My social media feeds are full of videos and pictures of animals. I find it relaxing to watch the variety of ways that we humans love the animals that share this Earth with us. Last night, I watched a particularly heartwarming video of a man patiently, over the course of hours, gaining the trust of a stray dog enough to convince him to jump in the man’s truck. It made me so happy! He did not attempt to force the dog into anything, he built trust with food and stillness, sitting down on the ground and giving the dog tidbits and not approaching or reaching for him until the dog finally felt comfortable enough to ask for petting. Once the petting barrier had been surmounted, it was a short time until the dog hopped into the truck and rode off to safety.

The next video I scrolled to extinguished my warm and fuzzy glow. It was a video of a toddler interacting with the family dog, sitting next to him on the floor. The toddler did what toddlers do; she moved awkwardly and adorably, babbling her not quite words and petting him with her not quite pets as he sat still and gave her hand a lick. The comments cooed over how cute the scene was and how much the dog and child loved each other. I, however, spent the whole video waiting for the bite.

You see, the dog was not happy and loving in that video. He was incredibly uncomfortable, holding himself stiffly, body leaning away from the child’s enthusiastic thumping. His brow was furrowed and he looked away from her, licking his lips. The big tip-off that he was not enjoying their interaction was when he licked her. He was not expressing affection; he was giving an indicator that his stress was escalating. He was asking her to stop what she was doing and go away. Beyond The Dog has a great explanation of this behavior: beyondthedogtraining.com/dog-training/licking-behavior-explained/.

One of the trends I have noticed over the years and now more so than ever is people not correctly interpreting what their dog is doing or not respecting the communication even if they understand it. For example, growling is a normal dog vocal communication. Given that they cannot form speech, dogs have a limited number of ways to communicate with us. Prior to growling, most dogs give many indicators in their body language of discomfort or stress that humans miss. In an emotionally and physically healthy dog, growling should come before snapping or biting (see Figure 1). A dog whose preliminary signals of discomfort, like turning away, tucking her tail, stiffening, etc. are ignored, learns eventually to stop offering those lower-level signals and goes more quickly to growling. If growling is ignored, or worse, punished, then it is skipped over in favor of snapping or biting.

Very rarely do dogs bite humans “out of the blue,” yet we here at Midcoast Humane along with other shelters and veterinary practices around the country commonly hear a variation of that from dog owners. When we talk through the scenarios and ask for more information, we are often able to find the signals that were missed, ignored or punished, or ways to avoid the scenarios in the future. Unfortunately, this knowledge is not always able to help. Sometimes the damage is already done; the bite has happened, trust has been lost and the dog loses its home.

What I see as the issue is a lack of understanding, a lack of learning, about dogs and their natural behaviors and how they convey them prior to getting a dog and an increasing intolerance of dogs doing “dog things.” As a society, we seem to be increasingly expecting human reaction from our pets instead of trying to understand and accept them for what they are — animals. They do not reason the way humans do, they do not possess language and their reactions to situations will not be the same as a result and holding them to human standards is not reasonable. Spending some time learning about dogs, dog behavior and communication could go a long way towards helping both dog guardians and dogs enjoy their partnership more.

Jess Townsend is executive director at Midcoast Humane.