This is something my dog does everyonce in a while. She will growl, but everything about her body language suggests she’s happy and friendly. Tail is wagging, ears are relaxed, she’s “smiling” (jaw relaxed and tongue haning out), but she’s growling. Here are the situations where I’ve seen her do this:
[ul]
[li]When a stranger was bending over her to pet her (several different occasions)[/li][li]When a dog groomer drew her fingers through her fur backwards to see how bad she was shedding[/li][li]When the vet was prodding/probing her belly during her first checkup[/li][li]When the vet was checking her teeth during one checkup (but not others)[/li][/ul]
These are all situations which can make a dog uncomfortable, but it’s so weird that she’s displaying “I’m happy” body language. Any other dog I’ve been around, if they’re upset enough to growl, they’re also displaying “I’m upset/angry/scared” body language. I’m never sure what to do when she does this. Should I pull her back or seperate her from the person she’s growling at? Should I try to sooth her? Should I just ignore it since she doesnt’ seem all that bothered?
IANA dog trainer, but I love them (too much) and my terrier does this sometimes. We have interpreted it as “please stop doing that - I’m not mad but I don’t like that.”
ETA: if the dog is saying “please don’t do that” (in our interpretation) then we stop doing it. Stop the other person doing it. Soothe the dog if its the vet doing their work.
It is probably a precursor to a “corrective snap”. i.e. if it doesn’t stop the dog will make a snapping biting gesture without closing the jaws forcefully. These can be dangerous as the dog often misjudges the force of the bite or the sharpness of its teeth. (Human skin being much more fragile than canine.)
If it still doesn’t stop, the dog will escalate its defiance, and will try to truly bite.
Whenever you see/hear this you should immediately get control of your dog’s head - grab the collar etc. Then proceed to calm the dog in an authoritative voice. This sends the message: “I’m in charge, be submissive, no serious harm will come to you.”
I’d see it not so much as ‘I like you but…’, more of ‘I’m a submissive dog and wanting to be submissive to you, but if you keep doing that/get too close/do something I’m not comfortable with, I may get aggressive with you.’
So the consensus seems to be “I’m not terribly pleased with this but I’m not actually mad about it (yet).” Well, except for Markxxx’s smoking theory.
Makes sense. So far whenever it’s happened the person stopped what they were doing because, well, that’s what you do when a dog growls at you. The vet finished what he was doing, but what he was doing each time was a quick check anyway. Then she stopped growling, and everything was dandy.
I agree with the consensus above. It’s a “hey, I’m a nice dog, but I don’t like that and I won’t keep being nice if you keep doing that,” kind of growl.
As a veterinary technician who sees this kind of behavior all the time, I know to stop whatever I’m doing and I go get a muzzle (nose-warmer, party hat) if I need to do anything else. I WILL NOT trust a dog any further if I get a growl in that manner. The owner can say nothing to change my mind.
Just a caveat, please don’t reward this behavior with soothing, that will only encourage your dog to escalate in the future (possibly over many years), and over time the warning growl may not be much of a warning. Please make sure to correct her so she knows that growling is not acceptable when professionals are checking her out. Just a gentle correction, a firm NO and a little tug on the collar so she knows she can’t get away with it. (because so far, in her mind, that growl has been working really well for her) When she’s old and achy and cranky she will be harder and harder for vets and people trying to help her to work with her without reaching for a muzzle first!
I am glad you said that, and I agree with you. It is confirmation (to me) that I did right by my own dog. My 10 year old dog did the “happy but growling” thing once when he was young. Once. I was getting ready to clip his nails- which he hates-and just reached for his front paw. He kept wagging the tail, kept his ears (relaxed and) down in “submissive puppy” posture but growled at me a bit. I just looked at him with the “Mommy glare” and firmly said, “Don’t you dare” because that’s what came out of my mouth, not because it was the right thing to say…and he must have known I meant it because he has never done that again.
I would not tolerate even a little bit of aggression in circumstances where it is unwarranted, and would not reward the behavior in any way. But then I am also very paranoid because my dog is huge and I want him to be as wussified and submissive as possible so that he doesn’t even accidentally scare or nip someone (with his huge teeth even a warning nip could hurt a lot!).
It would break my heart if my baby had to be muzzled or if a vet felt like they needed to muzzle him before treating him.
I laughed when I read this because I know exactly what you mean! My 1.5-year-old dog (who I’ve had since she was 3 months old) is generally very well behaved, but every now and then she’ll test me and sometimes I just react – never physically, just verbally. Sometimes I say kind of stupid things, in retrospect. I really think it’s more about tone of voice, though: my dog seems to innately understand my “I’m not fooling around” voice, even though I hardly ever have to use it with her.
I took my girl out to pee last night and she was growling at something - maybe me, it was too dark for me to tell. Then when I turned to go in she started barking at me and ran in the house. Not sure what all that was all about.
Yeah, it’s kind of the dog equivalent of a polite but firm warning. My Italian mastiff did this once in awhile. I just give her a firm (not LOUD, firm), “Hey! No!,” and she’d knock it off, which was immediately followed with gentle affection to reinforce the behavior.
I would often be over something like sending her outside if she was still working on a bone, taking the bone away, etc. She was being petulant, “I am doing the dog version of stamping my foot and saying, ‘I don’t wanna!’”
She hasn’t done it in quite a while. Once she understood that wasn’t going to fly and that she would always get her bone back later, she accepted quickly and graciously.
There’s also the possibility (I guess you’d know, it being your dog) that the growl-like sound is a play-growl. My dog makes two different growl sounds; one clearly indicates pleasure during play, the other is more aggressive.
You should hear the rottweiler I walk, when I give her a tummy rub. Anyone would think she was going to tear my arm off, but she is just saying “More, more!”
My dad sometimes tries to take my dog’s bone away (for a bath, or for his nightly teeth brushing), and he gets the tail-wagging-mild-growl at him. FTR, he doesn’t do this to my mom, because she is the “master” of the house - feeds him, walks him (the most), spends the most time with him.
One of our male Huskies used to do a sort of snuffling snort to greet people he liked. It sounded like a terrible growl if you didn’t know him. Scared the beejeesus out fo strangers, LOL! I got a lot of unwarranted credit for entering his pen.
My dog Daisy does this (Australian Shepherd). I will give her a rawhide chewbone, and then say to her: “Daisy, can I have that?”-here reply is a short growl-as if to say-“What, am I stupid? You just GAVE me this!”
All my dogs have had a distinct set of growls, too. My Italian mastiff mix has a soft one and one that sounds like a truck grinding gears. The second one is the one that says, “You just walked into the wrong house, Bub,” but it only lasts a second before the vicious barking commences.
The bulldog has one that quite clearly says, “I want you to chase and play with me,” along with one that says, “You’re killing me and I LOVE it,” when wrestling. She doesn’t really have an angry growl, just a good solid bark.
My Rott/Lab mix had three. One was, “I want to play or go outside.” One was a polite disagreement like taking the bone away, etc., that she stopped using pretty quickly, just like the mastiff who came after her. Her danger growl was truly the most terrifying sound I’ve ever heard come out of an animal in person. It was so low and loud that you didn’t actually hear it, you felt it in your chest like the baseline in a loud club. The first time I hear that was when three drunk teenagers were threatening to mug me and take her while we were out for a walk. They lost interest in that plan very quickly.
This is exactly the opposite of what you should do. This is what you would do if you set out to train the dog to become unmanageable, and possibly even a biter.
ETA: I see others have mentioned this too.
Seriously, “soothing” a dog to get them to discontinue bad behavior, however mild, has exactly the opposite effect. The soothing is a reward and will be interpreted by the dog as encouraging that behavior. If a dog does something you don’t want them to do, your reaction should be entirely negative. Not violent, not angry, not abusive, but negative. Usually a sharp no is enough. For some dogs you may need to reassert your dominance.
Yes, I agree with this. A dog should be trained so that people can take their bone/chew toys away and put their hands in their food without any growls or aggressive-type behaviour.
