Free Living With Dogs by Dr Hugh Wirth Page A

snarls, the owner thinks it is because the dog doesn’t like vets, but it is because the dog is dominant. Most people won’t accept that their dog has become a boss dog, because it is a reflection on their failure to put the dog in its place. When I examine the dog, and he or she snarls, it is not because I’m a vet, but because I’m taking excessive liberties and he or she is saying, ‘I’m the boss dog, how dare you touch me!’
    A woman came to the surgery once with a Blue Heeler. Before I did anything, she said, ‘I’d better put a muzzle on him, he doesn’t like you.’ She put the muzzle on, and when I went to touch the dog its eyes bulged, and it rumbled and growled. The woman said, ‘Butch, don’t be silly,’ but Butch didn’t give a damn. He was determined I wouldn’t touch him. Every boss dog will get ill one day, and someone has to handle them. The vet is supposed to be like Mandrake the Magician, gesturing hypnotically at the dog, which suddenly melts. When Butch was brought home at eight weeks, he should have been clearly told who was boss. Owners try to rationalise their dog’s behaviour, or give excuses for it. It’s the phase of the moon, or the hot weather, or the cold weather — everything except the truth.
    A woman came to see me with a young Cocker Spaniel that had a problem in its mouth. When I went to examine the dog, it tried to bite me, and the woman explained it had been acting aggressively since it went to the clipper’s. I asked whether it was a boss dog. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘he’s always been like that.’ When I suggested that she should assert herself more, she replied, ‘But I’m a cat lady, Dr Wirth.’
    Dogs don’t respond to being treated like cats. The woman had taken on her daughter’s dog, even though she didn’t like dogs. She was treating the dog like a cat, and the dog was in charge. It was a classic case of someone being dumped with a dog they didn’t like and couldn’t control.
    I’ve had other dogs come into the surgery that are so aggressive that neither I nor the owner could control the animal. One young male brought in a Rottweiler to be desexed. The owner had the dog on a long piece of rope, but no-one could get within a bull’s roar of it. If anyone went near him, he went to eat them. Other clients in the waiting room were terrified, and standing up on the benches. When we asked the owner to reel the dog in he said he couldn’t, because he was frightened of it. We couldn’t handle the dog, so we suggested the owner take it away, get some control over it, and then we’d desex it. We never saw him again.
    On another occasion an owner brought in a Cattle Dog with a broken leg. He had been hit by a car. We sedated the dog, but 24 hours later, when the shock and sedation had worn off, we were confronted by a savage dog. We told the owner we couldn’t handle the dog, and sent him down to the kennels. The dog greeted him with a resounding bite, and his immediate response was to demand that we destroy the dog. I pointed out that I would have difficulty handling the dog to destroy it. ‘I don’t care,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to see it again.’ He walked out of the surgery, leaving us with a raging dog in the kennels and instructions to kill it — if we could get near it.
    Some clients keep getting boss dogs, and as soon as they lose an animal they come back with one just as bad. More boss dogs seem to be owned by women, perhaps because women are often reluctant to be assertive with the dog. I’ve even known situations where the husband can’t get in to bed with his wife because the dog is on the bed, and threatens to bite the husband when he gets in. It fascinates me that in some cases the woman does nothing to retrieve the situation.
THE EFFECT OF NEGLECT
    Sometimes a dog’s dominance can stem from the owner’s neglect and failure to train the dog or correct its behaviour early in the dog’s life. I remember being called to deal with