These are the kind of news stories we don’t want to read, especially when a dog trainer is involved. But unfortunately, they are all too common.
The News Story
A woman visited The Home Depot store in Evergreen, Colo. along with her dog and its trainer.
A customer in the store asked if she could pet the dog. She was instructed first to give the dog a treat as part of its training.
According to the news article, the Great Dane sat and gently took the treat from her, but then unexpectedly lunged at her face causing significant injuries.
The owner and trainer fled the scene while employees and customers attended to the woman, whose injuries will reportedly require surgery to resolve.
An anonymous tip to the Jefferson County sheriff’s department helped officials locate the owner.
Initially reported as a bite, the owner claimed the attack was a headbutt.
Our Trainer’s Perspective
“The only thing two dog trainers can agree on is what the third trainer did wrong,” joked our dog trainer, Bruce Allen.
That said, there was a lot of “wrong” here.
Aggression and Lunging
First, you should never put a dog with an aggression tendency in a scenario with people it doesn’t know—especially in a strange situation. If it’s already aggressive, the first thing it will do is be more aggressive.
In the case of the alleged headbutt, lunging can also be very dangerous. Even if they are friendly, strong animals with thick skulls like Great Danes and Pit Bulls can cause significant injuries as we saw here. If your dog is known to lunge or jump up on people, it should not be allowed in public.
Treat Training
Treat training is great for providing positive feedback to your dog for obeying a command. However, it’s not always appropriate.
With an aggressive or excitable dog, there there has to be negative compulsion for the act, not a reward-based system.
The negative stimulant can be anything from saying “no” to correcting the dog on its leash and collar.
Final Thoughts
You should always have complete control of your pets in public places. The risk of injury to an innocent bystander is too great. The last thing you want is to end up in a news article like this one, not to mention any other legal repercussions you could face!
If you want to be able to take your dog out in public with you without incident, the best thing you can do is hire a professional dog trainer.
A private dog trainer like Bruce here at Dog Behaviorist Denver will work with you and your dog on its specific behaviors.
Bruce has nearly 40 years of experience as a dog trainer and knows the appropriate training methods for each dog behavior problem. He also provides basic obedience training for puppies 8 weeks and older.
Request a consultation with Bruce by calling or texting 303-968-6060. Or, you can send us a message now.