#reactive dog

[stanleythemuzzledpup]

Stan at his dock diving last year at brown dog university in Gig Harbor Washington state.

[sulfursanctuary]

Here is a bit of writing about my experiences as an alterhuman.

Age: 17

Sex: Female

Pronouns : She/They/It

Main Type: Canine-Clado & coyote

DYSPHORIA ISSUES

Some of the more common things I experience in this body would like similar to others, be dysphoria. I feel it towards a lot of my being but some on the main things that are a constant reminder would be my Head and Mouth: I experience what I call phantom skull, I feel my snout protruding out of my face, the mouth and nose structure feels like one of a canine. I envy ever so badly the teeth I could have, my mouth does not extend as far as I’d wish. I cannot pick up the back of deer skulls, balls, sticks, or take chunks of dirt out of the earth with my maw, no one can grab my muzzle and shake it tauntingly. Though I don’t think it’d look pretty, It would be euphoric to cut slits in my cheeks- letting my mouth expose my molars when open, allowing me to put things farther back in my mouth than my cheeks allow now. I often find myself ‘snarling’ when annoyed or irritated, my lip lifting with a twitch that corners my nose. I see one of my close friends do the same things when he’s mad subconsciously and like to think he feels the same way, (I’m aware he doesn’t.) It’s barely visible when not looking for it which makes me more irritated, I wish others would notice it and be at the least slightly intimidated or see my frustrated warning. Another thing that isn’t too much of a bother but can be aggravating would be my Legs: I feel like I would be so much more balanced and capable if my foot was longer, everything else stays the same length besides the body of my foot. Double it in length and make my toes slightly bigger/longer for support and it would be perfect. Surely it wouldn’t look human, but rather give a more digigrade look and feeling I crave every so badly. Walking on the ends of my feet would make me more agile, stealthier, overall more comfortable.

MY UNHEALTHY TENDENCIES

Territorial issues-

I’m a very territorial being, I get very easily irritated when people mess with what is mine. I don’t like when people touch my food or plate/eat too close to me unless I initiate it first, I don’t like when people touch the stuff in my room, or go in while I’m gone and I notice someone’s been in there. I’m very particular about smells, everything in my room should smell like me unless I make it otherwise. The people around me should also smell like themselves, it throws me off when someone is wearing another person's clothes, or they have a large change in the scent they wear. If someone I let into my pack smells like someone or something I’m unfamiliar with it’s just really unusual, not that it aggravates me much, it’s kinda just like ‘why would you do that??.’ Type of thing. Going back to my territorial thing, I will protect what’s mine with all of myself, whether it’s an object or a friend. I feel like I’m always butting heads with my grandpa's dog Chia. She’s a good dog, we rough play and howl together, but the main issue is when he comes home. He doesn’t like cats and so he taught her that whenever he is around that Chia can chase off and stomp on any cat in the area to make sure it’s out of his sight, he swears he never taught her that and it’s just ‘instinct’ but my father has seen him send the dog after stray cats before, and she only acts up when he’s home, or she thinks he’s coming home. I do not tolerate that behavior, she’ll chase my cat and practically step on her until she’s up the stairs or hidden under the couch- my Nana yells at her but there’s nothing she can do really. I am constantly letting Chia know that I do not accept that behavior, I growl and place myself above her, often at her level I make sure I block her path and place my head slightly above her own, grabbing her collar at times and redirecting her. She knows to tread lightly when she attempts stunts like that around me, if I catch her doing it she often gives me a tense tail wag and avoids eye contact before trotting off to lay down. I understand prey drive and the thrill of chase, I struggle with it a lot- and I’ll talk about that later. So I don’t blame her for what she does, it’s what she was taught and she’s just trying to please her owner, she has pent up energy due to being inside all of the time. She was supposed to be a working dog, not trapped in a house. But we, (the dog, me, and grandpa) butt heads so much that even if tried to make sure she was properly enriched I wouldn’t be allowed by gramps. (Chia dog and gramps are moving out soon 🙏)

Prey drive-

I have avoided talking about my prey drive for years, seeing it being bashed on TikTok or instagram- ‘Oh prey drive is normal, but if you have more than this much of it you need to get that checked out,’ ... ‘Prey drive shouldn’t be something you have to push out of your mind.’ I understand it’s uncomfortable to talk about, no one wants to talk about having this often violent feeling. But I’m a wild animal, it’s something I crave and cannot just rid myself of. I would never go out of my way to kill a bird or a rabbit, but I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t cross my mind whenever I’m in the woods and see something move. Because it absolutely does, I love the feeling. I’ll sit in the brush and wait until it gets close enough so that I can imagine jumping out at it and wrapping my sharp wide jaws around it, even visualizing it is stimulating to me. My sister has a pet rabbit, I watch if sometimes. Rabbits are cute but ironically im scared of it. He hates me. One time I was cleaning his enclosure while my sister was away and he was upset and tried to bite me, I was not calm like I should have been. I freaked out and snarled as I threw myself back hitting my head off the top of the enclosure. We have had beef since. But I would never go out of my way to hurt him, only watch from afar.

Anywho... thats it for now and I hope some people can relate to atleast a bit of this.

[unwritten--writer]

Aggressive Dog.

Snapping. Snarling. Violent.

They tell me to put him down,

But when I see teeth marks in my skin,

When I see his fangs bared in warning,

I see fear. I understand.

Angry Daughter.

Shouting. Screaming. Clawing.

They tell me I am too much,

But I have never felt enough.

When I look in the mirror,

I see a vicious creature staring back,

And I understand.

I am not angry. He is not aggressive.

We are both what they made us to be.

Yet when we are alone,

In the quiet of night,

Or the softness of morning,

There is understanding.

We are both broken, we are violent,

And that is not our fault.

~Maxx

(Original poem inspired by many TikTok's I've been seeing about the angry eldest daughters and their reactive dogs. As an eldest daughter who has a reactive dog who most see as aggressive this is very near and dear to my heart~ Thanks for reading! <3)

[evergreen-pumpkin]

Most people talk about "the dog they got in their 20s," but I have "the dog I got in my teens."

I was 14 years old when I got Ziva. I told my mom, this dog is mine. I'm gonna train her. I'm gonna take care of her. I woke up and stood in the cold at 1am for her to go potty. I slept on the floor with my hand in her kennel so she didn't feel alone. I messed up her training and fixed it a hundred times, because let's face it, I had no idea what I was doing. (I still sometimes don't, but at least I have a better idea now, lol).

We did tricks, barkour, and eventually, budget scent work because I had no car and no money for classes or events. When she became an ADiT, Ziva's first "patches" were literally pieces of paper safety pinned to a vest that I saved up for over months (Shout-out to my friend Sabrina for eventually getting us our first real patch set).

I would do my homework during school when I could, then take Ziva out until dinner time. Sometimes past dinnertime. When I learned to drive, I borrowed my mom's car to go to Home Depot or hang out outside Walmart. It didn't matter if it was sunny, rainy, or thundering.

This dog was there for a lot of The traumatic events & through the bad mental health years. She was a trooper through all the moving. I had to put her in a temporary foster at one point. She watched me go from a weird emo teen to a weird emo adult.

And now, as I type this, I'm counting her breaths per minute, as I do every day. I have a spreadsheet to keep track, recommended by her vet. When she wakes up, I'll watch her struggle for a minute to stand. She might slip. I might have to help her.

And I'll catch myself preemptively grieving. I'm doing it right now. But I'll tell myself to stop, because there's no way I want to waste the precious moments I have on thinking about what will inevitably be the worst day of my life. No... I'm going to enjoy my time now. I'm going to do an extra scent work session, take her on an extra walk, give her an extra belly rub. I'll watch her provoke her sister, sneakily bring an outside toy into the house, shake off a bunch of hair on my clean floor.

I'll poke fun at her and act exasperated at her antics... But I hope she knows, she's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

[mythicalmagicalpisces]

Muzzled dog are good dogs too!

You can’t change my mind because you have no idea why a dog is muzzled so there is no room for judgement. But what you do know is an owner taking responsibility and keeping their pup safe from whatever the reason or reasons are.

Stanley loves people but he is fear reactive of some people due to traumatic events that has happened to us while we were out. He doesn’t like unknown dogs due to more traumatic events from irresponsible dog owners allowing their “friendly dog” to say hi…

Stanley is the most lovable dog but just like people he has his fears that we have been working on for a long time. Now he can walk past anyone or any dog without or minimal reaction. He is extremely manageable.

This is only a very small look into Stan’s life and why he wears a muzzle.

If you’re interested and want to know more you can find us on instagram @paws_of_the_pnw

[mothermoosemayhaps]

[riley-coyotl]

Juni got her nasal bordetella vaccine the other day (yay cooperative care!!) so she finally got to go to the pool for the first time.

She did AMAZING!! Not only did she totally rock the new environment (with strange people and another dog in the other pool right next to ours!), but she went straight into the pool and off the end of the ramp to swim out for a toy right away with no hesitation!!

She had so much fun swimming. This was such a great experience for her and I'm SO proud of her!! My scaredy-est doggie was the most confident in the pool, who would've thought??

[asdpawprint]

Why breed standards are important, speaking from firsthand experience.

You know how the Labrador Retriever is the ultimate family dog and service dog? How they're kind and approachable and gentle and sturdy and handler-oriented and versatile and would love to be everybody's best friend? A dog that's none of those things isn't a Lab, is it?

But how on earth do you tell when it's just an adorable baby puppy in a picture, and the breeder says it's a Lab, so it must grow up to be all those Lab Things, right?

Absolutely fucking not. That cute little potato becomes an unstable mess of a dog, and she's allergic to all food, and her fur is thin and patchy and sometimes nearly bald, and she's incontinent, and she's so explosively reactive that you're always afraid she might turn truly aggressive, and her triggers are so vague and undefined that she often explodes off the couch to scream-bark at nothing and make you question whether dogs can hallucinate.

Was she ever a Lab? Or just labeled as one? How far removed is she from the last time her ancestors were what a Labrador Retriever is meant to be?

Turns out these stereotypical traits come from somewhere, and that somewhere isn't about being purebred. The traits come from selective breeding, with a clearly defined goal in mind: the breed standard. Every breed has one. For Labs, it's The Labrador Retriever Illustrated Standard: 20 pages of detailed descriptions, sketches, and reasonings, easily accessible on the Labrador Retriever Club's website.

Well, easily accessible IF you know it exists in the first place. That's the problem.

These stereotypes come from the well bred Labrador Retrievers that have fit the standard for generations. But between profit-focused irresponsible breeders, public ignorance, and the strict lack of nuance taught in the concept of "adopt don't shop," few people even know that dog breeds have organized clubs and established standards, much less how important they are in creating a predictable dog! So the label of "Lab" becomes the one thing they look for in hopes of finding those desirable traits.

A Lab is not a Lab just because it's called one. Or at least it will not act like it, nor will it look quite right to those aware of subtle, but important, differences in structure. The kindly, outgoing, eager to please, gentle, intelligent, adaptable, confident, friendly dog is consistently found where it is selected for, and that is with the responsible breeders who prioritize the breed standard.