Anyone else muzzle their dog in public?

[dungrulla]

My dog is not a mean dog. Far from it, he loves most things who aren’t small toddlers trying to touch him without warning or other dogs up his ass.

Because he dislikes these two things, he wears a muzzle when we are in public. This is mostly to give people pause before they run up and rub their hands or their grubby childrens’ hands all over my dog.

He has never bitten or threatened to bite anyone, but this is a small step toward preventing an accident and making him more comfortable in public. He’s never reacted negatively, I just don’t like strangers putting their hands all over me and sort of assume my dog is the same. He actually goes out with my dad regularly to his usual hangout spot and doesn’t wear a muzzle there because it’s mostly adults he knows–he is comfortable in this situation so he doesn’t need one.

The last few times I’ve taken him out I’ve gotten comments though along the lines of how I shouldn’t have my dog out in public if he’s aggressive (as he heels quietly beside me and their dog lunges at the end of the leash not even reacting at them or really even looking at them) to how “cruel” I am for putting a muzzle on him.

I can’t help but think how fewer accidents we would have with certain dogs or even off duty police dogs (And this is a sadly common incidence) if they were muzzled when off duty. It’s not that hard to get your dog used to a basket muzzle (I use the baskerville).

If you taught your dog to bite, or may at some point in the future teach your dog to bite, he should be wearing a muzzle, both so he’s used to it and to prevent a liability to you! It’s a tiny, tiny step to making my dog 100 times more comfortable in public.

I just don’t get people sometimes.

[Horsegal984]

Yeaaaaaahhhhhh. Sorry to say I’m in the camp that believes any dog who is reactive enough to be a concern in those situations shouldn’t be doing bite work.

Even a correctly trained police dog isn’t any more of a risk than your average pet. I spent years doing everything from preventative care to rehabilitation from major surgeries on our local K9 officers and not a one raised a lip.

Btw, I have nothing against basket muzzles, all of my dogs are conditioned to them and I routinely suggest them to people.

[wendy]

agree- any dog who MIGHT bite people as a reaction is not a candidate for bite work. Dogs taught to bite on command need an even more rock-solid temperament than your average pet. If your dog is uncomfortable around strangers, forget about bite work.
If a police dog is biting people when he’s not supposed to there is a problem in that department’s selection and training process.

If you feel you must muzzle your dog in public, he’s not a candidate for bite work. Actually, if I felt I had to muzzle a dog in public I wouldn’t take him out in public until we fixed the issues. Work on the issues in a controlled situation until they go away.

[dungrulla]

[QUOTE=Horsegal984;7983535]
Yeaaaaaahhhhhh. Sorry to say I’m in the camp that believes any dog who is reactive enough to be a concern in those situations shouldn’t be doing bite work.

Even a correctly trained police dog isn’t any more of a risk than your average pet. I spent years doing everything from preventative care to rehabilitation from major surgeries on our local K9 officers and not a one raised a lip.

Btw, I have nothing against basket muzzles, all of my dogs are conditioned to them and I routinely suggest them to people.[/QUOTE]

He’s never shown any actual reactivity past having poor social skills and not knowing how to play with other dogs. I should really rephrase and say the muzzle is for MY comfort, maybe not so much his. His chances for doing bitework are still pretty low–at this point we’re still at the “grab the toy” phase and his trainer really, really thinks his drive isn’t high enough for bitework–which is fine, there are plenty of other sports for us to do. He didn’t say his reactivity or temperament are out of line though, the dog doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body–and the guy has trained hundreds of protection dogs.

My concern is out of situations like these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHLnjiISsOo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx-MXctnmso

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/police-dog-bites-fifth-grader-when-cops-conduct-mock-classroom-drug-raid/

http://blog.ctnews.com/stamford411/2014/07/29/norwalk-police-dog-bites-stamford-cop/

These situations are sadly common and these all happened with dogs who train for hours and hours a day. Even a properly trained and handled police dog can pose a risk, which is why some police departments actually have policies requiring police dogs to be muzzled if not on duty in public:

http://www.peoriaaz.com/policedepartment/administration/docs/policy_manual/4.26policeservicedogs.pdf

Here’s what Leerburg has to say about this, he fully supports such a policy:

http://leerburg.com/qaprotpl.htm

Dogs taught for such things are simply not predictable 100% of the time, and saying a well trained working dog will never act in error is a mistake, because dogs are animals.

[dungrulla]

[QUOTE=wendy;7983548]
agree- any dog who MIGHT bite people as a reaction is not a candidate for bite work. Dogs taught to bite on command need an even more rock-solid temperament than your average pet. If your dog is uncomfortable around strangers, forget about bite work.
If a police dog is biting people when he’s not supposed to there is a problem in that department’s selection and training process.

If you feel you must muzzle your dog in public, he’s not a candidate for bite work. Actually, if I felt I had to muzzle a dog in public I wouldn’t take him out in public until we fixed the issues. Work on the issues in a controlled situation until they go away.[/QUOTE]

He doesn’t actually need the muzzle. I’ve taken him out tons of times without it. He just fairly dislikes having fingers and hands and stuff all up in his face and the muzzle acts as a symbol for “leave me alone kthxlol”. I’ve tried “Don’t touch me I’m in training” vests/collars/etc and people just ignore them. He shows absolutely no aggressive behavior whatsoever–we used to have a minor problem with him barking at other dogs, which we later found out was not aggression but him not knowing how to convey appropriate social cues to other dogs (I adopted him a little older). Nowadays he ignores the shit out of other dogs if they’re around, because that’s what he’s been trained to do, unless he has been given permission to greet.

He’s never actually shown aggression to a person that wasn’t actively trying to harm one of us and/or break into our house…and in those cases I want him to. Literally the only time was when I was walking him and some asshole tried to grab at me and you’d better believe he stopped that right quick.

[dungrulla]

In other news if anyone has an equally effective way to get people to KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF MY DAMN DOG I’d love to hear it

[BetterOffRed]

One of my dogs is reactive and aggressive towards other male dogs. He is great with adults, children and female dogs. He is very good in public, he has had lots of training…but I can control other people and their unleashed dogs or dogs on retractable leashes. Therefore, I do muzzle my dog when I take him out in public. He enjoys outings and it is the best way to control him. I finally had to get over my fear of what other people thought of me because I wanted my dog to enjoy outings without fearing other dogs approaching him.

[S1969]

[QUOTE=dungrulla;7983573]
In other news if anyone has an equally effective way to get people to KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF MY DAMN DOG I’d love to hear it :([/QUOTE]

Where exactly are you taking him that people are so wanting to touch him? I don’t live in a city anymore but don’t really remember hordes of people trying to pet my dog when I did live in one.

I suppose you can always say “he’s contagious”. LOL. Not as scary as “he bites”.

[dungrulla]

[QUOTE=S1969;7983608]
Where exactly are you taking him that people are so wanting to touch him? I don’t live in a city anymore but don’t really remember hordes of people trying to pet my dog when I did live in one.

I suppose you can always say “he’s contagious”. LOL. Not as scary as “he bites”.[/QUOTE]

I do live in the city and I have mostly just taken him out and about and a couple times to the pet store–he’s very very appropriately behaved for these situations, heels right next to me while looking at me and everything–but for some reason people JUST HAVE to touch him :mad:

I don’t get it. I never touch an animal that isn’t mine unless I have ASKED if it’s okay. And yes, it only takes ONE person’s ill-mannered unleased or retractable leashed mutt to set me back a couple weeks, and I don’t want to play the “let’s see how uncomfortable people can make him by touching him before he loses it” game. I don’t know what that level is…it’s definitely pretty high, but I also really, really don’t want to find it, you know?

[sorrelfilly721]

[QUOTE=dungrulla;7983573]
In other news if anyone has an equally effective way to get people to KEEP THEIR HANDS OFF MY DAMN DOG I’d love to hear it :([/QUOTE]

Hee hee, the first thing that came to my mind was to carry a squirt bottle and spray anyone who approaches him. Works with my cats LOL.

[DMK]

well… one one level I think the person who said “don’t take them out until you’ve done the work” is ignoring the fact that some of this work, at some point has to be done in the real world and it’s probably better for all if a muzzle was used… Do your homework, do controlled situations until they are foot perfect, by all means, but don’t be foolish enough to trust the dog in a new one without a precaution or two in place.

But taking this particular type of dog to a pet store… well, the owner has a responsibility to the dog to not put them into uncomfortable situations as well, and it seems to me a simple analysis of the situation is the ONE place you are most likely to run into a large number of ignorant people who want to reach out and touch your pet without asking is at a pet store.

I had a corgi who was the friendliest happiest most social best horse show dog ever and never so much as curled a lip in his life, but the Petco/Petsmart just made him uncomfortable. So I didn’t take him in there, because I really liked him and thought I could do better by him than that. New corgi thinks it is the SECOND MOST AWESOME PLACE EVER (Dover, land of teenage girls is the BEST PLACE EVER), so we go a lot and most people ask and some don’t. andthentheygetjumpedon because containing the awesomeness that is George is a work in progress.

[weixiao]

What about something like this?:
http://www.pawsitivedog.com/DogInTrainingVest.html
http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3093&ParentPage=whatsnew
https://www.etsy.com/listing/203641874/vest-for-25-to-90lb-dogs-please-ask-to?ref=pla_similar_listings

etc

I’m guessing that there are people out there who will still ignore the vest, but it might help.

[vacation1]

I also don’t see the problem with a dog wearing a muzzle, but the reality is a muzzle does seem to create an expectation/assumption, probably due to the fact most dog owners are very reluctant to use them. I long ago volunteered to have my dog muzzled at the vet because I thought it would put the vet techs/vets more at ease. I will never volunteer this with a dog again, however, as it seems to have actually created the idea she’s aggressive. A little vexing, that boomerang.

[dungrulla]

[QUOTE=weixiao;7984112]
What about something like this?:
http://www.pawsitivedog.com/DogInTrainingVest.html
http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=3093&ParentPage=whatsnew
https://www.etsy.com/listing/203641874/vest-for-25-to-90lb-dogs-please-ask-to?ref=pla_similar_listings

etc

I’m guessing that there are people out there who will still ignore the vest, but it might help.[/QUOTE]

The problem with this seems to be people who think the best applies to everyone BUT them.

Rebel actually likes the pet store. Most of our harassment problems have been just In town.

[kasjordan]

I took my then almost 2 year old German Shepherd to one of those vaccine clinics because he needed a bordatella for boarding and it was just convenient. He was the best behaved dog there. We stood in line on the sidewalk for an hour and he stayed in a sit or lay right beside me the whole time. you wouldn’t BELIEVE how many kids walked over him while he was laying down, adults that almost stepped on him, people who let their leashes the whole way out so their dogs were on his butt, in his face, stepping on him. I said something probably no less than 15 times in an hour to people about his space. I can see needing/wanting a muzzle to protect your own dog in a situation like that. If he would have snapped at one of the multitudes, it would have been HIS fault. Although I wouldn’t have blamed him at all UGH.

[wendy]

I’ve used a big “don’t touch in training” vest on dogs and they do work quite well. I’m also willing to be extremely rude to people- don’t touch my dog. And get your dog out of there if he starts to show even the slightest signs of discomfort. It’s great to go places and socialize your dog, but be very aware that if the experience is not 100% pleasant the dog won’t benefit from it, quite the opposite. Bad socialization experiences are worse than no experiences.
I don’t like to use muzzles during socialization because it renders the dog helpless and makes it more likely the dog will experience the socialization as unpleasant and stressful. Muzzles are great for “iffy” dogs who HAVE TO go someplace for a specific reason. Not, IMHO, good at all for socialization.

Dogs taught for such things are simply not predictable 100% of the time, and saying a well trained working dog will never act in error is a mistake, because dogs are animals.

a trained “bitework” dog isn’t biting people out of aggression or out of fear- he’s playing a fun game of tug. A properly selected and trained bitework dog is not unpredictable in any way. He bites when told to bite and doesn’t bite at any other time. Period.

Any dog who MIGHT bite out of aggression or fear isn’t a candidate for being taught that it’s ok to put your mouth on human flesh and bite down hard.

[SDgumby]

I use a Gentle Leader on my Golden Retriever…amazing how many people think it is a muzzle. He loves people and other dogs so approaching him is not an issue. I don’t mind at all that people are cautious about petting him. It gives me more control so that he does not mow down a little kid (he loves kids). lol

[EKLay]

Usually I feel like a muzzle in public creates more problems than it helps. People see it, make assumptions, and act wierd about it, which can make the dog more anxious/uncomfortable because now people are acting strangely any they don’t know why. I like the “In training - do not touch” vests as well, if I need to take a dog out and don’t want people mobbing the dog.

A very large mastiff at our last training class was very dog aggressive. I would have certainly supported his owner’s using a muzzle in that case, but she unfortunately did not. This made a lovely situation where everyone else tried to work in one half of the room, handle their own dogs properly, and keep themselves between the mastiff and their dogs, all while being lunged at, snarled at, and barked at. Not a good situation, but it would have been made much better if the mastiff’s owner had him in a muzzle.

[EKLay]

duplicate post…

[talkofthetown]

Just my thoughts after reading your OP. I personally have no problem with dogs wearing muzzles as far as them being “cruel”. And if I saw a dog out and about wearing one, I would definitely steer clear. But what I’m getting from your post is:

1. You put the muzzle on to discourage strangers petting him, because people assume it means aggression so they steer clear (like a red bow in the tail keeps people off your horse’s butt). Totally fine IMO.

2. You don’t like that people assume your dog is aggressive just because he is wearing the muzzle.

Sorry if I misunderstood, but I feel like you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either put off the “image” that your dog isn’t friendly, and be ok with that…OR, find a new system for having him out in public.

*I do understand that your dog ISN’T aggressive, and that the muzzle is more for your peace of mind:yes: