Lizard hunting with Pinzy
Let’s talk about redirected aggression.
This can be one of the scariest kinds of aggressions because it can seem like it comes out of nowhere.
Sometimes it is directed at another animal, and sometimes it can be directed at humans.
Generally redirected aggression happens when an animal is looking at something or hearing something that is causing them to become very agitated, and then another animal or a person interacts with the animal in an already highly agitated state.
Instead of directing their aggression at the original cause, they redirect that aggression on to this new innocent bystander.
For cats, an inciting cause could be seeing another cat or a dog from a window, or even seeing potential prey such as birds, squirrels, or in the case of this video, a lizard.
For dogs, an inciting cause could also be other dogs or cats, people, delivery vehicles, garbage trucks, bicycles, skateboarders, or prey animals.
If an animal is doing this inside the home then the best thing to do is to prevent that visual stimulation from happening in the first place. You can do this by closing the curtains or blinds, covering the windows with paper, or using privacy film coverings for the glass.
In extreme cases you can also use a motion activated water sprayer to discourage other animals from entering the area where your pet can see out the windows.
Have you ever seen a pet show redirected aggression? I would love to hear about your experience in the comments!
Just chillin with my puppers
The dogs are hanging out outside with me while I relax because the my daughter and her friend are inside playing. This is one way I manage supervising the kids with my dogs.
Even if your dog is the sweetest, most gentle, loving creature on the face of the planet, it is still important to supervise your dogs with your kids.
This is especially true if you have young children or if you are like me, and have a special needs dog.
If a dog has teeth, then it can bite.
The most common dog bite victim demographic are boys under the age of 9 by dogs that they are familiar with.
Some general guidelines for supervising kids with dogs are:
-be sure to be within at least earshot of your kids with your dogs
-if you are going to be mentally pre-occupied you can keep the dog in the room with you, put them in their crate, or have another adult keep an eye on the crew
-for puppies an exercise pen is an invaluable supervision tool that can prevent unsupervised mischief
-teach your kids some structured games that they can play with your dog to prevent out of control play
-teach your kids basic dog safety by teaching them what to do if a dog jumps up on them or grabs their clothing as well as teaching them dog body language - doggonesafe.com has some great resources for this
-teach your kids that dogs have boundaries too and that different dogs may have different boundaries that should be respected
-establish some basic rules for interacting with your dogs that all the kids coming into your house know, and agree to follow (for example - do not enter the house without being let in, do not feed people food, do not ride the dog like a horse, do not pick up the dog, etc)
It’s not always easy to juggle a house full of kids AND pets so take some time to train your kids to be safe around dogs.
