Manukau councillors must
change dog laws wisely

MANUKAU City councillors want to bring in a law putting a dog guilty of 'rushing' at someone but not actually doing any biting or damage, in the same category as one who has 'attacked'. The case was put of a local woman riding past a house on her bicycle. The dog ran out from an open gate, grabbed a bag that was attached to the bike and shook it, shaking the bike in the process and causing the woman to fall off the bike. It never made any attempt to bite her. But, dog control said, the dog must be guilty of something and can not be allowed to continue with such behaviour.

While one can sympathise with the woman, this dog showed all the indications of one motivated by an expectation of a game - perhaps children in this home played a game with an old, similar style bag and the dog saw a 'potential game' going past its open gate. Alternatively it could be that its motivation was fear of a similar bag - it may have been hit with a bag in the past (especially if it has been allowed to roam).

If eventually passed, the new laws will apply only to dogs who are not on their own property, but there is also a grey area that the council will attempt to have clarified in a court - that of access to any front door.

I have heard many dog owners say they don't want people coming to their door - that the dog is there for protection of their property, especially when they are not home - but think back to the type of people who knock on your door; the power meter reader, the Girl Guide selling biscuits, the school child looking for sports sponsorship, the courier with a 'must sign' parcel; 99.9 percent of visitors have a legitimate reason for knocking on your door!

Of course the council must go through the process of submissions and I am convinced that those submissions should finger the real culprit - the owner who has not contained or trained the dog. Fortunately, a large percentage of dog owners do understand canine body language and know that to many dogs growling is a form of "talking". Predicting whether a dog is likely to bite is a well-intentioned dream, but in reality is not likely to be reliable.

Is this dog getting ready to attack, warning an intruder against coming any nearer, or asking someone to throw the ball?

When dogs bare their teeth the reaction is that it is threatening, but not always. I have seen a spaniel owned by a rabbiter bare its teeth at each person present in turn. The owner called this one his intelligent dog - it smiled at all his visitors!

A dog may paw you as a sign of friendship, or it may try to pin you down with its paws as a sign of pack leadership over you. It may sidle up to you for comfort and hopefully a pat - or it may be done to show that its ranking is second only to you, especially if other dogs are present.

The tail wag is another action with many meanings. A nervous, fast wag at the tip of the tail signals that the animal is stressed, while a wide, pronounced swish of the tail can mean the dog does not like you or doesn't like what you are doing. It can approach you wagging its tail in friendship, but it can also wag its tail as it attacks another dog.

The dog who growls and makes a lot of noise is usually not the top dog - most often he is a mid-ranking male that is rather socially insecure and resorts to bluff to try to get his own way. These types do not usually bite. The true top dog, the alpha of the pack, is often laid-back and not one to give threats. His threat is quiet and subtle enough to go unnoticed and his action, if carried through, is short and sharp. But although a person bitten by this type of dog often says it was totally without warning, the warning was usually there if the person had known how to read it - it was simply an alpha dog reaction to 'unacceptable' pack behaviour. To cater for the emotional needs of your dog you need to be able to interpret and react in the way your dog needs you to react. A bite can sometimes be the result of faulty response.

For instance a dog may growl because it is upset about something. The owner may hear the growl, but instead of listening, punish the dog for growling. Then the dog has two things to be unhappy about and may growl some more. The owner increases the punishment for the increased growling and that increases further the dog's unhappiness. Instead of punishing, always listen to your dog's feelings and take the time to work out why it is upset. It is only trying to communicate.

Instead of trying to invent more ways to control dogs, councillors should make an effort to put more emphasis on owner responsibility - huge fines or periodic detention (or both) for cruelty, for not providing basic care, or for allowing a dog to wander and thus putting itself and others in danger. - E Peters