"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 17:04:23 -0500, "John Gaquin"
wrote:


"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message

Nice try, but that's a myth. Baring your teeth is a fight reflex in
dogs and even small ones will react to it. Try it sometime with your
own dog and see what happens.

Well, I guess nobody told the dogs its a myth.. That tactic has worked
for
me on my own dogs (though rarely used), others' dogs, even on feral dogs
in
central asia and the mid-east the many times I've been there over the
years.
It isn't just the teeth - its the whole package, tone, and attitude. If
it
were just the teeth, every time you smile your dog would tear out your
throat. You just have to be smart enough not to pull it on a dog that's
almost as big as you -- the intimidation factor drops to near zero.

I bow to your superior knowledge of dog behavior.

I'm so wrong.

I don't know much about them, but I have to agree with you, based on an
enormous statistical dog sampling of....one. One of my historical neighbors
had a "blend" (he didn't like "mutt") of two or eight big dogs. After three
years of living in the adjacent yard, the dog still didn't consider us to be
familiar. Any time we came out our back door, the dump thing would bark like
Godzilla was about to walk through the yard. There were times when I really
wanted some peace and quiet, and Gawkins' method worked nicely, in terms of
getting the dog to shut the phuque up. ***HOWEVER***, it was clear that if
this was a normal dog, with a brain, balls, and some size, without a fence,
my method (towering over the fence and roaring at it) would've turned out
badly for me.