petorama

Ask Yvette

Dear Yvette

Our dog ducks his head when we reach to pet him. It looks just terrible. I even heard someone say Hershey was “Hand shy.” We have never hit our dog. It's embarrassing. What happened and what can we do?

Jean

Most people recognize that dogs have a unique communication style. It can be obvious when you watch a friendly dog and cat try to interact. The dog bows and the cat swats the dog. Then the dog tries to paw at the cat to get play started. The frustrated cat walks off. As the cat leaves, the dog tries to sniff the cat's rear end canine style. This brings further sentiments of disgust from the cat.

Dogs and people enter into similar miscommunications. One of these is the head pat. People automatically reach to pat a dog's head. Owners who are careful at observation notice that subtle sign of discomfort. Some dogs have people who have done classroom exercises that teach a dog to accept head pats. Those dogs have learned to enjoy what we humans do.

Then there are the dogs who have had no prevention. Often those owners have not noticed the shying. Those dogs are however giving ample signs of dislike

If you think about wild dogs for a minute, it makes sense that a head pat would be uncomfortable. Dogs walk on four legs. Dogs greet each other sideways and sniff. Dogs do not pat one another on the head. It is unnatural. Dogs must think we humans do the strangest things.

If you want a dog to accept something outside their nature, you need to teach it. These types of exercises fall into the “prevention,” side of puppy classes. You teach a dog how to live in the human world. In my opinion, prevention exercises are more important than obedience. Friendly dogs are usually easy to train. Aggressive dogs are a whole other ballgame. Owners of dogs that bite wish they had friendly. Trust me.

Touch or handling exercises are really quite simple. If you have visited Marineland in the last couple of years, you may have even done them. When you pay to pet and feed a whale, you are actually paying to teach the whale to like human touch. The whale learns that a reaching human hand means they get a herring. This works on thousand pound whales. It also works on dogs.

For puppies, you can use kibble. It is as simple as, “Touch the top of the dog's head and get some kibble.” When visiting with a dog, you can also respect their nature. Let the dog sniff first and if the dog is social you can offer a scratch on the chin. It makes good safety sense not to pat dogs on the head. Some will let you while others will bite.

For adult dogs or puppies that show signs of aggression such as lip curling, tensing or snapping, you should get the advice of a professional. There are middle steps and safety precautions that help you move along more safely.

Many dogs are hand shy, and some of those dogs may have been heavy handed. Good on you for recognizing hands should only be for positive interaction. Hitting or similar behaviors can cause a dog to hate human hands. Frankly, I do not really blame any dog for taking exception to being swatted or caused pain. I would probably take exception to it myself.

Yvette is an award winning pet writer and pet behavior columnist. She also is the author of Meeting Milo, a North American dog bite prevention program to reduce the approximately 2 million children bit by dogs annually. She is the owner of AwesomeDogs.ca and works as a behavior consultant in London, Ontario.

This column was originally featured in The Londoner
See more of Yvette... www.awesomedogs.ca
www.meetingmilo.com

Yvette has 2 dogs of her own, KIKI and KAYA. Take a look...

Previous Questions

• Dear Yvette, We back onto a large green spac...
• Dear Yvette: Our dog is prejudice. I know tha...
• Dear Yvette, I am about to get married and own...
• Dear Yvette Our puppy is taking her toys and p...
• Dear Yvette, We have run into some problems wi...
• View All Questions