We have had a pet dog for about 11 years now and he is an integral part of our family. He gets along well with most of our family and friends, but over time we have had to deal with the issue of his biting some guests.
Our pet entered our house in our early days of marriage and we treated him as our first son. He looked so cute in the beginning that everyone would pick him up to cuddle. Over time, he grew, and his bigger teeth also made cuddling passé. With some obedience training, he was moulded to be a good guard dog. As his two human brothers arrived, he watched over their growing up. He would run with them, playing. He misses them when they are in school and sleeps under their cot. The children also regard him as part of the family and he has made us all better people just by his presence.
The same cannot be said about friends and extended family who visit us: they either treat him as another human or as an alien.
Many of them like him, some of them come home only to see him and some others have stopped visiting us due to him. Some guest children treat him as a plaything, some are scared of him, but seeing our kids’ familiarity with him, become over familiar — causing some unpleasant events.
Why is a pet part of the host family, yet different from others in the family?
A pet is an individual, he likes to be petted and bathed only as he likes it. There are parts of his body that he lets everyone touch, some that he lets only the family adults pet, and others he doesn’t allow anyone to touch. We respect that, and we have taught our kids to respect that. Guests do not understand such nuances and tend to simplify their understanding of dogs in general and try to pet him indiscriminately or even over his protestations, and end up aggrieving him.
The dog is a person, too. Respect his boundaries, respect him as an individual, and take the host’s tips in handling him.
Dogs have descended from the highly hierarchical wolf family, and need to find their positions within the family. In the initial months of joining a human family, a dog builds a hierarchy in his mind and obeys those higher in the pecking order and protects others.
Even in his playful antics, he always keeps this hierarchy in mind. That is why our children are never hurt by him, even during play, as he tones down his energy to match theirs. When my husband and I have our domestic spats, either he avoids us till we sort things out, or parks himself between us as if to prevent any escalation. This gets complicated with guests; they do not fit into the hierarchy and so he reacts when he sees them dealing with us in a human-familiar way.
When one of my husband’s closest friends was visiting, he picked up our little son when he was crying, but our dog thought the friend was making him cry and pounced on him to “protect” the child.
A dog will be completely aligned to the host family, so one final advice to guests — do not seem to be quarrelling with the host while still trying to be friendly with the dog. For, his only loyalty is to the host’s family.
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