“The Bite Came Out of Nowhere!” – Or Did It?

Two sentences dog trainers and behavior consultants hear pretty much every week of our lives: “But he was wagging his tail!” and “The bite came out of nowhere!”

A while back, I devoted an episode to the first one, so if you’re still thinking that all tail wags are friendly, go have a listen or a read to the episode called What Do Dogs Say with Their Tails? 

This week, it’s the turn of the infamous Bite Out of Nowhere – which, you may not be surprised to hear, almost always comes with previews if you know how to look.

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“My Dog Would Never Bite Anybody”

Aggressive behavior is normal. It’s normal for humans, it’s normal for chimpanzees, it’s normal for naked mole rats, and it’s normal for dogs to protect their resources and themselves against perceived threats. Among social animals, most aggressive behavior is “ritualized,” meaning that conflicts are resolved without serious damage being done on either side. You can see a lawsuit as a form of ritualized aggression – it’s nasty, but bloodshed doesn’t generally follow. Among dogs, the classic loud, spectacular dog-park spat in which nothing worse happens than some wet fur and a nick or two is an example of ritualized aggression.

Not only is aggressive behavior normal; it’s a truism that any dog, if pushed far enough, will bite. The real question is what constitutes pushing far enough. The answer varies from dog to dog, and that’s where the “bite threshold model” comes in.

The “Bite Threshold” Model

The eminent dog trainer Jean Donaldson describes the bite threshold in her book The Culture Clash. A dog who perceives a threat experiences stress, and as stressors accumulate, the dog gets closer and closer to his individual breaking point – the “threshold” at which he aggresses.

Here’s an example. Let’s say Dogalini is somewhat uncomfortable with kids. Also, loud noises frighten her. Also, her family doesn’t often have new visitors or take her for walks in public places, and she’s gotten a bit shy around strangers. Also, she’s getting on in years and her hips are often sore with arthritis.

Dogalini deals with her discomfort around kids by going into another room when the grandchildren visit, so everybody in her family thinks of her as “fine” with children. Her hips ache, but nobody’s regularly knocking into them, either. The occasional loud noise makes her dash behind the sofa, but when she emerges a minute later, she doesn’t look the worse for wear. As for those strangers – well, she never sees any, so no one has noticed that she’s now anxious around them.

But what happens when all those things stack up? The grandkids and their parents come over for dinner, along with two other couples they’re friends with. Strangers and kids! Dogalini heads for a quiet corner.

One of the strangers says, “I have a way with dogs,” meaning that he thinks it’s a good idea to follow shy Dogalini into that corner and gaze into her eyes. She cowers and makes herself small; eventually, he gives up. Meanwhile the kids are running around, shouting and tumbling as kids do; Dogalini hides behind the sofa, panting. An hour into the visit, one of the kids takes a header over the back of the sofa and slams into her sore hip.

Dogalini bites him in the face.

Bites Don’t Come Out of Nowhere

And every human there thinks the bite came out of nowhere. But you know it didn’t. You saw Dogalini’s stressors – the strangers, the kids, the noise, and the pain – pile on one after the other. Maybe, if the too-friendly stranger had persisted in invading her space, Dogalini would have growled.

Now stack all four stressors together, and they combine to reach the threshold at which Dogalini bites. And even though it’s called the bite threshold model, the insight behind it applies to growling, lunging, snapping, and any other aggressive behavior you can name.

Using the Bite Threshold Model with Your Dog

You can use the bite threshold model to assess a given situation for your own dog. Remember that of course each dog’s individual thresholds for escalating aggressive behaviors will be different.  Start by listing the things that worry or alarm your dog. Small children? Thunderstorms? Vet visits? Having his nails trimmed? Men with beards? In-line skaters? If he hits his growl threshold when you trim his nails at home, you might be tempted to have the vet do the job. But if you add the stress of a nail trim to the vet visit that scares him in the first place, then he will be pushed that much closer to his threshold not just for a growl, but for a bite.

Again, individual dogs vary – some dogs reach their breaking point and will bite readily once they’ve been pushed far enough to growl. Others will stick with the growl even as stressor after stressor piles on. The most important thing to remember is that your dog may need your extra guidance and protection at times when multiple stressors are at work. And bear in mind that the physiological effects of a stressful experience can linger. The birthday party with champagne and clowns that took place yesterday may still be jangling Zippy’s nerves today.

Prevention Can Be Easy

In the example I gave of Dogalini biting the child’s face, catastrophe could easily have been avoided. All Dogalini’s guardians had to do that day was give her access to a quiet, safe spot where intrusive strangers and tumbling kids couldn’t get to her. Better yet, they could also have treated the arthritis that made her hips so painful, and kept taking her places so she remained comfortable with unfamiliar people and the outside world.

Finally, did you notice the body-language clues in Dogalini’s sad story? She leaves the room when kids show up. When the intrusive stranger gazes into her eyes, she cowers and looks away. And not only does she wind up hiding behind the sofa, she also pants back there. Avoidance, appeasement behaviors, and stress panting – all these should have been gigantic clues to the people around her that Dogalini was in trouble. Take a look at my episode on canine stress signals, identify the situations that stress your particular dog, and help her out when life starts to pile on. Ideally, the results will be invisible: a growl you never hear, a bite that never happens.

Stop by and visit me on Facebook, or write to me at dogtrainer@quickanddirtytips.com. I welcome your comments and suggestions, and though I can’t reply individually, I may use them as the basis for future episodes. Thanks for reading!

If you’re looking for a great gift for the dog lovers in your life, check out my book The Dog Trainer’s Complete Guide to a Happy, Well-Behaved Pet. You’ll learn everything you need to know about raising a friendly, well-mannered dog that will add joy and fun to your family.