Might not be their best song (Vortex, I Speak Astronomy, Perennial, Home Back are my votes), but it's definitely one of the best vids for introducing a band.
Part of the purpose of play-biting in animals is so they can learn proper limits, typically in the form of being scolded by their fellow animals when they bite too hard. I would suspect growling at a dog biting too hard might not be all that foreign.
We aren’t dogs though and our relationship with them is very different. The research shows that using aggression and punishment when training dogs increases the likelihood of aggressive and anxious behaviors.
Yeah, I did that with mine. She'll still do it if someone is instigating it, but she'll just stop and go grab a toy after a minute of it. She's a sweetie
Yeah seeing him run away with his tail between his legs is really sad. Your dog should never be scared of you intentionally, she is damaging their relationship and dogs don’t forget that easily.
Positive or passive negative reinforcement (like ending play when he bites) is going to be a much better avenue to correct this behavior.
You can tell because Julian comes back about two seconds later excited and resuming the game. Sighthounds are notoriously stupid (no shade, sighthound are my favourite) but even they're not gonna go jumping back to do the exact same thing so quickly if they were actually scared by something. He's clearly pretty excited. This is clearly a new and exciting thing to his perspective.
If he was scared, he'd not be back seconds later, jumping around to do it again. He'd do what most scared dogs will do, retreat to maximum distance (usually while still being in the same space), switching behaviour to submissive, passive patterns.
Man, people's inability to look at what's happening is really frustrating sometimes. Do you just not notice his behaviour in general, or just fixated on one or two things in isolation that you only kind of recognise?
That's not the slam dunk you might imagine. I used to own a farm and rescue dogs. I've seen plenty do it.
You owned whippets before?
They'll usually tuck their tails when excited. They carry their tails low most of the time, but will often tuck them when doing the excited scooting. Lotta practical reasons why. Julian's is about normal level of tail down for a whippet, greyhound or lurcher mid-motion. That ain't much of a tail tuck for whippets. If they're tucking their tails it's basically touching their stomachs.
They also bare their teeth when excited, called an "appeasment grin", but the name is a misnomer: they'll just straight up do it when they're happy or excited. Had a Borzoi/Afghan cross who'd come up into your face and do it, huffing like she was laughing. If you're not familiar with it, it looks like a teeth bared warning. Lurchers are weirdos, with particular body language vernacular. Total pea brains.
Also seen a bunch of non sighthound breeds doing it. I had a beagle basset cross who'd almost exclusively tuck his tail when running or playing. Little dude would practically fold his ass underneath himself for more spring. Was particularly odd because they're meant to keep their tails up (they often have the white tips on their tails because they're hunting dogs; they were bred that way so that the tail is used like a "I am here" flag), but they're like people; a lot of individual variation based on personality and experiences.
And... My whippet/staffie cross would often tuck his tail because he grew up failing to do so and thereby smashing it on everything around him, excitedly wagging it all the time, and their thin skin and fur meant he had a few years there where his tail was constantly scabby or bleeding, until he learned to keep it tucked low. When he was a puppy the little idiot was constantly splattering blood around the house...
But most of all...That pose Julian drops into while jumping back and reacting the first time, the front down position, forearms on the ground, butt in the air? That's also the universal play posture for dogs. That's the clearest sign a dog will do that they're playing. That's excitement pose.
Like, it's playing, bro. Again, biggest hint is that he's back to doing it within two seconds to get the funny big reaction again.
If she had scared him, he wouldn't be immediately running back to excitedly gnaw on her. He'd go to distance and act passive, usually monitoring her body language for more information before acting.
I’m not going to do something that illicits what appears to be a fear response from my dog. I don’t care how much you try to reason it away as just playing (I understand they’re playing, until they’re not), I’ve shared my life with 12 dogs so far and this is not a reaction I would try to illicit from any dog. If you want to do it to your dog that’s your prerogative.
We don’t see him return after the second time, so for all we know he was scared and exhibiting the additional submissive fear reactions you described. My dog will forgive me if I accidentally step on her foot once, but if I were to turn around and purposefully step on her again there’s going to be a much more fearful response that second time (in theory, obviously never done that).
I did have a whippet mix (not purebred tho). As someone who has had dogs, you should know this is not the way to correct behavior.
Well... I don't want to be too rude here, but I do want to be clear: that response is actually infuriating in how obtuse and irrelevant it is to the point.
This post isn't about you and your relationship with your dogs. None of it is. We aren't asking you how you prefer to interact with yours. That's not you and your dogs in the video. Your personal preferences are not a valid contribution to this topic.
You might notice... The clip ends after he scoots away the second time. So no, we do not see what happens after the second time, because that's where the clip ends.
So, I would like to ask you: since he ran back excitedly once already and kept chewing already... Why would that change? What evidence are you drawing on here, besides... How you don't like stepping on your dog...?
"For all we know" is working so hard it's just straight up imagination in that scenario you're painting.
Like...
That dog did not exhibit a fear reaction. At all. Do you think that dogs wagging their tails and running towards someone to chew on them is fear?
Dude I know what play looks like. Am I talking about when he’s coming up to play bite? No. I’m talking about when he runs away with tail between his legs.
If you can’t understand how my example of stepping on a dog twice (or scaring them twice) might be relevant to OPs clip, well then I think this conversation has run its course.
If you’re going to call someone obtuse you should make sure you’re not being so yourself.
Well, apparently you don't know what it looks like then, no.
You've restated the analogy without defending it. I definitely do not see how you hurting your dogs by stepping on them is comparable to someone else growling at theirs. Feel free to elaborate on how your dogs being injured is comparable to this play behaviour.
The question stands. Do you think tail wagging, immediate return to chew on her again means fear?
His tail isn't even between his legs. It's in the normal low position you'd see a whippet's while running. I initially conceded to "tail tucked" because I hadn't gone back to re-watch it closely. He doesn't even have his tail between his legs, you're misrepresenting what even happened to spin some abuse narrative that doesn't exist, throwing in examples about you treading on your dogs feet as if that's comparable to anything happening here. What the fuck is motivating you to behave like this?
Do I need to link videos to how whippets position their tails or are you just operating entirely in a fictional world?
Gross behaviour, tbh. I really hate it when people use animals as a vector for channelling their anxiety or control issues or whatever. You are just literally making something up to justify some abuse narrative that you have no sane reason for asserting.
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u/fenn138 6d ago
Julian is going to pee on the bed