@eve_marie The question you bring up is one I’ve heard discussed in a lot of R+ and LIMA spaces. If you’re dealing with a dog that tries to bite people, there are a number of things you’d want to look at. What situations has the dog bitten people in? Was the bite a reaction to something (resource guarding, redirecting, fear, feeling cornered, etc.)? Did the dog display warning signs (like growling, lip lifts, hackles up) before biting? How serious was the bite on the bite scale?
The circumstances of the bite matter a lot. If the dog bit someone due to the environment or situation it was put in, then training/desensitization/management can be put into place to make sure the situation doesn’t happen again.
A dog is truly dangerous when it attacks without a reason. However, I think it’s hard for the average dog owner to tell if a dog has a reason or not in many situations. Many people say that a dog bit someone “out of the blue,” but the dog was displaying warning signs.
What actually can “create” a dangerous dog is the use of aversives. Many people use aversive methods to stop a dog from barking, growling, or showing its teeth, because these are seen as undesirable behaviors. However, since aversives simply suppress the reaction but don’t address the underlying cause of the reaction, the dog still feels uncomfortable. But its ways of communicating that discomfort have been punished, so it may feel the only thing it can do is go for a bite.
Dogs that are “rehabilitated” using punishment/aversives may not show outward signs of aggression, but they are still dangerous because the underlying emotion remains unchanged. They’re actually even
more dangerous, because they won’t give warning before they bite.
If a dog cannot be trained or rehabilitated using R+/LIMA methods, using aversives will NOT help. They may give the illusion of “fixing” the dog, but it’s just that - an illusion.
If a dog is truly dangerous and has put its owners into the hospital, the safest option for everyone is humane euthanasia. Dog training is supposed to be about improving a both the dog’s and the human’s quality of life. If a dog is subjected to frequent punishment and intimidation for the rest of its life to keep people around it “safe,” that doesn’t sound like a good quality of life for anyone involved.