My husband has a cat that he gets very attached to, and this is one of the most common dog yelps that he lets loose.
The cat’s owner has the unfortunate nickname, “The Dog Whisperer”, because it’s very difficult to keep a dog’s touchy-feely behavior under control.
The truth is that many pet owners just like to go full on on the yelping. But if we look at this from an evolutionary point of view, it’s actually the result of a few things. First, when a dog is young and can’t really control its emotions it’s prone to “hunkering down.” Allowing it to get too excited is only going to make it yelp more.
Dogs are often described as being very social animals, which makes them easy targets for dog owners. The yelping is a form of communication that can be very effective. I suppose there are times when a dog yelps. But I don’t think its because you touched it. I think its because it was just yelping so that it could get a reprieve from its owner.
When I first started working with dogs I had them stay with me for a few weeks. The first few months I was very aware of what the dog was doing and what its owners were thinking. I was shocked how often the dog just stopped yelping and started to growl. It wasn’t until I realized that the dog was just a yelping machine that I began to realize that the dog’s owner might be getting hurt.
I once had a client say, “I need a dog that’ll go into the woods to investigate something with me.” The dog was all excited and yelped “Go!” I think the owner was more surprised when the dog actually went into the woods and actually attacked something. To be honest, I never did anything to help them out.
I was working with a client who wanted a dog that would track the scent of a criminal, but not alert to this criminal’s presence. The dog was the best option for this client, but after he had the dog for a couple of weeks, the dog started to bark at every criminal who passed through his yard. And so we ended up removing it from the home.
The dog was not an aggressive dog. He was simply in a bad mood and barking in response to something he didn’t want to hear. It’s very easy to tell if your dog is going to be a problem, so the first option is to fix the problem. In this case, I’m sure the barking was from the fact that the dog wasn’t happy that he was on a scent, but it’s also possible that the dog was merely trying to show off.
You know the rules. Dogs should only be aggressive if they have a specific reason for being on a property. This is why it is always best to have a professional animal control officer on hand. It’s hard to tell from the photos if this is one of those dogs who got in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the dog clearly did not like the scent of the suspect.
I still say it is best to have a professional on hand, although I’m not sure what that would even look like. A dog that barks at people could be a problem for the police, since they are the ones who have to investigate the crime.