Genuine question: how do dog owners cope with the idea their dogs can turn at any time?

[Simblythebestie]

Have always wondered this and I'm honestly not attempting to be goady. Do you ever wonder about your dog - particularly a large breed - turning and biting you and causing damage to you or your kids? The idea of this would terrify me and is one of the reasons we'd never got a dog. Do you always know what they are thinking when they are looking at you? That's something else I've always wondered about. Or do you feel you know a dog after you've been living together for a period of time?

I’ve had dogs all my life and my current crew are a pack of retrievers, all elderly now. To retrievers, every person is just a best friend they haven’t met yet. I perform risk assessments as part of my job; I am as confident as I can possibly be (tho of course you can never be 100%) that none of my dogs would ever turn on us. I absolutely know at any given moment what mood they’re in.

I think half the problems stem from people not understanding (or not wanting to) dog body language. Even a tail wag can be misconstrued, most would say oh he's friendly he's wagging his tail but actually they can do a wag that isn't friendly that's very static and more upright.
And how many videos have you watched on Facebook/ youtube where there's a child pulling at a dog and the comments are oh isn't it so cute, look, the dogs giving it a kiss, whereas actually the dog is licking it's face to get it to move away as it's uncomfortable with the child.
Personally I think all owners should have to do a course on body language and basic training as part of owning a dog.

I grew up with dogs and have had them my whole adult life. I can hand on heart say I have never once thought that they could turn at any point, each one I have had has been well raised and I would have fully trusted in every single scenario. When my children were babies I had a 50kg German Shepherd and he was an amazing mothers helps, he was a trained SAR dog and a PAT dog, I worked at a pre-school and he would often come to work with me and spend a little bit of supervised contact time with the children. He single pawedly cured several children who had irrational fear of dogs. He did the school run with me for years when my daughters were at primary and again worked his magic with many children, lots of tears were shed by many when he passed. I now have spaniels and we have lots of young nieces and nephews, my nephews love playing with my young male dog, he’s incredibly gentle and calm with them, even the babies. My nieces favour my older girl and it’s always snuggles on the sofa with her. I trust my dogs 100% there’s next to no people I would put as much faith in

I have a huge fluffy GSD who we got as a puppy when the children were five and 6 months. She’s the most pathetically wussy wolf imaginable, thrives on cuddles and anf and cries at the school gate in the morning when I drop the kids off.
We can prise her jaws open to give her medicine and the only time she grumbles is if someone accidentally stands on her fur.
The delivery drivers and the postie love her but strangers just see an enormous barky killing machine, which is absolutely fine by us. We’ve never needed a doorbell.
I’ll admit I’m wary of small snappy dogs though.

I have a 45kg Greyhound. He could kill me if he wanted to. Same as my Husband could.

“Working dogs are not usually kept as a single animal are they, and they WORK together for many hours every day.

Family dogs are not expending energy most of the day and are often the only dog.”

Yes this is exactly my point. I was referring to how different dogs in different situations will pose different risks to children. Owning a working dog that won’t ever come into contact with a child is a very different decision to keeping one indoors purely as a pet.

Even if a dog’s behaviour is predictable, children are not. And given the severe damage a dog can inflict it’s not a risk you can ignore.

Obviously it’s a different situation if you don’t have small children.

Please post a pic! That is quite the weight for a greyhound! Mine is 25kg.

@YeOldeGreyhound it wont let me add the pictures! He's a very big boy, I've only met one bigger!

I have to get up close and personal with and poke and prod dogs that are sick, in pain, stressed and nervous on a daily basis. In 18 years I have been seriously bitten once by a dog - a Yorkie (and quite a few times by cats, assorted small furry creatures and birds, birds are the worst!). I've encountered more who I know would have seriously bitten me given the chance. By 'seriously' I mean that the dog would attack with intent as opposed to giving a nip or a minor bite as a warning/through fear/in panic. These 'serious' dogs represent a tiny proportion of the thousands I have treated.

I can read canine body language extremely well and of course we use muzzles when necessary, but the vast majority of dogs have high to very high bite thresholds, meaning that they would have to be pushed to extreme levels to do anything more than give a vocal warning. Far, far more dogs are avoidant than confrontational when under stress/in pain etc., they want to get away, not to attack.

There are dogs for whom it is not in their nature to react under any circumstances I've ever seen - I've treated dogs of all sorts of breeds with horrific injuries and in extreme pain (RTAs, compound fractures, deglovings, burns etc.) who will let you lift/handle/manipulate them before they can be sedated, and during the course of ongoing treatment, with the most unbelievable tolerance and stoicism. Genuinely, as a whole, dogs are the most remarkable creatures.

I have a dog and a budgie. My dog is a big softie, and my budgie is a total c*nt 😂

@Vetoncall wow what a brave soul you are, hats off. I'm glad you find dogs remarkable, this thread is starting to make me realise how much I have missed out on re the good side of dogs if that makes sense. I'm sure most of them are wonderful I was just unlucky having that bad experience at a young age.

@YeOldeGreyhound lols!!

@K0OLA1D I've got a cat like that! She's an ex stray. She loves to be pet and stroked, but sometimes she gets the devil in her and deliberately grabs your hand to bunny-kick with claws and an evil glint in her eye. Not sure I'd have her in bed with me if she was the size of a large dog!

I could not agree more with this.

I think there's a high possibility of me coming to serious harm at the hands (paws) of my dog but that will be from me tripping up over him, him knocking me flying jumping up at me to show me how much he loves me, or him puncturing one of my internal organs as he tries to sit on my lap with his 19 bony elbows (all 35kg of him.)

I do sometimes think God what if he bit my head but that's the good old intrusive thoughts!

I used to go out with a guy who had a cat that genuinely scared me. You could walk past the cat, and it would full on launch at you.
I also used to have a cat that in her younger years, would attack you for no reason. You could be stroking her, and she would then do the bunny kick and take the skin off your forearm, then run off, hissing. Why????
I moved in with someone who had 3 cats, and one of them would attack people and the other cats... again, no reason.

There is a cat who visits my garden and is a knob. He has chased me own dog back into the house, and launched at me.

Cats are knobs, and are totally unpredictable. I would never have another.