How to help a dog recover from a dog attack

GARDEN ROUTE | KAROO NEWS - You take your dog for a walk and out of nowhere another dog appears and attacks yours. Or, you have multiple dogs at home, and for some reason, two or more start attacking each other. You break up the fight and rush the injured dog to a vet.

Most dogs will get over such an event reasonably quickly, but there are exceptions.

For example, you take your dog home, but all of a sudden your once social dog is reluctant to approach or interact with other dogs. In the case of a multiple dog home, the two dogs that fought now don't like each other at all, and more fights break out regularly and are more serious.

So why does this happen, and what can you do about it? Local animal behaviour practitioner George van Huyssteen, explains.

On walks, this happens very frequently. It might happen because of lack of active supervision (allowing dogs to walk off-leash), failure to promptly interrupt interactions that deteriorate, difficulty differentiating dog play from actual dog fights, or putting together a bunch of dogs with different play styles and personalities.

Some dogs might have poor social skills, while others might feel uncomfortable with other dogs. Such dogs might start off playing, but play may turn into fighting reasonably quickly. In addition, dogs who were never socialised with other dogs during their critical socialisation period might misinterpret another dog's body language and a fight might break out.

Whatever the reason for the fight, a vet visit might be needed, but what about healing his emotional scars? Being attacked by another dog is an aversive experience that might lead to short-term and long-term consequences.

How to help your dog after an attack

• As stress levels (neurotransmitters released in an adverse event) takes time - in some cases several days - to return to normal, protect your dog from any negative encounters that might increase his stress. Prevent all off-lease meetings during this time.

• If possible at all, limit interactions to only a few good dogs. Remedial socialisation should be considered to undo the damage done. Only expose your dog to other dogs that you have carefully screened.

• Create new good memories. You will need super social dogs for this as they need to interact with your dog appropriately, be good at reading other dogs, and deliver the correct body language. In addition, these dogs you employ should be experts in sending calming signals to your possibly fearful, tentative dog.

• In the case of two dogs from the same household, they need to be prevented from rehearsing the problem behaviour. The more the behaviour gets rehearsed, the more it will become established and the more difficult it will become to eradicate. Therefore, separating such dogs until a behaviour modification programme can be implemented would be a good idea. A qualified animal behaviourist will do a functional analysis that will play a key role in determining the exact triggers responsible for the attacks and the consequences of maintaining the behaviour.

Once the dog has calmed down, a behaviour modification programme using desensitisation and counter-conditioning can help change the negative emotional response to other dogs.

In severe cases, permanent housing arrangements might be needed (micromanagement) and in some cases, rehoming one of the dogs might be the only option.

Punishing or forcing two dogs to get along will not work, as it will increase their fear, and the behaviour will worsen. There is an old saying, prevention is always better than cure.

If you like walking in public areas, make sure your dog is on a leash unless you are very sure there are no other dogs in that area. In same-household dogs, you need to keep an eye on warning signs that a fight is about to break out.

For example, when you observe stiffness (stiff body posture), freezing (standing still over another dog), one dog directly staring at your other dog, snarling and growling, it would be a good idea to intervene immediately to separate the dogs.