#canine behavior

[unbfacts]

Dogs can smell human stress and adjust their behavior accordingly. A 2024 study found that dogs exposed to the scent of stressed individuals were more hesitant to approach ambiguous situations, indicating a more pessimistic outlook. This suggests that dogs not only detect human stress through scent but also experience emotional contagion, affecting their decision-making.

[atypicalattractions]

A lot of people think that eye-contact is always threatening to dogs, but when it comes to dogs that you have a good bond with, calmly looking into their eyes actually causes their brain to release oxytocin. Soft eye-contact (not staring them down) can actually make many dogs feel safe and loved. 

(I don’t recommend doing this if it’s a random dog or if you don’t understand canine body language well. There are some dogs that don’t enjoy this, everyone is different.)

[dogtalk4writing]

Dogs 101: Aggression

Simple premise: A dog who is aggressive.

And it can usually stay that simple. We don't always know what wire is crossing at what time in a dog's head, so let's focus on the visuals first.

What does aggression look like?

An aggressive dog may not immediately attack. Sometimes they will wag their tail in very slow, stiff movements while standing quite still or slowly approaching. If they have short/medium fur, you'll see the beginnings of piloerection - when the fur on the back of an animal stands upright. These are the hackles, and they are a red flag for a dog who is very distressed.

A very long coated breed (Newfoundland) won't have the same visible 'hackles' as a short coated dog, but they'll usually look fluffier around the head and the neck fur may still be able to stand upright.

Their ears may be very erect initially, but will usually flatten or 'pin' themselves as they approach / are approached.

A human character might be able to interpret bad intentions through the dog's expression - an aggressive dog who isn't reacting out of fear usually has a very empty cast to their eyes, as cliche as it may sound. They don't look like a dog in that moment - they just look like a predator.

A dog of this nature may attack without any warning or hesitation, but it's very uncommon to see any old dog with that level of intensity. In these extreme cases, one tell will be in the eyes, which harden (the minute muscles tense on all sides to pull back those lips to expose chompers), as well as in the dog's body language, which will get tenser and tenser and tenser until everything happens all at once.

If you are approaching a door and there is a very angry bark behind it, you should have it in your head already that the dog inside may be legitimately aggressive. Doors are a huge trigger for a lot of domestic dogs, because that marks the threshold of the house. That's their fight vs flight line right there.

Without the correct tools and training, someone walking into that house would likely be bitten badly. Multiple dogs could also pile on as a pack (a huge risk when handling groups of dogs) if the stress gets high enough.

IMPORTANT WRITING THINGS ABOUT AGGRO DOGS

No, unless your character has a bonafide magical ability to tame beasts or is a professional canine handler, it is not possible or recommended to bring a legitimately aggressive dog back down to a 0 from 120 while an active situation is still unfolding. As long as the scene is not stable, a reactive dog is simply incapable of truly relaxing or focusing elsewhere.

Not every aggressive dog will bark. If we opened the theoretical door with the theoretical rage machine behind it, that dog likely wouldn't bother barking. It would just lunge and save the effort. These are the most dangerous dogs to deal with.

There is a very specific sort of rolling growl that a fractious dog will do. It's low, and deep, and it's about as mean-sounding as any animal can get, especially in a large-chested breed.

Aggressive dogs will sometimes lose interest and wander a short distance away, but return to continue the attack if they see or hear movement.

BEHAVIORS OF NOTE

Tail up, stiff, and wagging without ever loosening.

Hackles up! Gotta look big and mean!

Claws may dig into the dirt for leverage, especially when doing those big ol' woofs.

Ears pinned, eyes wide w/ the whites visible. May crouch slightly, or try to creep closer.

A trained dog will go for your upper arms if they're available. Your average aggressive dog is going to snap at the backs of your legs in particular.

If it's free to move, it will start circling if it's planning to keep coming back for more.

[imalayla]

Seeking some advice I guess. Especially if you have a background in canine behavior.

I went and stayed at a friends house for about 4 days and I took Bubbles with me. Stoli apparently had a TimeTM.

He shredded his bed Wednesday when my spouse left him in the crate when he went to work. Thursday and Friday he left him loose, which is what Stoli is usually always doing when we're gone. Thursday he was fine. Friday, he wreaked havoc. I will include photos.

This is extremely out of character for him. I've left him with my spouse multiple times for long stretches, like 7+ days, and he did fine. And this was before we adopted Bubbles/after Layla died. I'm so upset because I have no idea why he would do this or what could have triggered it. My spouse was walking him every evening, his routine was the same. And it's not like he's never been left before. This level of destruction is what I'd expect from a dog with full blown separation anxiety. He never ever has done ANYTHING like this.

Does anyone know why this could be? My spouse said that when he left in the morning, Stoli was chilling on the couch, and when he got back home, he was also chilling on the couch. He greeted my spouse with the typical happiness, no frantic behavior. My spouse even waited a few minutes outside to listen for panicked noises and he heard nothing. He isn't noise sensitive and he isn't in a fear period.

Also I leave him in the crate 1-3x a week when I take Bubbles to the vet and we are gone at least 3-4 hours, sometimes up to 6. He also sees me take her out to potty 3x a day.

This no lie has brought back some major PTSD flashbacks from when I had Mort and he had severe separation anxiety. I don't think I can do that again.

Could my stress from Bubbles be affecting him? I'm so upset.

[puppytodlr]

everyone wants a dog gf/bf until they start biting you/lh

[duck-in-a-thrift-store]

Look I know you guys all know me as duck but the thing is... I am so fucking dog-coded

constant urge to chew on things I shouldn't (I literally looked up at a tree the other night and thought "damn I wanna chew those branches so bad" and I have actually chewed on sticks before)

that thing dogs do where they stick their head out the window of a moving car? I get that 100% I like to go out when it's windy and just feel the breeze rushing past my face (going out in a motorboat on the lake is fantastic and almost meditative for me I hear nothing but the wind and the water and the motor and I'm surrounded by the cool gentle force of the wind's embrace and I lowkey disassociate from the rest of the world and just vibe)

wary around strangers but dedicated to the point of self destruction to those I love

randomly get the zoomies or energy/mood spikes

laying on the floor

desire to receive pets and head scritches (being touch starved and fond of forms of physical affection that are mildly unconventional when shared between humans)

unexpectedly seeing who was then my favorite person had me so bright and excited the mental image of me standing there wagging a tail I don't have popped into my head

again the urge to bite and chew

the sort of low growl I tend to do when smthn makes me mad

the fact that I pretty regularly whine/whimper when upset if I'm alone, as well as that one time a whimper slipped out when my gf at the time was kissing me

being socially needy, wanting attention, wanting to be around people, feeling rejected when I can't be

having no goddamn sense of time lol

the need to be given direct, simple orders, to be bossed around in order to function, difficulty understanding complex instructions

showing care through aggression, desperate to fight for those I care about because love is complicated but violence is simple

being one of the least picky eaters in my family, willing to try just about anything

the innate desire for a "pack," a group of individuals that I share closeness with and can rely on for safety and support, intrinsically drawn together by instinct and bound by a loyalty and familial fondness more intense than I've actually had the pleasure of experiencing

multiple accounts of begging my friends to go to the park with me

sensitive ears, the pain of high sharp noises, hearing things others don't

fascination with scent

(A lot of this is just me being autistic lmao but my point still stands)

[elvhenfaer]

Dog Breeds of Thedas: on a personal note.

I apologize in advance for the ramble, but I had to live in the real world for a second.

For those following the Dog Breeds of Thedas series, I reiterate: I am using years of canine behavior study and hands on training to inspire these breed entries. Everything I write in them? I mean it. Unwanted behavior is the single deadliest threat to dogs. It is the number one reason that dogs are taken to shelters and are often not able to be adopted out to new families. Dog breeds exist precisely because we wanted what amounts to employees, each one for their own purpose. Do you know how many people I have met who got a dog “because it was cute/cool looking”? A gardener who loves her flowers and can’t stand that her terrier is digging in the garden bed, like it was bred to do. A frat boy who throws lots of parties and doesn’t want his guard dog growling at guests, like it was bred to do. A regular person who can’t figure out why their herding dog has hyperfixations, like it was bred to have. These are just a few examples.

So to all of my dog lovers out there, and anyone considering getting a dog, there is a Dog Breed Selector on https://www.selectadogbreed.com that will match you with your perfect breed. I promise you that you cannot research enough before you commit 7 to 17 years of your life caring for another living thing.

You may be asking yourself, why type all this now? Well, my next entry is based on the Caucasian Ovcharka and it makes me nervous to even admit that. They’re making their way into the United States and gaining popularity. They were literally made to guard livestock from wolves and bears. There is no tier of guard dog above this dog. It’s this and the Tibetan Mastiff. That’s it. Unless -bears- are a real and present threat in your life, -you don’t need one-. Plenty of other breeds will suffice if you want a companion who will protect you. In fact, whether or not you even own a dog, a simple ‘Beware of Dog’ sign will deter over 70% of home invasion crimes. I know they look badass, I know they’re huge and fluffy, and I know that there’s a chance American breeders aren’t even breeding for the same killer instincts that they are in Russia, but if you have no experience handling any type of guard dog this is not the dog for you. It will end with your dog being euthanized because it bit someone, and it will break your heart, and it will be your fault.

Sometimes the best thing you can do for a dog is to not get one.

There might be some of you who don’t like hearing that. Save your hate, I’ve already heard your arguments and they do not change the horrors I’ve seen, they do not change my firsthand experience with guarding breeds. I spent three solid years rehabilitating an aggressive dog that I adopted. It was not easy. People were bitten. Other dogs were bitten. And one woodchuck lost its life. I was beyond lucky that none of those attacks ended with any serious injuries (except for that woodchuck, RIP little dude). I was beyond lucky no one ever called Animal Control for their minor wounds. I had to be hyper vigilant to keep him out of trouble and anyone but me could not handle him, because he didn’t trust anyone else’s leadership. I did this so that he could live. Dangerous dogs get put down. ‘Potentially dangerous dogs’, in the eyes of the law, have allllll sorts of restrictions placed upon them. Dogs are wonderful, amazing, loving, intelligent, adorable, best friends to have. They are also predators. Whoever owned my dog before I got him should not have had a dog. My dog was an untrustworthy monster and an emotional mess for a very long time because of bad ownership, and if I brought him back to the shelter he would have been euthanized. Instead, I spent every single day for eight years being my dog’s guardian and I was laying on the floor with him when he breathed his last breath on this earth, an old man who went peacefully in his sleep. In his later years, people would often say they had never met a better dog. I would assure them it was because we did the work.

And I firmly believe that anyone who is not willing to do the same, anyone who would give up their dog because it barks, or jumps, or pees on the carpet, or because they have to move, shouldn’t have a dog. As a dog trainer let me say: most of those behavioral issues can be fixed. A dog offers unparalleled loyalty but if you cannot offer that same kind of dedication back to them, you don’t deserve it. That dedication should start before you even bring the dog home, when you’re considering if your personalities will match.

I’m willing to admit, I was eighteen and I only thought I was prepared for what I was getting myself into.

My dog was homeless with me. My dog moved across state lines with me. My dog was more fucked up than any other dog I’ve ever met in person. But I stuck by him and five years later when a weird dude was following us through the woods on our daily walk, he saved my life.

The man, the myth, the legend:

My point here is: not every dog is for everyone. A dog is not a fashion accessory. No dog is friendly and perfectly behaved 100% of the time and they should not be romanticized that way, but you can make it easier on yourself by trying your hardest to get the right dog for you. Be honest with yourself with what you’re really looking for, some dogs are just meant to be companions.

My asks are always open if anyone has dog related questions, whether for real life or for their writing.

And if you have a dog, give them a big hug from me.

[scriptdogtor]

Animal Behavior for Creators: Canid Bites

Source: Wikimedia commons;  The Affinities of the Antarctic Wolf (Canis antarcticus)

Any creature with a mouth can bite. This includes domestic dogs, werewolves, and the humans who care for them.

This post came about due to overanalyzing the absolute shit out of a lovely piece of Once Upon a Time fanart by @konako, pictured here, featuring a bite from a quadripedal werewolf. Support artists: please reblog and fawn over the original work!

Disclaimers & qualifications: I am a practicing animal behavior professional, but this analysis doesn’t constitute a consultant-client relationship. If you’re having issues in real life, it’s important to contact a professional.

This analysis is meant to help you bring fidelity to your works of fiction, and you can embellish as the story needs. There are some things that I left out because they’re more relevant to real life than to fiction. Again: consult a pro.

Content warnings

Written descriptions of bite wounds. If you want images, google is your friend.

Discussion of canid bites, including towards children.

Discussion of animal aggression.

What’s under the cut:

How & Why Aggression Occurs

Animals vs. animals: differences between sentient & non-sentient characters

Elements of a Dog Bite

Identifying Characteristics

Putting it All Together

Further Reading

How & Why Aggression Occurs in Real Life

Do you hate conflict? You have something in common with animals.

Conflict in the animal world is risky, resource-intensive, and often dangerous. While it is often pictured in documentaries for its cinematic value, most of an animal’s life is going to be spent avoiding conflict as much as possible. A day spent without fighting might mean a day spent without injury, and a life lived long enough to reproduce.

But there are rare moments where conflict is necessary. Conflict might get you:

Space (distance from threats)

Resources (food, territory, mates, etc.)

Safety (threat removal)

Biting is the most overt, “loud” display of aggression, but most canines can accomplish these in different ways and avoid overt conflict. Consider other signals:

Scent markers

Turning away

Eye body language (sideways gaze, whale-eye)

Stiff body language

Lip curls

Growls

Snarls

Air snapping

Unfortunately, humans often fail to notice, ignore, or even suppress these conflict-avoidance strategies in domestic dogs. This leads to increased bites.

Note about predatory behavior: Predation is quiet, smooth, and taken upon the easiest target. Predation is not aggression.

Animals vs. animals: differences between sentient & non-sentient characters

In fiction, there are animals and there are Animals. We understand the inherent difference between Goofy and Pluto and it’s not just on how many legs they walk. While in real life there are only animals (the Pluto kind), fiction allows us to anthropomorphize and ascribe human characteristics and motivations onto all sorts of characters.

I’m grossly oversimplifying since this isn’t the subject, but I’ll differentiate animals from Animals by metacognition. Animals (Goofy) think about others and consider/plan, while animals (Pluto) meet more immediate needs.

In fiction, you can imply and infer intent/motivation where in real life this wouldn’t be helpful.

Fictional animals:

Pet dogs

Wild creatures

Some werecreatures

Fictional Animals:

Canids in anthropomorphic universes

Werecreatures

Sentient animals

Familiars

Anthropomorphic motivators are available to Animals, but not animals. Things like:

Jealousy

Guilt

Righteous anger

Sense of revenge/justice

If this serves your story, you can have these motivators in all sorts of characters regardless of their sentience. But keep in mind that we tend to look at animal behavior through our human lens, so this can cloud our judgment and actually make decisions that cause harm.

Canid Bite Characteristics

Source: Wikimedia commons Saint Michael's College Biology: Digital Coyote

Generally, bites that involve most of the mouth will replicate the shape you see on the skull. Canine bites carry an hourglass shape, while primate bites are much rounder. Rodent bites are a different shape than both.

Identifying general dentition can be hard with less clean wounds, but they can be used to differentiate between species. They can and have been used to identify people lying about dog bites that are actually human bites.

Types of Injuries

Bruising

This can happen with or without punctures and can be shallow or deep. The bigger the jaws, the easier it is to bruise skin. It’s a lot easier to bruise than it is to puncture, so you’ll see this on a lot of bite injuries.

Scratching

I don’t mean with claws. When you have movement in a single direction, usually from the dog or victim pulling away, you can have these long, lateral injuries. They can make wounds look worse than they are, especially on the hands and arms.

Determining direction on bite wounds requires looking at teardrop shapes. They generally move in the direction of the taper.

Punctures

These are pretty self-explanatory. The depth of a puncture is usually up to how inhibited the biter is. Most canids have pretty good control over how hard they bite, though naturally larger skulls have an easier time going through flesh. Generally, severity is determined by any bite that is more than half the length of a canine tooth.

In practice, that’s super arbitrary and a big criticism of bite scaling.

Flesh Tears

Flesh tears rarely occur without some shaking on the part of the biter, but you can get some deeper wounds with movement in a single direction.

This is where you start to see the deeper layers of skin and fat on the wounds.

The most dangerous flesh tears occur in multiple directions, and on wounds like this you might see the teardrop shapes pointing in multiple directions.

Mutilation

This is much rarer and usually reserved for severe aggression or predation. Tears are in multiple directions, skin and fat/muscle may be exposed, and organs may have been directly targeted.

Flesh Removal +/- Consumption

This is the most dangerous type of bite wound and one you’ll rarely see in domestic animals. Chunks will be missing, muscle/bone may be exposed, and organs may be missing. Google these wounds at your peril - they can be traumatizing.

Note on Rabid Mammals:

Rabies is a fatal prion disease that impacts the central nervous system and brain. While the media likes to show us rabid animals that act aggressively, most cases of rabies look quieter. Rabies impacts the ability to swallow (causing foaming at the mouth) and sometimes you’ll see animals falling over, biting at the air (called fly biting), or just unable to move properly.

The onset of rabies is determined by how quickly the virus reaches the brain. The closer the bite is to the brain, the less time the victim has to receive post-exposure prophylaxis.

Size & Injury Potential

Naturally, bigger teeth come from bigger skulls which have bigger muscles. Size plays one part in how easy it is for the biter to cause damage, and this is why bites against small dogs and children can still be dangerous.

Domestic Dog Breed & Injury Potential

When selectively breeding, humans enhanced various elements of the predatory cycle.

Tracking/seeking/alerting (hounds, nordic)

Visually identifying prey (herders, sighthounds)

Chasing (sighthounds, herders, nordic)

Maneuvering around prey (herders)

Jump-biting (bull terriers, other terriers)

Holding on (retrievers, some terriers)

Retrieval/Carrying (retrievers, gundogs)

Consumption (reduced)

Note that locking jaws appear nowhere on that list. This is a myth. While some dogs bite and hold, their jaws don’t physically lock.

Bite Direction

Dog bites with movement generally form a teardrop shape with the deepest part of the puncture at the site of the tooth and a teardrop shape in the direction of movement. Sometimes this is hard to see, especially in severe bite wounds or those occurring from multiple directions.

Determining direction tells you a lot about the orientation of the biter and the victim, and you can use that in conjunction with other things like a witness’s description.

Attempting to Operationalize Bites Through Numeric Scales

In real life, we need data. We need to measure things. “Bad bites” and “dangerous bites” aren’t a thing - you need a scale to describe exactly what you’re seeing.

The most common type of bite scale used with dogs is the Dunbar Bite Scale, which gives you a good starting reference for the severity of bites between dogs and humans. It’s handy to look at. Again, in practice I run into question marks when evaluating the thickness of punctures, and it’s a common criticism. But when determining severity, these things matter:

Did the bite break skin?

Was there holding, shaking, or tearing?

Are there multiple bites on the victim?

How much distance did the biter cross to get to the target?

Mouth Involvement

Crossing distance to bite is resource-intensive, so the vast majority of bites only involve a small amount of the mouth. The most common teeth to leave impressions on skin are incisors and canines, and it’s not often that you’ll see super clean marks.

It’s rarer and more dangerous to see marks from the back of the biter’s mouth, as those teeth are used for consumption and chewing.

You’ll see back-of-mouth impressions more on small dogs just since there’s less skull space to work with, but even then the impressions aren’t usually further back than canine teeth.

Location of Bite Wounds

Where bites occur can tell us a lot about the relationship between the biter and the victim. It can imply conflict, past events, and even learning history.

In defensive bites, usually the dog will bite the closest target. It’s much more telling (and rare) if farther targets are favored.

Common locations:

Hands & arms (adults)

Ankles

Faces (children - their height is eye level with many dogs)

Less common locations:

Legs (this happens occasionally, but people generally wear pants and don’t reach out with their legs)

Chest, stomach, or thighs (much rarer)

Identifying Characteristics

To identify species or individual, you might examine:

Tooth spacing

Tooth quality

Breaks, uneven teeth, or wear patterns

This is my very not-a-lawyer recollection: any characteristics found on a bite wound can be used to determine if someone is NOT the biter, but you can’t do that the other way around. It helps ELIMINATE, not DETERMINE the aggressor.

Putting it All Together

This all started from overanalyzing a piece of Once Upon a Time fanart I really love because I’m one of those werewolves > vampire people. And for all that show did wrong, I just love it. Go support this @konako​, okay?

Link to fanart: https://konako.tumblr.com/post/676461241274925056

I cannot understate how fucking huge this bite mark is. That scarring was created by teeth that broke the skin like wet tissue. It’s rare to see impressions that clean, and that implies very little movement. There are subtle teardrop shapes on either end, but even then that is a very subtle pullback.

That means neither Ruby nor Snow moved much at all. This happened very quickly and with almost no movement at the time of the bite. Part of that is artistic clarity, but every once in a while you’ll get something that looks that clean.

Despite the huge teeth, this bite is REALLY inhibited. The chief way to tell this is because only the front of the mouth is involved. There are punctures, but they’re from the incisors. I had made the mistake of thinking the teeth on either end were the canines, but I miscounted. They’re simply the larger incisors on either end of the very front row of teeth. They’re larger, but not quite as large as the canine teeth.

(if they were intended to be canine teeth and it’s just reducing the incisor #s for clarity, sorry! either way it’s a big difference in size)

A canid has to try very hard and very deliberately to use that little of their mouth and to avoid touching with canines altogether. I very rarely see bites with no involvement of the canines other than play-nibbles or scrapes. Yes, the skull and teeth involved are huge, but despite heavy scarring, this was inhibited.

There is a considerable held back in a wound like this. It’s full of regret, a moment too quick to contemplate a choice, and inhibition. This type of wound carries so much fear it’s difficult to communicate just how deeply it goes. This bite was used to create space quickly.

Usually, it takes more effort to reach targets that are higher up on the body. Given Ruby’s height off the ground, she probably aimed further down or Snow’s leg was up. Low bites are defensive. The important thing is Snow did not reach out with her hands, which is how most canid-human conflict escalates.

Everything about this wound screams fear bite. It was quick, involved so little of the mouth (not even the canines), and there was minimal movement from either party. It’s a low part of the body that doesn’t usually extend out. The wound probably bruised like hell, but there is an incredible amount of regret and inhibition in a bite that looks like this.

Even when wounds are large or deep, the impressions they leave can tell you a lot about what happened. In real life, all we have is data, but spinning that data gives you a stronger and truer narrative in your creative works.

Further Reading

If you’re interested in learning more, here are some excellent professionals and organizations to get you started.

James Crosby: Teaches dog bite forensics courses and brings objective observation to evaluation of dog bite cases. Has interviews on several podcasts.

Michael Shikashio: One of the field’s leading experts on dog aggression and behavior consulting, and is an excellent resource on what dog aggression professionals see in practice.

Lili Chin: Illustrator with a ton of free resources on dog body language and behavior.

American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB): Professional organization with some public position statements. They dispel a lot of common myths and are good to read over. https://avsab.org/resources/position-statements/