. The consequence for the dog is even more dire, since he will likely lose his life or end up in a shelter over such a moment of intolerance if the bite happens to land on the child’s face or other sensitive area. We offer this example in order to demonstrate why parents, kids and dog owners need to learn to speak dog and know when the dog is happy to interact and when he wants to be left alone.