The Bite Scale Ep214

The Bite Scale Ep214

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Episode 214 this week we are talking about the bite scale. Why do we need to know about the bite scale? Well, we wanna know if a dog is trying to hurt us or not, because so many of these quote unquote bites are actually warnings. So we're gonna dive into that this week. You are listening to the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show.

I am Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a Master Groomer Behavior Specialist, a Master Canine Stylist, a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, a Certified Behavior Consultant for Canines, and a bunch of other things. I'm also the Dean of Academics and an Educator at The Whole Pet Grooming Academy, and this, my friends and colleagues, is the show where we talk about teaching pets to be good for grooming and other types of care.

Let's jump right into the bite scale. Dr. Ian Dunbar came up with the bite scale https://www.dunbaracademy.com/pages/dadd-bite-scale It's a great way to classify what kind of a bite this is. 'cause we have owners say, well, he bites or he bit the groomer, or, you know, he. He put his, his teeth on us, but he doesn't try to hurt us.

You know, let's really look into this variety to figure out how severe a bite is. What we're trying to do is help everyone stay safe. So not every time that teeth touch a body is aggression. I know, it's crazy. , but honestly, I think sometimes bites are confused with playing. A lot of our dogs think about how they play with another dog.

, they're putting their teeth on them. Not every time an animal puts their teeth on you is because they are trying to be aggressive, behaving aggressively. Sometimes they're just goofing around and playing with you. Uh, one of my guys, one of his favorite things to do is to tug on a ball that's in his mouth and we tug on it together, and I actually kind of.

Hook his canine teeth with my fingers and, and pull 'em around. He thinks it's great. , I trust that dog entirely. I could put my foot in his mouth and he'd be like, and he looks vicious, but he's not gonna try to hurt me. It's part of how he likes to wrestle. So let's separate out first play behaviors versus aggressive behaviors.

And I'm not saying that it's okay if it's play, I'm saying that it's a. Hmm. Let's see. How do I wanna word this? A mutual contract. If it's play, , like it takes two to have fun. If one party is not having fun, then it's not play. I don't mind wrestling with my dog and getting my hands in his mouth or my foot in his mouth and goofing around and letting him put his teeth on me.

I do it with one of my guys, but not the other one because one of my guys loves to wrestle that way and is very, very gentle with his mouth. My other guy does not enjoy that kind of wrestling, so why would we do that? That's not something he enjoys and he doesn't really have great bite inhibition.

You might not have heard the term bite inhibition, but bite inhibition is when a pup or a dog has learned how to use their mouth very gently. They're very aware of how much pressure they're using. It's something that they often learn while they're still with their mama and their litter mates, and then of course, continue to learn throughout their life.

Well, one of my guys doesn't have it. And the other one , is fantastic with the amount of pressure he uses with his mouth. Play styles are different but play if everybody is enjoying it, it's play. If one is not enjoying it, it's not play anymore and , I'm not saying it's going to be appropriate play.

It totally depends on the individuals involved. I wouldn't want one of my guys to be using their teeth playing with, uh, a stranger or a guest or a child. But with me, with me, it's fine. , with some of our flyball friends. That would be okay. As long as everybody's having fun. It's all right. So not every time that teeth hit a body is because a dog is being aggressive, and I really just wanna make that part clear.

Now, here's where we have to start thinking. Well, let's talk about the severity of a dog bite, because I think most of the time what we're really seeing is a dog who is giving us warnings.

Level one is they're fearful or aggressive, kind of out of control behavior, but they don't actually contact the skin with their teeth. This could be , the dog that does a quick air snap. , they're biting at you, but they don't actually make contact with you. They don't touch you. Um, sometimes, uh, I know it's not a bite, but herding dogs do a muzzle punch.

You might never have experienced that, but their mouth is closed and they just very, very quickly try to show you exactly how things could go down if their mouth were open. It's a display for them, like, okay, I. I'm telling you to knock it off and that fearful, aggressive kind of behavior is sort of that.

I'm doing a quick air snap that dog didn't miss. I think it's really important for everyone out there to know a dog who airs, snaps and doesn't connect. Did not miss. That dog was trying to tell you something without hurting you. And I think when we see that we need to back off and go, how can I help this dog be more comfortable?

And that for a lot of us is kind of a foreign idea, we still hear an awful lot of like, oh, well, we're not putting up with that, are we? And we're gonna put on the muzzle, but I want you to think about like, wow, we, we really pushed this dog to a point where . They're telling us, I'd hate to have to hurt you.

This is a time for us to go, wow, okay, let's, let's back off and figure out if we can find a way to make this comfortable for you. But if we just jump directly to more hostility, which is often what happens, the I can't let him win old school stuff. , if we just jump into that, what happens is, is that we have a dog who's like, well.

Level one bite doesn't make any sense for this person. Maybe I need to ramp it up. Maybe I need to be more extreme. Those level one bites the dog who chose to not even put their teeth on you. Oh, that's a gift. I want you to start seeing it that way. That's a dog who's like, I am trying to negotiate with you.

And very likely there have been other signs before that. That you didn't notice. So the more we learn about animal handling, the more we learn about body language, the more we learn about trying to help them be comfortable, the more we're gonna start noticing things Before an animal feels like they need to do that real quick air snap, no contact.

That's a level one bite. It's not even a bite, right? But it's a level one. This dog is not trying to hurt you yet, but it's a warning. A big warning and we should take it seriously, and not necessarily just by adding a muzzle or adding more straps, we should think about why this pet felt so uncomfortable that they wanted to behave that way and make us go away.

Now, level two. Level two is that there's skin contact with the teeth, but there's no puncture. This is the dog who there may be like a little nick or a little bit of, , a scratch because usually if something like that happens, our instinctive reaction is to pull away. So sometimes , we end up getting scratched by a tooth, but they are not trying to hurt us.

So that's another version level two, they quickly grab you. But they don't leave any marks. Now, I want you to think about how much self-control that takes. We're not used to thinking about bites in terms of self-control. Are we it's a bite or it's not, but what if this is the second level of warning?

Like lady, I told you, please stop. I've tried to tell you 5,000 different ways. I'd hate to have to hurt you. Now I've put my teeth on you. But imagine you have spikes on a glove. And you reach out really, really fast and grab something and try not to drive the spikes into what you just grabbed,

for them to move their mouth that fast. And tag you with their mouth and not leave a mark is because they are literally trying very, very hard to not leave a mark. Take it as a gift. It doesn't seem like a gift. I know, but take that as a moment to say, this dog is under a lot of stress. Now, I know that sometimes people don't wanna believe that aggression is a fear response.

I know sometimes I hear things like, no, he's not afraid. He is just a jerk, but I want you to consider this. We behave aggressively when we want something to stop. When we're uncomfortable, when we're afraid, or when we're just frustrated, and think about that. If a dog is comfortable with it, they do not behave aggressively.

So even if you don't wanna necessarily think that this dog is behaving fearfully, they're still behaving aggressively because this is how they're expressing. I am really uncomfortable with this. Make it stop and we can make it stop. We want these dogs to be calm. We want them to be comfortable and we want them to cooperate with us.

We are trying to teach them to trust us. So a dog who does a quick bite that doesn't leave a mark on your arm or on your hand, that is a gift. That's a dog saying like, really? I'm at my limit. I'm still negotiating with you. I'm still trying to get you to stop. . Take it as the gift that it is.

It's, it's a gift. Level three is when that bite actually punctures. All right, but not a full on, full depth puncture. You might have some bruising. It might only be one of the teeth leaves a puncture or up to four teeth leaving a puncture mark, but it's just one single bite.

And sometimes like bruising or, or a scratch because we pull away, we can't help it. Now sometimes thinking about that bite, that one is the one where the dog is starting to lose their control a little bit, they're like, I'm, I am willing to hurt you. , leave me alone. And it could be there's level, level three and a level three B.

Level three B is multiple level three bites, but nothing too crazy. , not full depth, they're not cranking down really hard. I want you to think this is ramping up, this is getting worse, levels one through three are pretty common.

Like, let's do some training. Let's find out what's going on with this dog. Let's really take a closer look and see if we can help this dog. Level four. Level four is when there's one to two to four punctures from a single bite with at least one puncture that's deeper than half the length of the dog's canine tooth.

What that means is that dog decided to really bite down, bite down. I mean, you can even hear it in my voice, there's gonna be a lot more bruising. , there's probably gonna be some lacerations. Sometimes. This is the dog that holds your limb in their head and shakes it around a little bit.

That's a level four bite. That's an I'm trying to hurt you. I am no longer holding back. , that's a pretty serious bite. Level five is a multiple bite incident with at least two level four bites, multiple attack incident with at least one level, four bite in each. This is the dog that's like lost control.

, and is doing real damage. This is very, very dangerous. , and then there's level six where the dog actually kills somebody, and we don't think about that very much, do we? But yeah, dogs can kill people. So I want you to think about the bite levels now that I've laid them out in front of you. Or in your head as I whisper in your ear, but , when I lay them out in front of you, I want you to think about those first couple, the level one where they don't even contact you, they just do a air snap near you.

A bite at you that feels like they missed. That's not a miss. Level two, when they tag you , and they don't leave a mark, those are such clear warnings. And a dog who is trying really hard to show you, I don't wanna have to hurt you. And we don't think about that as the gift that it is.

And sometimes we respond aggressively. To that which isn't gonna help them be calm, comfortable and cooperative. It doesn't help build trust. Level three is when they do one single bite, but the puncture is not the hardest bite they could do. , it's still a bite and it's still serious. And if an owner.

Tells you while he bit somebody, , this is the kind of chart that you wanna use. You wanna find out more about that bite because a level three bite, I wanna know if that dog gave a level three bite to somebody. That's important for me to know. And what was the whole story around it?

What else was going on when this happened? Has it happened before? Were there level one bites before it, or level twos? Was this just out of the blue? Is this dog Ill? What other kind of things can we find out about this dog and a level four bite? I wanna know a lot more about that. That may be a dog that we turn away.

Groomers. You don't need to groom every dog. I don't know who needs to hear that, but I'm gonna say it again. If a dog is likely to be dangerous. . A level four bite, a level five bite, that's a dog with a bite history, that's pretty dangerous. You can say no, you do not own that dog. You do not need to take on the care of every single dog on the planet.

Okay? But that could be a dog who was under a lot of stress, had something terrible happening, and through training, we can help them feel safe. Okay. But just know you can say, oh, no, no, no, no. I had a customer, well, they wanted to be a customer and they had a German Shepherd who was doing level three, level four bites to people in the house.

And I'm like, no, I'm not gonna do his nails today. We need to talk a lot more about what's going on at home. , that's pretty severe. If that's going on at home,

There are always stories behind bites and they're just as important, but I gotta say. It could be that you hear the story and they're doing training, and this is why it might be a chance to say, alright, can you do some muzzle training too? Can you teach your dog to be comfortable wearing a muzzle while I help them be comfortable with grooming?

And we have the safety of a muzzle. I, I think that muzzles get vilified. My vet calls them party hats. I've always called them face mittens. They're just a way to help prevent a dog from being able to bite while we, if we're doing our job right, spend time teaching that pet to be relaxed with us. To teach 'em to be calm, to teach them that they can trust us.

I've had a couple of dogs over the years where because of their health issues, if something startled them or scared them, they were going to go to full depth multiple bites, a level four. , they were gonna do damaging bites if they had the chance, if something scared them, because their reaction was very abnormal.

We taught them to be comfortable wearing a muzzle. Yeah, and they would wear the muzzle and we would proceed just as gently. And it looked about as interesting as watching grass grow. It was like watching paint dry. It was so beautifully boring because this dog did not feel like they needed to try to bite because we were still working on them, being comfortable with everything.

I don't want to just put a muzzle on a dog to get things done, but what if I have to keep myself safe and. Help this dog feel safe and feel comfortable, but that's gonna take some training to the muzzle and making them feel comfortable wearing a piece of equipment that prevents them from biting. So, keep in mind though, so many of the dog bites that we hear.

About, or that we see, or that we even experience are level one and level two. And Dr. Ian Dunbar actually put in this that, levels one and two comprise well over 99% of dog bite incidents. Interesting. Right? So we often think that the dog missed, they didn't miss, they did not miss, , or maybe , we're under the impression that,

a muzzle makes everybody safe, and we've talked about that before on this show, that a muzzle can help to keep everybody safe. But if and only if we're also working toward helping them be calm. We're trying to keep them in their comfort zone, not when they're flailing and screaming. Flailing and screaming is about 20 steps too far into scary,

that's a dog who's under a lot of stress. We are not trying to stress these dogs out. We want them to be comfortable with things, but if we have a bite history, we may choose to say like, is he comfortable wearing a muzzle? , that's something that a lot of owners would probably be willing to do. Work with them on getting them comfortable wearing a muzzle.

A lot of dog trainers can help guide them through that. Uh, I know my guys are comfortable wearing a muzzle. They haven't had to wear one, but , I took time to teach 'em how to be comfortable with it, because why wait until someday when maybe they're scared or panicking? And that'd be the first time anybody ever puts a muzzle on.

So I want you to think about these bite levels are an important piece. Because so, so often that dog wasn't trying to hurt us. That dog was not trying to hurt us. That dog was trying to say back off, I am really, really uncomfortable with this. It's unpleasant, uncomfortable, or scary. , maybe they're injured,

maybe they're really frustrated. Maybe they've had bad experiences in the past. Maybe this is just, something that they're terrified of, but we need to. Think about these things as warnings and remember that they can really hurt us. They can do some real damage. And most of the time they're not trying to.

And I want you to see it as a gift