The benefit of a muzzle:
Today I took one of my foster dogs with some serious reactivity into the city and the muzzle changed my life. The most important function of muzzles in my book is that a muzzle helps you advocate for your dog. It’s almost an educator in and of itself. The thing is, people are dumb and are going to touch your dog. I’ve actually noticed that sometimes the more I verbally advocate for my foster dogs (saying "oh no please don’t touch him/her") the more people want to touch them,
Today I brought my foster dog into the city and felt SO much comfortable with her muzzled. The world just sort of finally understood, that HEY, we need just a litttttle space. Even an ENTIRE small child class walked by us and we were totally fine! Not even a care in the world in my book, or my foster dog. Why not just be safe?
I honestly think all dogs should be acclimated to a muzzle, using positive reinforcement at an early age. I have worked at a whole lot of temporary shelters set up because of natural disasters. These dogs are stressed to the max and often put in situations they’ve never been in before. They are required to be crated and handled by a pretty large group of people. Muzzle acclimation can help this go a lot smoother. Additionally, at some point your dog is going to have a medical issue. It’s just going to happen. If you have spent some time acclimating a muzzle, you should have no troubles applying medication or having your dog looked over by a veterinarian. And let’s be honest, a 15 dollar muzzle is a WHOLE lot cheaper than a 6 figure lawsuit.
Dogs don’t only just need to wear muzzles for aggression. Some dogs with PICA will be walked in a muzzle so they don’t pick up strange things, some dogs resource guard, some dogs wear it for some dog to dog issues, some wear it for some people to people issues, some dogs wear it around their small dog and kitty friends, and honestly, I might start using it on even my friendly dogs when I’m just not feeling so people-y
In my training, I have a big commitment to quality of life of our learners (dogs and people) and muzzles just make that a whole lot simpler. No worries about potential damages. Once a dog starts learning it can bite to get people to go away, it’s VERY difficult to convince the dog that it’s not necessary to bite. They are more likely to bite in the future once they have practiced the behavior (even once). Muzzles are a key component to meeting new people for a large amount of dogs with behavior issues.
The muzzles I use are the Baskerville muzzles or for dogs that are a little more hard to fit into a standard muzzle, I love the BUMAS custom muzzle (and they come in awesome custom colors!). I really don’t like the cloth ones used at the vet, the dogs can get out of them easily and they cannot eat or drink in them. A large basket muzzle allows for the dog to be comfortable and able to eat, drink, and yet not make contact with human or dog skin :)
Remember- acclimate SLOWLY and using positive reinforcement and food! You want your dog to LOVE LOVE LOVE the muzzle and remember to acclimate your dog to a muzzle in a bunch of different scenarios where they don't see their trigger so the muzzle doesn't become a sign for a bad thing! I personally use a clicker and food- contact me for help!
Get more info on muzzle training at muzzleupproject.com
Comments