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Dog bit me. How do I go about it?

Question: I’m wondering if my dog’s behavior is something I should be worried about? Would you classify this dog as dangerous? He’s never bit before or punctured the skin even when he plays rough with my boyfriend. I know it was our fault for trying to blow dry him even after he was started snapping, but he’s two and hasn’t had any progress with it like that before. Is there any way to get him to ease up to it or just not do it at all anymore? Backstory: I was washing my dog with my boyfriend the other day and he bit me. Usually when we wash him we towel dry because we know he doesn’t like the dryer at the pet salon but my boyfriend thought it would be okay to try it because as soon as we turned it on to blow and clean some of the previous dog hair that was left over he ran up to it. I started to blow dry him and my boyfriend covered his face and held it still and it turned out good. We turned it off and towel dried and did it again. This time he started to try and snap. I put it down and was telling my boyfriend let’s not because I don’t want to lose his trust but he said he had it under control and that we were making progress so I put it up one last time and my hand was covering the outside rim of the dryer and he was covering his face and he quickly bit me and punctured skin. It was two small bites that punctured and they weren’t extremely deep but did bleed almost less than a paper cut would. I’m assuming he felt my hand and let go right away but I was still very shocked and emotionally hurt. We quickly turned it off and told him no and put him in a quick time out.

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Barbara H.

Thank you for the question. I'm so sorry that you've had to deal with a dog bite. I know that this can be a stressful and that you're probably blaming yourself, but this sounds like a one-off situation to me.

From what you described, it sounds you guys didn't notice some signs of escalating stress in your dog. If he doesn't like the blow dryer, you have to very slowly increase his exposure to the appliance before using it on him. In addition, when your boyfriend covered your dogs face, he may have interpreted this as being restrained which would only further your dogs fear. My interpretation of the incident is that things went far too fast for your dog, it created an extremely stressful situation, and he responded in an extreme way.

t doesn't mean that your dog hates you or that he's dangerous. It just means he needs a different approach and needs his boundaries respected.

When you have a nervous dog, you need to take new situations very slowly. In this example, a slow approach might start out with him being in the same room with you while you use the dryer, then progress to him being able to approach the dryer and examine it while off, then allow him to examine it while turned on (without directing any air towards him), then directing air at I'm from a distance while allowing him enough space to escape if his stress level gets to high. At each step during the introduction, it's important to make sure you dog feels safe and gets positive reinforcement. Give pets, give treats, talk in a calm voice.

I hope that this helps.

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Dog bit me. How do I go about it?

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