I just don’t get it, because the two types of growls even SOUND different to me. It’s like a human being actually offended versus that fake-offended thing we do when we joke. But then, I always had an easier time understanding animals than humans. I actually honestly want to see if the local shelter will let me start doing video once I have time to be there regularly again – partly to parse out how I know the difference in what an animal is saying, and partly to see for sure what it is *I* am doing that makes them respond so differently to me than to others, because when I try to focus on it I mess it up. It just comes automatically to me and I do better when I’m not even thinking about it.

I’m rather fond of this one too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKffm2uI4dk 😉

You write as many books in the comments as you like. I find the comments are usually the best part of the post. 🙂

It’s terrible that those dogs were so afraid (apparently, with good reason). Obviously there’s never any guarantee that a person or family who seem decent aren’t doing terrible things when no one is watching.

And yes, if you can figure out how to teach people the difference between play growling and warnings, I’d love to know how. Honey loves to growl when she’s playing tug and it really puts people off. They wonder how this sweet dog turned so mean.

Either that or they’re secretly trying to kill you. 🙂

Sounds like my boyfriend’s cat. The more heavy stuff you’re carrying the more you have to bark at him to get out from under your feet. I swear some of them have decided if you trip on them it means you love them or something.

I’m going to hazard a guess it has to do with some TV show they’ve seen. Sometimes I think those “educational” pet shows do more harm than good. But then, TV tends to favor extremes and not balance.

Good lord there I go writing books in people’s comments again… oops…

I will say there’s one dog I was certain was abused based on a flinch, but the whole situation around it was somewhat odd. See, I had tried to adopt her brother previously (horrible separation anxiety and I worked full time so that didn’t work out – he ended up in a home with other dogs so it did work out for him in the end) who was fairly shy and had been dropped off with the claim that he had attacked one of their other dogs (we didn’t see a single sign of dog aggression in him). Something seemed “off” about him in the time he was home with me, but I figured he was just a shy and submissive pup and was nervous because he was used to having a bunch of other dogs to play with. Then his sister was dropped off, and I took her out for a walk. Like him, she was shy, very slow to warm up to me, but after a while of taking her out in the yard she actually started to bounce around and get playful, which was nice to see – but then she stopped almost immediately, the body language instantly shifted to that of a dog who is certain they’ve done something wrong, and she ducked and flinched and kept watching me waiting for the strike. Everything in her body language was saying “I’m sorry I did the bad thing just hit me and get it over with”. I swear to you it broke my heart. I mentioned it to the shelter workers who insisted that it was impossible – they knew the daughter of the people who used to own that dog and were sure she’d never let her parents get away with something like that. Then the third dog came in from the same home, starving, emaciated, and more terrified of people than even the other two. I came in for my volunteer time and they told me there was another one, told me what happened… She was out in the front yard to keep her away from all the noise (they’d had her for a bit getting her better fed for a while but she was still thin). I went out to see her. I guess the gal walking her was like the only person she trusted out of anyone there so far… so it surprised the girl a bit that the dog came right up to me. But that happens a lot… Either way, apparently I had seen what nobody else could in that case.

It was actually part of the push that led me to want to study animal behavior – between that and the animals that ended up there for months on end because they had some issue that wasn’t being handled since they had to rely on volunteers (100% donation funded shelter) and I didn’t have the time to be there all the time (though I would have loved to). They do work with behavior a bit, but of course if you don’t have enough people to consistently handle all of them on a regular basis, it’s still difficult. I wanted to be able to help them become for “adoptable”… I wanted to be able to prevent them from ending up at the shelters in the first place. And I wanted to be able to teach those dogs who had been mistreated how to trust again.

And I am determined that one of these days I will teach people the difference between an aggressive growl and a play-growl… so many people I’ve seen freak out at the latter. *facepalm*

I agree there could have been a number of things that could have happened to make Titus skittish. He may also just be shy. Obviously his life has been uprooted in some way or he wouldn’t be at your house as a foster. It could just be as simple as that.