He Loved His Dog. He Never Heard the Warnings.

This is one of the most memorable cases I’ve encountered in my career as a dog behaviorist.

It’s a true story about a kind, intelligent man named Tim and his rescue dog Buddy. Despite loving his dog deeply, Tim found himself repeatedly bitten by the very dog he adored. The mystery wasn’t why Buddy was biting. The mystery was why Tim couldn’t see the warnings that came before the bites.

In this episode, I share the surprising discovery that changed everything and the lesson every dog owner can learn from it. If you’ve ever wondered whether your dog is trying to communicate something you’re missing, this episode is for you.

Episode Link(s):

Understanding Dog Body Language Video

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Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. If your dog is displaying aggression toward humans, consult an experienced and knowledgeable canine behavior professional who uses humane, non-aversive methods, and always take precautions to keep others safe.

Scott Sheaffer and USA Dog Behavior, LLC, are not responsible for any outcomes resulting from the use or interpretation of the information shared in this podcast.

Transcript

He Loved His Dog. He Never Heard the Warnings.

What if the dog isn’t the mystery?

What if the person who loves him most is?

Don’t go anywhere. When we come back, I’ll tell you one of the most fascinating dog-and-owner stories, I’ve ever encountered.

I’ve worked with thousands of dogs over the years, but every once in a while a case comes along that stays with me.

This is one of those cases.

The details have been changed to protect my clients’ privacy, but this is a true story. It happened many years ago, and I’ve never forgotten it.

I’ll call him Tim.

Tim was one of the kindest clients I’ve ever worked with. He and his wife lived in a modest but well-maintained home. They were probably in their sixties and had no children. Their world revolved around a 45-pound mixed-breed rescue dog named Buddy.

And Tim loved Buddy a lot.

He didn’t just merely own him.

I mean he genuinely loved him.

That’s what made this case so confusing.

By the time I met them, Buddy had bitten Tim four separate times, for no apparent reason. Every bite had broken the skin. The injuries were primarily to Tim’s hands and arms.

This wasn’t a minor nuisance.

This was a serious aggression case in my eyes.

Yet something about it didn’t make sense.

Buddy wasn’t biting Tim’s wife.

He wasn’t biting visitors.

He wasn’t biting strangers.

He was biting the one person who loved him the most in this world. What?

And I couldn’t figure out why.

The more I got to know Tim, the stranger the case became.

Tim worked as a controller for a large public company. He appeared to be highly intelligent, analytical, successful, thoughtful, and remarkably warm.

Tim was one of those clients that I both liked and respected.

Which only deepened the mystery.

Eventually, I was able to diagnose Buddy with a common form of family-directed aggression known as control-related aggression.

Despite the intimidating name, this type of aggression is actually much more common than most people realize. 

In simple terms, a dog learns to use aggression as a tool to influence the behavior of the people around him. 

He discovers that growling, snapping, or biting can be effective ways to get what he wants. 

Sometimes it’s possession of a favorite toy. Sometimes it’s access to a preferred spot on the sofa. Sometimes it’s food. Sometimes it’s simply getting someone to move away.

Like a spoiled child who learns that tantrums work, the behavior becomes reinforced because it achieves the desired outcome.

The good news was that control-related aggression often responds very well to treatment.

The bad news?

After giving Tim some standard exercises to treat control related aggression – things weren’t improving at all – and I didn’t know why.

I understood what was going on with Tim’s dog.

But I realized that I didn’t really understand Tim. He was different it seemed.

And that bothered me.

The treatment exercises I was giving Tim weren’t especially complicated. Yet despite his intelligence, he didn’t seem to understand what Buddy was communicating during the exercises.

For example, he would reach toward Buddy when he was growling at him. I found that disturbing and confusing. Buddy was telling Tim he was about to bite him. Yet Tim proceeded anyway. Most people would have backed away to avoid being bitten. No wonder Tim had been bitten 4 times already.

But, Tim wasn’t being resistant.

He wasn’t being stubborn.

He wasn’t ignoring my instructions.

He was really trying.

Hard.

But it was almost as though he and Buddy were participating in two completely different conversations. One was playing basketball and the other was playing football.

The more I watched them interact, the more convinced I became that I was missing something important.

Then one day, Tim’s wife quietly told me something she had never mentioned before.

I’ll never forget it.

“My husband has Asperger’s Syndrome.”

Suddenly, a hundred little observations I’d made over the previous weeks began to rearrange themselves in my mind.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Asperger’s Syndrome, it’s a condition that’s generally considered part of the autism spectrum.

Many people with it are highly intelligent and exceptionally capable, but they may have difficulty interpreting subtle social cues and body language in humans…

…and canines. 

Making it difficult for them at times to fully understand what is being communicated.

And suddenly, the entire case made sense.

For weeks, I had been trying to understand Buddy.

Now I realized I needed to understand Tim.

Think about this, Dogs communicate primarily through body language.

A hard stare.

A stiff posture.

A freeze.

A lip lift.

A growl.

These aren’t random behaviors.

They’re communication. The dog is sending information.

Buddy had been communicating all along with Tim.

The bites weren’t appearing out of nowhere.

They were happening at the end of a communication process that Tim couldn’t completely understand.

For the first time, I understood why the treatment exercises weren’t working. And why this was all happening in the first place.

The mystery was no longer why Buddy was biting.

The mystery was why Tim couldn’t see the warnings.

And now, for the first time, I finally had the answer.

Tim loved Buddy. Buddy loved Tim. But Tim couldn’t understand what Buddy was trying to tell him.

Buddy had been communicating for a long time using the language dogs know best: body language.

When those signals repeatedly failed to achieve their purpose, Buddy eventually resorted to the dog equivalent of a scream.

He bit.

Of course, there was a reason for the bite. There always is.

We just didn’t understand it yet.

The good news was that we had finally found the missing piece of the puzzle.

The bad news was that Buddy still had a biting problem.

But for the first time since the case began, I felt optimistic.

The mystery had been unraveled.

And once we understood the mystery, the path forward became surprisingly clear.

Let me take a second to tell you about a service I offer—I’ll be right back to tell you how I handled Tim and Buddy’s unique situation.

Alright—let's get back to it.

I realized I couldn’t build a treatment plan that depended on Tim consistently recognizing subtle canine body language in real time. To treat control related aggression – or any of the 7 major types of dog aggression for that matter – we have to be able to read what a dog is telling us.

Instead, I needed to build a plan around the reality of the situation.

A plan that worked for Tim.

A plan that worked for Buddy.

A plan that reduced misunderstandings and increased clarity, especially for Tim.

In short, I needed a customized Buddy-Tim program.

I began to teach Tim about canine body language in a way that he could effectively process.

I taught him to look at the whole dog, not just the dog’s face.

I had his wife video record his interactions with the dog so I would review them with him to see what Buddy was telling him.

I educated Tim about predictable patterns in Buddy’s body language.

And we covered other things too. Tim was smart, so he learned all of this quickly.

As the weeks passed, Tim began to understand situations that had previously confused him.

Buddy became more predictable.

The tension in the home began to decrease.

The relationship improved.

Most importantly, there was hope.

I remember thinking how unfair the situation had been for both of them.

Tim loved Buddy deeply.

Buddy wasn’t trying to hurt Tim for the sake of hurting him.

The real tragedy was that neither one understood why the relationship had become so difficult.

Now they did.

And once they did, progress became possible.

The reason I still think about this case all these years later isn’t because of the aggression.

I’ve worked many aggression cases.

It’s because of Tim.

Despite being highly intelligent, successful, and accomplished, he was willing to admit that something wasn’t working and he sought professional guidance.

Many people would’ve blamed the dog.

Tim didn’t.

He wanted to understand.

And because he wanted to understand, Buddy finally had a chance to be understood.

And that’s when my job became clear.

I wasn’t there to change Buddy.

I wasn’t there to change Tim.

I was there to create a special Buddy-Tim program designed just for the two of them.

And what a privilege it was to do that.

And it worked.

I love my job.

Before I leave you today, I want to share something I’ve heard countless times from dog owners over the years.

“I had no idea my dog was telling me that.”

I never forget those words.

Maybe that’s the lesson in all of this.

Most dog owners genuinely love their dogs.

Lack of love usually isn’t the problem.

Understanding is.

So here’s my challenge for you.

The next time you’re with your dog, slow down.

Watch.

Observe.

Pay attention.

You may discover your dog has been trying to tell you something all along.

Before I leave you today, I’d like to offer you a free resource.

If this story resonates with you, I’ve created a free 49-minute video titled Understanding Dog Body Language.

In it, I’ll show you some of the most important body language signals dogs use to communicate with us every day. Learning to recognize these signals can help prevent misunderstandings, and improve your relationship with your dog.

You’ll find a link to this free video in the show notes.

It’s completely free, and I know you’ll find it helpful.

Thanks for listening. See you next time.