Gia had been in my care for a relatively short time, around 6 months, when I felt it necessary to start writing a post on this subject. I knew I was eventually going to need to do that within weeks of taking her into my life though as she is the emotional and reactive antithesis of my last dog, Willow, who is the reason this website and my lifestyle exist. Let me reiterate that last bit… the differences between sweet Willow and this little dog tsunami are stark and shocking and I can now totally understand why she was given back by four other families.
This post was literally started in late 2023 and immediately stalled as the list of issues and solutions grew, evolved and became more clear. When I finally hit the Publish button on this post it had already been through 20 previous version/revisions. During this period of time since she came into my care I have learned an inordinate amount of information (not all voluntarily) about how to prepare and deal with Gia’s “quirks.” I have slowly been compiling a mental “Do & Don’t” list when dealing with her surroundings and physical interactions with various species and am now just getting a good enough grasp and understanding to formally write out the list… near her guesstimated 4th birthday and after about 3+ years in my care.
The TL;DR is…There is a usually unspoken but almost universally agreed upon (by both humans and dogs) base level of behaviors that are considered “Acceptable” and other behaviors that fall outside that definition. Even after all the time she has spent with me and the varied environments and situation I have put her in, my girl, who I love dearly, does not always reside inside the parameters of what I would consider “Acceptable” behavior. In comparison to the sweet, gentle, predictable Willow, Gia is an unpredictable and I would even go so far as to say “a somewhat Scary” dog to me.
Let me first acknowledge the not insignificant (some have said “Amazing”) improvements she (and we) have made in that time. But. I have finally, after several years of observation and interaction, figured out this version for her ever evolving list of “rules” below. These rules are firstly to keep her out of situations where her temperament and emotions don’t mix well, calmly or quietly with. This is also known as “Not Setting Her Up To Fail.”
These rules also contain information helpful when the situation has gotten out of control and devolved into a fight. This sometimes happens even before it has been recognized as “a situation” by any humans present as Gia has an all-too-common tendency to let things escalate with no push back or “tell” before she “snaps.” The whole situation in then muddied by the fact that she has several doggie friends who she plays HARD with and those bouts have never ended in bloodshed…of dogs or humans.
In electrical terms, she has/had a short fuse. It was certainly in the single digit amp range. Over these past few years as I have begun to mentally recognized any particular “issue” I have also been slowly figuring out ways to reconfigure her all too common negative reactions to those certain situations and stimuli. I have found that what works best is mostly the “interrupt and redirect” method…which works for both of us. We’ve been working on these issues and now she’s up to a good solid 10 amp fuse. But there’s always room to improve. Part of that improvement is recognizing the need to both name a rule and then fine tune it. Even as we both learn and improve our individual reactions and behavior in specific situations there are the inevitable plateaus in the learning curve. Mostly but not exclusively by her.
In numerous interactions (early in my Gia caretaker career) a general consensus came to be that Gia “sometimes misinterprets Play signals” and that misinterpretation resulted in either a dog fight or just a “scuffle.” My definition of “a scuffle” is lots of dog screaming and yelling and her ending on top of another dog… but no biting or blood to speak of. Just making some sort of point to the other dog and the only remnant after they are split up are some wet areas on the other dog where she put her mouth on and left saliva behind but did not actually bite down. Early on those were scary but also hopeful as maybe she was the type of dog who needed to every so often “make a point” but do no damage. It was also recognized early on that one of the main differences in whether the interaction was a scuffle or a fight depended on the sex of the other participant. Males (especially young males) got “a talking to” while females got the “full treatment” and rarely, bloodied. And sometimes bloodied enough to require veterinarian care with the resultant bill paid out of my pocket. While “sometimes misinterprets Play signals” is still a thing another consensus (granted – among humans who have zero canine mental health training) is that Gia is Bipolar. I almost think that would be a “good” (or at least an easy) diagnosis for me (if it was from a Vet) because then that would be “an answer” for these behavior patterns and one I might be able to easily “solve” with some remedial training or, even easier… a pill.
But, from everything I have read online a dog’s emotions don’t fluctuate dramatically from high to low and back again. Instead, their mood changes are often triggered by an external factor. It’s not like they have a biochemical reason to switch between states, like [people living with bipolar disorder] do. It’s almost always a response to something in their environment.
For example, a dog could be friendly and affectionate around his or her family members, but then once a stranger comes onto the scene, that same dog may suddenly be afraid, aggressive, or fearful. It’s like a switch in polarity, so to speak, but it’s not comparable to the manic and depressive episodes that people with bipolar disorder experience.
Of all the “standard” dog behavioral issues in the lexicon, Gia has enthusiastically chosen Resource Guarding as her #1 less than ideal behavior. Her second “trigger” is being surprised, either visually or by being touched or bumped without knowing or preparing for it. Those last two issues are also exacerbated by low light levels even though I was under the impression that dogs’ eyes have more rods and fewer cones than humans so they can detect subtle changes in light better even when it’s dimly lit.
It is not ego, exaggeration, or enthusiasm to state that “I am my dog’s most important resource.” As such she is very enthusiastic to guard me from the friendly attentions of other dogs and so I have to actively, and more than I’d like, also physically manage interactions with other dogs that can go from slight jealousy to murderous rage at a moment’s notice. The inverse of this rule is that this is also true if a stranger is being physically friendly and giving her pets, pats or scratches. That person has now magically become “a resource” and as such is worthy of being under her protection, even to the point of guarding the resource…from their own animals.
This Dog Jealousy Study is just one of the many articles, studies and scientific paper I have read that offered some valuable insight to Gia’s less than ideal behaviors.
So, some specific behavior examples:
She does everything she can to lay next to her food bowl or the pathway to it, full or empty, to guard it if there are any dogs, cats, chickens or even goats in the vicinity.
A recent event where this has come into play was that I was helping someone with a chainsawing job, cleaning up a large, downed limb. When I started the job and before I got the chainsaw started and my hearing protection on, my dog was on one side of a fence and this other dog (who weighs close to 3 times as much as Gia) was on the opposite side of the fence.
After some chainsawing, there was occasion to put the saw down and turn it off. When I turned around and saw, to my brief horror and surprise, my dog in the pasture INSIDE THE FENCE and rolling around, seemingly happy. At first I thought it was because she was so joyous at being in this yard that had until now been forbidden and denied to her. And then I saw she was covered in blood. My friend had come back and opened the gate to come back into her yard. It just so happened that was the gate that was separating the two dogs. She’s thinks that the brief stop, outside the fence, to say Hi and interact with Gia, activated Gia’s resource guarding instinct and when she then opened the gate everything devolved quickly. She’s not exactly sure what happened because in transpired in the blink of an eye. Did one dog rush the other? Or did they both decide to rush to the opening, through her, from both sides and get up and close and personal with each other. Both dogs had wounds on their faces, ears, legs and/or back. Some were bad enough that there was a hole or tear completely through the skin and showing the fascia, fat, tendon, or muscle underneath. I’m not sure if the outcome would have been any different if had seen and/or heard the situation before blood was spilled. Regardless, I was a good 50 meters away from the gate and could not have gotten there quickly enough to have made any difference. Another time Gia and Tarka were in the same yard and being chill when a neighbor showed up with a wheelbarrow of some excess leafy vegetables from their garden that they were donating to my friend’s (Tarka’s human) sheep. Both dogs came over to see what the change in the environment was about. When the neighbor quickly flipped the wheelbarrow over to dump the veggies, Gia was startled and jumped out of the way. Tarka seemed to take this fast movement as a threat and immediately attacked Gia and It Was On! 15-20 seconds later we were able break it up with no humans injured but both dogs ended up with numerous, deep holes and lacerations in their skin. The general rule after this is that they can not interact again until the wounds from the last encounter have fully healed. It is safe to say they are “Frenemies.”
Several times she has been standing somewhere (dog park, beach), minding her own business or interacting with and focused on one dog when another dog bumps into her or sticks its head into the mix just to see what’s going on. In the past she would, 100% of the time, immediately retaliate against the second dog in a violently physical manner. Numerous times she has been running with a dog and some bumping ensues and sometimes escalates into fight territory. She has been running with or after a dog and been so focused she has not seen another dog streaking in from outside her vision to intercept the runners by slamming into Gia at an intersecting angle. Sometimes this just knocked her off her path. Other times she was knocked off her feet to tumble head over ass until she regains her footing. In the past, 100% of the time, she would again immediately retaliate against the perceived tackler…and sometimes she would even choose the correct dog to direct her wrath against. Any dog who attempts to stop her from chasing after a ball or another dog by getting in her way and possibly using it’s teeth as an incentive has a very high possibility that Gia takes offense and snaps into Tasmanian Devil mode (the Loony Tunes cartoon character not the endangered carnivorous marsupial confined to the island of Tasmania).
Many times, if I am close enough, I have been able to physically intervene. The majority of those times I have been bitten. Some of those were as bad as the dog’s wounds with a hole or tear completely through the skin and showing the fat, fascia, tendon, ligament or muscle underneath.
For the health of everyone involved and to lessen the possibility of Veterinarian or Hospital bills I have come to the hard realization that I am forced to ethically and actively manage her interactions through the filter of that long list of items that might possibly trigger a negative reaction. Coming up with “rules” for her interactions with other living beings in specific and varied situations is difficult. Rules are regularly fine-tuned and sometimes even grow depending on what data is observed. A rule that is relevant to a physical interaction with one specific dog in a given situation may very well not be relevant to another dog…or cats…or goats…or chickens. The rule about where to put her food bowl and how much food is in it and what other animals are around and whether she’s eating out of it is diverse, wide-ranging and still being fine tuned.
So in no realistic order of importance, the list of rules includes:
1) Keep her food and bowl inaccessible to other animals. With or without food in it. At all times. From even the possibility that another animal might merely think to sniff, lick or otherwise enter the invisible exclusion zone that is easily, at least, 1 meter in any direction from the rim of her bowl. Any item (food, water, toy, treat etc.) within that zone if off limits to 99% of non-human animals.
1a) Any food item she is sitting near is now in her personal exclusive economic zone and a tariff will be extracted if transit into that zone is detected.
2) If I am getting friendly attentions from another animal I need to actively initiate physical contact with my rapidly incoming dog and redirect her trajectory away from the friendly dog’s face and head area.
2a) If Gia is the one getting friendly attention from another human I still need to be aware that I might be called upon at any moment to actively initiate physical contact with Gia or the dog rapidly approaching its human and redirect Gia’s face away from the dog’s face and head area.
3) If a fight starts and you can grab her collar with the built-in handle and separate the dogs, you do not let go. Even if the combatants are separated and it seems the tension has subsided, she will regularly choose to re-engage her target if you release your calming and controlling grip.
4) Don’t yank on her collar to pull her away from her fight partner. Push or pull her to the ground while holding and pushing her opponent in the same direction. She might have her rearward facing upper and lower jaw canines/fangs embedded in her opponent’s skin and pulling or yanking her away might (and has) increased the damage to that flesh.
5) Always wear a collar. 99% of the time when the rules are being followed, are working as expected and everything is going well it is only there to hold her tags and be a leash attachment point if need be. Sadly they also work well to absorb and hold onto freshly rolled in cow poop or freshly deposited skunk spray for months at a time and numerous washings after the incident. For the rare 1% of the time when the situation gets out of hand a typical pet store collar with a plastic clip has proven to regularly be structurally unsuitable for the occasion by breaking when enthusiastically pulled and lunged against. That means I now have several quality collars in rotation. Right now I have two Miles Tactical Cobra Buckle collars with us.
The one up top used to be bright pink but has been through a lot.
We also have a newer Ray Allen E-Lusive 2.0 Collar so I can integrate either of the e-collars I use (so she is wearing only one collar, not two) when we need to be on our best behavior (see #6).
6) Muzzles and E-Collars (individually or paired) work in the right situations. I used to be wary of people who brought dogs to a public spot with a muzzle on. Is the animal agressive to just dogs or people too? Should you really be bringing your dog to this public spot if it has issues that need dealing with by use of a muzzle? Now that I am one of those people I have gained a new understanding and respect for the responsible dog owners who have realized they might need the extra, added safety of a muzzle so that they can still have their dog experience many of the standard social happenings like dog parks and beaches and parades and block parties… etc.
As stated in another post, the need for the utility of an e-collar is satisfied 99% of the time by using only the vibration function. I have an older version of the Dogtra 280 and a set of cheap Delupet collars which seem to no longer be available but still work fine for our needs.
Just wearing the collar let’s her know I am expecting a high level of “Chill” in whatever this present situation is and I am paying close attention. 90% of the time I put an E-collar on her we are out in the middle of nowhere and I just want her to essentially stay in my sight. She can be hundreds of yards away on an open plain but if I can see her I can quickly get her to refocus on me and start coming back this direction as oppose to going to “Say Hi” to that bear, deer, moose or related wild creature that could easily kill her. Or mining or logging equipment. Or someone else also enjoying the beauty of places in the middle of nowhere… with their dog(s) (or cats or pigs – yes, we’ve seen both those situations).
I have two muzzles of different styles and for somewhat different purposes. A wire basket muzzle that completely encloses her bite zone and a less restrictive soft nylon one.
The Ray Allen Wire Basket Muzzle just takes any and all possibility that she can do harm to another dog or person out of the equation. The downside it that she doesn’t particularly like it and, like the pronged e-collar, when it is put on her she knows she might find herself in a delicate situation and usually behaves appropriately if not a little on the subdued side. The nylon one is inarguably more comfortable and less restrictive than the wire basket and she can drink water more easily and wear it for longer. If she is wearing the wire basket one and I have to separate her and another dog I can focus on dealing with the mouth of the other dog and not worry about a stray bite from Gia tagging me on the hand, wrist or arm (all places I have been bit in the past during a fight separation). This is also because, in my experience, the other dog’s owner usually stands still, doing nothing to actively solve the issue, with a horrified look on their face or the other option is to run around screaming and still doing nothing to actively solve the issue. In other words it is usually solely up to me to quickly step in and defuse such situations. Also, in more than one instance when the other dog owner did actively step up and try to seperate the combatants they ended up getting bit. Nobody thinks their own dog will bite them so, almost always their first response is “Your dog bit me!” And my considered and regular response is to not say a word and just point to my dog’s muzzle. Case closed.
7) All those rules are even more active and in play after dark. I am convinced that she has relatively poor eyesight which is even less effective at night. With that diminished range of vision she (and I) have even less distance and time to assess the situation and figure out what defensive posture and arrangement we want or need to get into.
For the several incidents I’ve mentioned here and for dozens of others I have pictures of the aftermath. I have chosen to not display them here as graphic, bloody wounds on dogs and humans are not something I want to focus on or have Gia and this site be linked with such incidents and outcomes.
I am now savvy enough to usually recognize her changing “mood temperature” and can either redirect her focus or remove her from that situation or at least point out the fact that she didn’t start it or she couldn’t do any damage (if she was wearing a muzzle) which, from a strictly financial outlook, is better for my wallet. Being hyper-aware of where my dog is and what type of situation she is getting herself into is a full-time task… and it is exhausting. I really, really wish she could have been a relaxed, chill, friendly to everbody member of my family but it is not, yet, to be. She has been through too many households for me to ever give up on her especially after this time together and knowing how much progress, believe it or not, she has made. She’s my girl – for better or for worse… mostly better.