Understanding Certain Dog Behaviors

What People Need to Know About Dog Behavior

As the old adage goes, “Dogs are man’s best friend.” However,
there are times when people just can’t understand why their
beloved dogs behave in a different manner. Hence, it is
extremely important to know the underlying reasons why dogs
sometimes behave differently.

You can teach your dog appropriate behavior. Experts say that
dog behaviors can be controlled through proper training.

Dog behaviors are actually responses that are mostly triggered
by environmental and social factors. Hence, to control these
responses, the owner should teach his dogs the proper way to
respond to such elements. Let’s explore a few of the methods:

Dog Bite

Statistics show that almost 5 million people in the U.S. are
victims of dog bites annually. This is almost 2% of the total
population in the U.S. What’s more, dog bites cases rank as
second most common cause of emergencies in the hospitals.

So, the question is: Why dogs bite?

According to the experts, the main reasons why dogs may bite are
the following:

1. Excitement

When somebody plays with his or her dog, the tendency of the dog
is to get excited, and because dogs don’t have hands to use when
playing, they use their mouth to grasp things. When this
happens, there is the tendency that the dog might accidentally
hurt people without intending to do anything harmful.

2. Protection

Dogs can be very possessive, so, whenever he wants to protect
something that he owns, he will bite whoever threatens to take
it away from him. Hence, when people get near the dog’s
property, the dog’s tendency is to bite to make the person leave
his property alone.

3. Pain

When the dog is not feeling well, he does not understand why he
is feeling that way. Therefore, when a person, even if it’s his
master, touches him, he may think that it’s the person who
causes the pain and so his tendency is to fight back by biting.

4. Fear

Dogs are sometimes afraid just like humans. That is why when
somebody startles him, the dog’s only known protection for
itself is to bite back.

The best thing is to avoid these situations and leave the dog
alone. The problem with so many people is that they want to
always play around with their dog without learning how and when
the dogs should be left alone.

Like humans, dogs have feelings too. When these feelings are all
mixed up, their only known protection for themselves is to bite
because they cannot understand the situation logically.
Therefore, people should know that in order to avoid such
circumstances.