Is my dog making himself a victim?

[AwesomeMrsFox]

My poor dog has been 'attacked' 3 times in the past year. I say attacked, but thankfully there has been no actual puncture, although lots of teeth baring, snapping and snarling. On two occasions the dogs have pinned him to the ground and really could have destroyed him if they really wanted to (before their owners appeared and got them under control). Thankfully it has never got to drawing blood, but none the less there are been a lot of noise and it definitely is not play.

Having had 3 dogs previous to this over 20 years we have never had any incidents like this.

Twice my dog was off the lead, once on. He mostly likes other dogs, but is not overly-bothered about them, ie won't go bounding up to them.
Mostly puts his head up, looks and walks cautiously toward them, tail wagging. He is a bit of a yelper though and he will yelp even if feels a bit afraid, and put his tail between his legs.

Is it just irresponsible dog owners who have these dogs off a lead, or is my dog somehow making himself the victim? on 2 of the 3 occasions the owners have seemed surprised about their dogs behaviour.

I'm trying not to let it spoil or walks, but after the 3rd incident I do keep him on the lead more.

Always nice to let the dog wander off lead but you just need to be aware of the surrounding. I always recall and put on lead when I see new dogs. You never know how they would react.

Has he been neutered? This used to happen to my very inoffensive lab, dogs pinning him down and making him yelp, the worst time was when two huge GSDs did it and owner took ages to arrive and call them off. My dog was castrated at 2.5 yrs and it stopped happening. Vet said some dogs feel threatened by intact dogs.

I'm wondering if there is something in your dog's body language that the other dogs are reacting to.

You say he puts his head up and walks towards them. Does he have his head high, make eye contact and approach them head on? This would be considered rude by many dogs. The acceptable approach would usually be body/head turned slightly away from the other dog, no direct eye contact and a curved approach (so the dogs kind of approach each other almost in a circle and may even circle each other slightly before making any actual contact).

Also what breed and colour is he. Colouring, body and hair type can all make a difference to how well other dogs can read individual dogs. Black dogs, those with docked tails, with long floppy hair around the face and over the eyes, can all be misread by other dogs, especially if their body language/communications skills are already weak.

You say he's a bit of a yelper and will yelp and put his tail between his legs. I wonder if he is lacking confidence in his interactions and the other dogs are picking up on that as well. If he approaches as I mentioned earlier, but does so slowly that won't be helping either. My pup is actually fearful of other dogs and his pet hate is dogs that stare at him then approach slowly, head-on. It really freaks him out.

Obviously it's very difficult to say without observing his body language first hand, but if you are concerned you could have a one-off session with a behaviourist who might be able to offer some insight into his communication skills and why the attacks keep happening.

There are some fantastic examples of good and bad canine communication skills on the website and youtube channel of 'Dog Communication'. They might help you get some idea what the problem might be. (I would love to take my pup to them for a few sessions - unfortunately they are too far away for us.)

I have had similar issues twice with my chocolate lab. She gets on very well normally with dogs and is a laid back happy typical lab.

On the first occasion whilst out for a walk, she was pinned down by neighbours guard dogs - two large Alsatians who were off lead. They didn't bite, but she was scared. The owners are arrogant arses who didn't apologise. - they are professional people with a large country property. one more incident I will record it and call the police. In my mind guard dogs should always be on a lead when away from their property.

The second incident occurred when she was on the lead. We were heading home when two black dogs, one Alsatian x and a staffy x came running from behind us snapping and growling and then pinned her down. The staffy was the most aggressive. I kept hold of the lead and used my feet to get between my dog and these animals. The owner strolled up and got hold of them. At this point I saw that the staffy had a muzzle on. I was very angry and told this person that a dog that needs muzzling should be on a lead at all times. Luckily I haven't seen this woman before and she isn't known to anyone locally.

We live in a small hamlet and the woods are a popular dog walking area for all my neighbours with dogs. It is usually a lovely place to enjoy long walks, but these experiences do spoil things somewhat.

My daft girl is fine. She still loves everyone

My girl's the same. She's learned not to approach other dogs as they don't seem to be able to read her.

She's mostly black and hairy and larger than many but her eyebrows dominate her face and mean that her eyes aren't very visible. Her ears also aren't visible and she tends carry her tail straight out behind her. She loves to play with dogs that she knows well but strange dogs aren't keen on her although puppies love her.

The strangest thing is that we have yet to find a greyhound who is wary of her - they all adore her but I suspect that's because they recognise class when they see it

Thank you all. Lots of interesting information to think about.

My boy (neutered) is an orange roan cocker so I don't think he would be perceived as threatening on his looks alone, but it could well be something to do with his approach. I will observe more carefully.

The only thing is that once he was on the lead and we were standing looking out at the river so he didn't even approach the other dogs, they came from behind a hedge (3 of them) and sniffed happily at first then he decided he wasn't comfortable and yelped with tail down, that was the point when the 'attack' started. I think I must have missed something in the interaction- may be what I thought was friendly sniffing there was some signals.

I will watch more closely. Thank you for the links moosemama, this signal stuff is very interesting I will pay more attention. If it does turn out his approach is the issue, how would I go about correcting that?

If you do think there is something in his communication skills that's causing the issue, I would get a professional behaviourist involved, as they can advise you best on how to help him learn and some even have teaching dogs that can help teach their clients' dogs.

It could just be bad luck though. The other dogs might be the ones with the problem, they might have intimidated him with over-zealous interaction and then turned when he reacted to them by yelping.

There are plenty of poorly socialised dogs out there with poor communication skills. Unfortunately, very often they are the ones that are running free and allowed to approach every dog they see with no control from their owners.

So it might not be your boy that has the problem, especially if he gets on with other dogs most of the time and there have been just a couple of isolated incidents over the course of a year.

It's well worth trying to learn a bit more about canine communication though, as it will help you judge the motivations of approaching dogs, as well as helping you understand your own dog a little better.

I highly recommend this book as it's a very easy read and only slim, but teaches you the basics you need to help get you started understanding dog to dog communication. My 11 year old ds has just read it over two evenings and understood it (he's now driving me batty analysing our dogs every two minutes ).