They shake their puppies by the scruff of their neck. They bite across their puppies’ noses and hold them down. They roll them over on their backs and stand over them menacingly.

Or so you would think looking at the array of reasons being rolled out for various methods of disciplining dogs. When I came across the latest version of this, during a video about a head halter, which delivers pressure across the bridge of the dog’s nose “just like the mother dog would do”, I decided to write about this.

The fact that mother dogs are generally extremely tolerant of their babies’ antics, including heaps of biting, doesn’t sit so well with this line of reasoning. They also never shake their puppies by the scruff of the neck: this “death shake” is reserved for prey they want to kill. Nor do they roll them over on their back to punish them; they may do so, but only in play.

I got suspicious of the efficacy of human growling when I took Giro to puppy school. There, Giro, at a tender age of 8 weeks exactly, was used by the trainer to show how to stop a dog doing something you don’t want him to do. Giro was presented with a plastic box, which, being a curious puppy, he obligingly started to sniff. Little did he know that this was “not his”. So the trainer gave a deep rumbling growl, which for all the class sounded convincingly scary. But not for little Giro: he simply kept sniffing the box. So he got another growl, and, obviously too “dominant” to respect the human trying to act as a serious alpha dog, he was scruffed by the neck as a result.

I am fairly certain that a puppy, if growled at by an adult dog, would heed this message instinctively. Giro simply didn’t understand that that sound the clearly non-dog being was making, was meant to warn him off.  What he did learn was that things that smelled like humans make these sounds, and that sniffing a box made a bad thing happen. Unfortunately Giro turned out to be a very wary dog with little confidence: I often wonder how much this very early experience (and my subsequent dominance-busting attempts in his early life, before I knew any better) shaped his personality.

But back to the topic. We are not dogs, and dogs know it. They are surprisingly easy to fool by things shaped like dogs, even when they don’t smell or act like dogs: a stuffed life-sized toy dog is used by shelters for behavioural assessments, and how the dog interacts with this dummy appears to be a good predictor for his behaviour with real dogs. But there is absolutely nothing about us that would fool a dog into thinking we are dogs. Our crude attempts to copy dog language (including so called “Calming Signals) can never match their body language repertoire, and all they probably learn is that those dog-like sounds/movements we try to make are simply more sounds/movements we humans make.

The “dogs do it to dogs” or “mother dogs do it” reasoning is applied by all dog training camps, although usually more so by the aversive trainers. We don’t need this type of unfounded “reasoning” to train our dogs. What we need is a solid understanding of what the dog’s behaviour means, and how it learns, and how we can best teach them what it is we want. Dogs have evolved to live with us, and they know us far better than we know them. They are magnificent creatures, imminently and amazingly trainable, and they deserve that we find out as much as we can about the best way we can communicate with them – like an intelligent human being, not like a mother dog.

Whenever I research breeds, I frequently come across supposed traits such as "loves kids" or "perfect family dog". These alleged characteristics are attributed at some place or other to anything from Golden Retrievers to Pit Bulls. I consider this to be one of the most misleading statements for any breed, even the Labrador. It is downright dangerous, because people will buy a dog of a so-described breed, thinking that his child-friendliness is "in-built" and so does not require any particular attention.
Nothing could be further from the truth.

For puppies to develop into dogs that are comfortable around children, they must be exposed to children during their critical socialisation period between 8 and 14 weeks. The more positive experiences the puppy has when around children, the better. This could include having children feed the puppy treats, rewarding simple behaviours such as a sit or coming to them.  Ideally an adult should provide reassurance and maybe more treats when kids make their high pitched noises and run around wildly, as they will. 
At the same time, children need to be taught how to behave appropriately around dogs and puppies. Whilst you can try to get your dog to accept things such as patting on the head and pulling his tail, it is very advisable to teach the human youngsters that dogs are to be treated gently at all times, and to protect the dog from unpleasant handling.

Omitting to do any of the above can easily lead to problems. Yes, many dogs end up being tolerant of children even without proper socialisation, but that is no more than luck, and grossly negligent.
The only thing worse than omitting proper socalisation is subsequent punishment of the dog if he growls at a child. One owner proudly informed me recently how his dog now promptly leaves the room when his child enters, after having been severely punished for growling at his child previously. I know who is going to the blamed for the disaster that is likely to occur should this dog ever find himself inadvertently cornered by a child. Unfortunately it won't be the owner. 

The other aspect of "perfect family dogs" such as Labradors is that they rarely classify as anything other than tanks on legs in their first few years of life, and, without proper impulse control training, possibly for the rest of their lives. Labs show up in relatively large numbers at the RSPCA, and their "giant puppy" temperament could be one reason. Children under eight will find themselves taken off their feet by the happy Lab pup on many occasions, surely not quite what the parents had in mind when they completed their family with their four-legged child.

So the unsurprising conclusion is that most dogs can become the "perfect family dog" and be tolerant or even appreciative of children given correct positive training and conditioning and extensive socialisation. As for the breeds, it is much more important to be aware of what they were bred for, and so what their likely inbuilt behaviours are, than supposed "kid-friendly" characteristics. Read some breed-specific training tips here. 

Bringing a dog into a family is a huge commitment and poses many challenges, particularly if the children are small. Tips on how to get it right will be the topic of another blog post!

Owners who let their dogs off leash in on leash areas have been rightly lambasted on various websites. 

My dogs love roast chicken. They hardly ever get it, because I'm vegetarian, so when they do, they very nearly fall over backwards to get it - that is, they will try very hard to figure out what it is I want, so they will earn it as a reward. 
Roast chicken is very desirable for most dogs. Because of this many owners are surprised that even when they have this delicacy with them, their dog still doesn't come back reliably, usually when other dogs are present, or there's something interesting to chase.
Unfortunately, getting a reliable recall is not that easy. It takes a structured training approach - as well as roast chicken and other high value rewards - to make a reliable recall a habit the dog will happily execute, no matter the distractions.
To build a habit, the dog will need to go through many many successful repetitions of coming back when called, as well as be very well rewarded by a variety of pleasurable things: this can be roast chicken, or (for the ball fanatics) chasing the ball, or being sent back to play with those dogs he just left for you!
How do you get many successful repetitions? You start at home - and no, the next step is not the dog park. That's like going from Prep to High School in one year and will lead to your dog not coming back when you call him, roast chicken or not.
I pride myself on offering one of the most comprehensive recall training programs, training an "everyday" recall as well as an "emergency" recall, and carefully training each part of this important behaviour separately and in various environments. 
But while roast chicken alone won't get you that perfect recall, it certainly won't hurt. Your dog will definitely love you even more for it, and come back - at least sometimes.

At the RSPCA, where I help as a volunteer dog trainer with the dogs that need support before they are adoptable, we frequently come across dogs that are unhappy about having their rear end touched. While this can have any number of reasons, I couldn't help but wonder what impact training methods had on this problem, after I witnessed a training session at a well frequented dog school recently. Advertised as offering "gentle, fast and effective" training methods, and showing dogs in head halters on their web page, I was ill prepared for what I ended up seeing. The training ground was fenced and packed with at least three different classes in close proximity to each other, one of them a puppy class. Many of the dogs were quite aroused in this situation. With mounting dismay, I watched as dogs were "corrected" by jerks on the headhalters as if they were choke chains. One of them, a small boxer pup, was dragged over a small obstacle which promptly fell over after him and scared the living daylights out of him. No food rewards were in sight, only praise by voice was allowed. 

Recently while driving home from shopping, I saw what appeared to be a dog on the loose. As usual in these instances (and with dog treats always at the ready), I parked the car to see whether I could either find the owner or bring the dog to the RSPCA. The dog in question was a medium sized poodle mix. As I approached on the footpath, it made an impressive display of trying to scare me off: barking and growling non-stop. I stopped and turned sideways to see whether it would calm down. When I took another step it backed off, still growling and barking. It seemed to head into a driveway. While I was considering whether to ring the door bell of that house, asking the owner to control their dog, an old lady across the road yelled out: "Are you scared of that dog?!" Obviously for her, hesitating in the face of a barking and growling poodle cross was somewhat laughable. I wonder what she would have said had the dog in question been a German Shepherd? While in this instance, the old lady probably simply knew this dog to be "harmless", I am forever baffled by the limited knowledge people generally have of dogs and their behaviour. 
This dog was clearly in a stressed state, and displaying territorial aggression. As Pat Miller said, any dog will bite if you push it hard enough, and when it will bite simply depends on the particular dog's bite threshold and how stressed it is at that time. In my experience, dogs on the loose (particularly those who got out accidentally, and hardly ever see the other side of the fence) tend to be in an extremely stressed state. When I see a loose dogs with my own dogs in tow, I try to get away as quickly as possible. I was bitten myself once by a stray GSP cross as I picked up my bichon puppy to protect it, and again by a Border Collie on the loose, when I went to the door to alert the owners that it had escaped.

If you add to that little socialisation by ignorant owners, a dog breed more likely to be aggressive, and a squealing child, and you get the disaster that happened in Melbourne recently, when a 4-year-old was killed by a roaming pit-bull cross. Most media reports seemed to imply that the dog simply waltzed into the living room and proceeded to viciously attack all people present. There was only one report I found that clarified that the child came running into the house with the dog in hot pursuit. It's easy to imagine what happened: the dog escaped what was probably constant confinement in the backyard, hyped up he spots a child, heads towards it, the child understandably starts squealing at the sight of the approaching dog. This revs the dog up even more, he now starts charging at the child, the child starts running, the dog's prey drive kicks in and complete disaster follows. 
They may be able to ban the breed, but as long as people with no idea of how to properly treat a dog keep having dogs, it's just a matter of time before the next incident, with a different breed. 
And whilst a poodle cross might not end up inflicting this kind of damage, they sure can bite. And even they get revved up when faced with a squealing child.
So if there's anything that can be done about reducing the incidents of dog bites, it is by education. Education of dog owners about humane training and treatment of their dog, and education of the general public about dogs' behaviour, and how to interact with them safely. I find that there is a near complete lack of understanding nowadays - paired with increasing intolerance of dogs' natural drives - of how to approach an unfamiliar dog, and how to discourage a dog from approaching. Councils and schools could provide at least some basic information.
Yes, I am "scared" of stray dogs - so I can help them if need be, while keeping myself, my dogs and my kids safe.