One of my earliest memories from when I was 4 or 5 years old is sitting in the front yard of my house playing. We lived on a cul-de-sac of townhouses and the front yards were adjoined. The family who lived catty-corner to us had a brown cocker spaniel whom I had met before but didn’t interact with much. As I was sitting playing, he ran out of his yard into ours and bit me in the face. It didn’t do any damage beyond scaring me; my mom was very calm about it, and I obviously have no fear of dogs as a result. The dog’s family was apologetic but also kept him and changed how they put him outside, using a tether and supervising him. I still have no idea why he bit me; I was not in his space, I was being quiet and I was not near any of his family members. I am glad that he did not lose his home over the incident, that his family took reasonable measures to ensure it would not happen again and that neither my parents nor anyone else in the neighborhood made a big fuss out of it.

We speak to dog owners regularly who are not willing to do what the family in my neighborhood did and it is very common for dogs to be brought to a shelter the very first time there is a bite or near-bite incident, no matter how long they have been a part of their family. We recently had a dog surrendered to Midcoast Humane who had been with her family for eight years and she was brought in for snapping at the younger dog in the home. We discussed managing the dogs in the home to give her time and space without the other dog and the possibility of her needing to be seen by a veterinarian given her age, but the family was not interested. To them, she had bitten out of the blue and was no longer trustworthy, but here is the missing piece of the puzzle: Everyone, animal and human, has a threshold beyond which they no longer have patience or the ability to endure. Where that may be is different for every dog, but any and every dog can bite in the right, or wrong, circumstances. Often, if the circumstances under which the bite occurred do not occur again, neither does the biting behavior, but we are increasingly seeing dog owners refusing to accept that dogs have boundaries, too. When we dug deeper with this dog’s owners, we learned she had been becoming increasingly intolerant of the other dog jumping on her when she wanted to be left alone. She had progressed from moving away from him, to growling when pursued, to snapping when he persisted. It was not an out-of-the-blue incident, and management of space, giving her breaks from him along with giving him a different outlet for his energy could have allowed them to both continue living in the home.

My dog, Helga, who was my very first dog, bit me. I was still in Baltimore at the time and we were walking in the cemetery behind my street. Backyards opened up into the alley that ran alongside the cemetery, and while we were walking, two dogs let themselves out of their yard by pawing the latch just right, and one ran right at us. Helga was not amused and did not consider this dog’s behavior play, and real snapping began quickly. I was still new to sheltering and largely untrained, so I did the dumbest thing I could have done and grabbed her collar to try and pull her away from him and out of the fray. At my touch on the back of her neck, she turned her head and bit my hand, causing two punctures. Giving her up didn’t even occur to me; I knew it was an accident due to the circumstances, and we never had another incident the rest of the eight years she was with me, but I carefully managed her interactions with other dogs, especially when we were out in public. I learned something important about Helga, and I made sure to respect it and manage it as best I could.

There are some dogs with low-bite inhibition and are quick to use their mouths with force, but for the vast majority of dogs and in most bite incidents, this is not the case. Dog owners spending some time learning about dog communication, what dog signals are and what they mean and not anthropomorphizing pets and expecting human reasoning and reactions from dogs could go a long way towards preventing bites and causing the mutual heartbreak of surrendering pets.

We currently have the sum total of human wisdom and experience in portable, six-inch electronic blocks that fit easily in our pockets and purses. The modern cell phone is a bit of a miracle, if you think about it. If we want to know something, there are few barriers to learning about it; we can pull out our phones and consult experts. There are incredibly useful and easily digestible articles and videos on the internet for dog behavior these days and learning the subtle and not-so-subtle things your dog is telling you can greatly improve your relationship.

Jess Townsend is executive director at Midcoast Humane.