I've seen the anger and understand it with my dogs it's appropriate and very in the moment, but what I really like is their sense of humor and the planning that seems to go behind it. Does anyone know what I mean ? Their humour can be quite subtle and can be to entertain themselves each other and sometimes me. I know my dogs can lie to me and each other and I know they can be angry but the way they use humour is so endearing . They just know they are hilarious and love it when I laughed at them. Perhaps Im a foolish romantic?
Charlie wasn't even on the circulation list, he doesn't have great doggy social skills. As a rescue dog I don't think he could have had many encounters with other dogs because he just doesn't seem to know how to meet and greet correctly no matter how hard we try. He is excellent with Hattie and respectful towards her, he would not take a chew until Hattie has taken hers, he just looks at her and waits but she is a great role model for him . So glad he is a people dog, he loves anyone that comes to our house. I guess we can't always have it all and do the best with what we have Hattie is a completely different dog, kind, gentle and loving but she won't put up with any nonsense and will tell a dog off for bad behaviour. She loves people too, children just everyone and all dogs apart from one border collie that has set about her 3 times so I don't blame her, she gives this dog a very wide berth. She's pretty much perfect, to me anyway x
Tatze has never curled her lip, not once. The only growling she's ever done is in play. But I did, once, get the feeling she'd protect me if she had to. A man was saying unpleasant things as he passed by on a walk. All Tatze's muscles tightened in a way I have never seen before. I definitely saw the possible beast within (and it reassured me enormously) She is as friendly and happy as the day is long. She speaks Dog very well and any snarly dog is simply given a wide berth by her.
Bramble has a low tolerance for other dogs, she gets more irritated than angry. More so if out on a walk and she wants to work with me and another dog runs up wanting to engage with her. She will give them a look, if they keep bothering her she gets very bad tempered! Not aggressive, in small incremental steps you can see her irritation mounting! I have only seen Benson angry maybe twice? Casper never, despite being a reactive and impulsive dog. Both Benson and Casper are what you would call archetypal goofy labradors, whilst Bramble is an aloof princess!
I'm consistently surprised by just how tolerant Xena is. It must come (my surprise) from having lived with cats all my life. Cats lie there with their floofy belly traps, waiting for you to tickle the soft floof and then BAM your hand is attacked for daring to tickle said floof. I like to think that Xena'd get angry under the right conditions, but who knows.
Coco is not an angry dog. He barks a lot - I think it's mainly frustration as he's barking at people/dogs/cats through the window. He barks for attention. He barks at school when he's fed up waiting. I believe German Shepherds are quite vocal, so perhaps this is where it's coming from. He growls when he's playing with other dogs. I've never heard him angry as such. There is one German Shepherd (he's young and lovely) at training (in the class after ours) that doesn't seem to like Coco & barks, quite aggressively I think, at Coco. Coco more like "shouts" back at him with barks. Coco will lunge at Bob. They were introduced to each other once, and were quite social, but next week they'd reverted to shouting.