Scary Dog

[DTrain]

My dog Dave, the little upside down guy in my avatar is scaring the hell out of people. Dave is almost full grown. He has a big nose, big mouth and really big teeth and Dave is a smiler. I have been trying to get a picture for you but Dave is also a very fast runner. I have seen dogs smile but I have never seen anything like Dave. He roles up his nose and has a full mouth smile. Sometimes he does the full body wiggle or wags his tail BUT, sometimes he plants his back legs, lowers his tail and lets go with a giant toothy smile staring directly into your eyes. We know what this is and people who know Dave understand what he is doing but people meeting him for the first time are certain Dave is crazy and they are about to be attacked. Dave is incredibly friendly and has never been aggressive with man or beast but his smile is scary. Sometimes it is very funny and I can hardly keep from laughing but in many ways we are in the public relations business and we cannot go around scaring people. One person even reported us the the local animal control folks for having a vicious dog. The animal control folks know Dave very well and explained he is not dangerous, they called me killing themselves laughing. I of course try to explain to people who wish to approach him but it is obvious some of them think I am more crazy than my dog. Dave is not likely to stop smiling although I wish he would tone it down a bit so I need to come up with a way to present and explain Dave. We will be back at goose control shortly and again exposed to the public and I need to come up with a way to explain this. We live in a part of the world where people are nervous about dogs anyway. Any suggestions, Thanks.

[Laurae]

Can you get him a little vest to wear that says something like "I'm very friendly, so I like to smile!"?

[KrisK]

Sorry I can't be of much help because my Cricket is a smiler as well. I have to admit, the first time I saw this smile, I was taken aback. I've never had a dog do this! It's worse with Cricket because she IS a fearful dog. I only get the smiles once she is very familiar with people. Maybe you have Dave 'smile' on command? If I ask Cricket for her 'smiley face' she gives me the whole teeth thing. Maybe if you could teach a 'smile command' people would be amazed at your well trained dog.

[Lewie'sMom]

Can you get him a little vest to wear that says something like "I'm very friendly, so I like to smile!"?

 

 

I was thinking something along those same lines. Maybe a bandana that reads, "Hi, my name is Dave. I smile alot", with a big smiley face on it.

 

edit: Oh, I just thought of something else. Maybe you could get your local newspaper to do a little article/write-up on Dave and his smiles.

[mbc1963]

Oh, I can't help laughing! My brother's dog is a smiler, and I love it. There's also another dog named Buddy (like my boy) who walks at the local park. He's a labradoodle. The only way I know it's him charging at us rather than some other dog my Buddy might growl at is his big, silly grin. He just wiggles his butt and smiles all the way to me.

 

Good luck. Delicate situation! Oh, and we NEED pictures!

 

Mary

[bcnewe2]

So as someone is walking up to him, all you need to do is say, "Smile Dave" if your body language is sure and confident the new comers will think it was done on command and believe you right off the bat.

 

I own a smiler too. Her whole upper lip curls up, unless I tell her to give me an Elvis, then she only pulls one side of her lip up. It pleases everyone who sees it. Like Criket, she is/was a fearful dog to, but in her old age her heart is bigger than her fear.

[urge to herd]

Great idea to give it a cue. If you can add the Elvis thing, that will really make people smile in return.

 

For what it's worth, greyhounds, maybe other sight hounds as well, do the smile naturally, too. There's a term for it, when it surfaces in my middle aged brain I'll post it.

 

Let us know how it goes,

 

Ruth

[DTrain]

Perhaps you guys are on to something. I had not thought of training Dave to smile. In fact I have been thinking about putting a bag over his head. He may not do it on command but if I can read his body language and get a feel for when he may do it I can say the word smile and everyone can relax. Good idea about the paper. When we did the interview last summer for goose control the reporter was a little nervous about Dave. Somebody mentioned, does this behavior have a name. Have you ever taken a shot of your dog smiling, Dave runs like heck when he sees a camera. I want to get some pictures of him soon. I expect he is just about fully grown and he is very different from my other dogs or any BC I have had or seen. He is tall and very long and has a very long tail with very long hair. My wife commented the other day that when Dave walks with his tail down it drags on the ground. He is an odd looking dog, sometimes I find him scary.

[bcnewe2]

I didn't train Raven to smile, I just named the behavoir and she did it enough that she learned what the words meant. I can ask for one now but the type dog she was way back then, don't know if I could have trained her to do it. She also does it to me wagging my finger at her.

 

They're either smilers or they're not! How can you not love those smiles!

 

Ruth I'd love to know what this behavior is called, besides smiling .

My LGD's used to do it to. Now that could have scared a few new comers but they were so soft bodied while greeting humans that no one was really ever scared.

BTW

Raven thinks the devil is stealing her soul when the camera comes out so in all her years I don't have many pictures of her except the kind that she's all tensed up with her whole body trying to fold into it's self!

 

I do have a nice one of her penning sheep when she was young, but she had no idea anyone was stealing her soul at the time!

[beachdogz]

I think you have gotten some great suggestions. The two I really thought stood out were:

1. give a command to smile as someone approaches.

2. do a write up in the paper about the smiling.

Teaching her to smile may also give you and "off" command, however, if this is a genetic, hard-wired behavior, you may not be able to do much about that. So I think the first two suggestions were the best.

 

A very interesting post.

[flrpwr52]

I have a smiley dog and do therapy work with her. I didn't know what I was going to do because she would smile as she greeted people and most were scared and backed away.

 

I started out having her wear a bandanna that said, "Wanna See My Smile?" That worked for a while but wasn't the answer.

I used clicker training and the word "smile". Now she does it on command only and is always ready to smile for anyone she meets.

 

Good luck with Dave. You gotta love the smile.

[DTrain]

Thanks, I love the smile and I think it is funny. He has such a large mouth he almost looks like a cartoon character. I am going to go with the idea of saying smile when someone approaches him and see how that goes. I might try clicker trainer and see if he will smile on command. I got the word this morning that the dogs will be doing beach patrol this summer. I can just see Dave scaring a bunch of greasy people and them running and screaming mad dog as he is doing about 100 MPH down a beach. This is going to be fun. The one that gets me is when he puts his tail down and plants his back feet and smiles. That one may come in handy.

[BNM1980]

Pictures please!

[DTrain]

I don't have a picture of Dave smiling but I am working on it. Getting a smile picture of Dave is on my list of impossible things to accomplish. I have tons of pictures of Dave in various situations. He even has a Blue Buffalo trading card but he is very camera shy. This is a very recent picture of Dave doing his usual deer in the headlights face. As soon as I get one of him smiling I will get it up right away.