Written by Animal Behaviourist Bernice Jaffe
You might feel that muzzling your dog is cruel and uncool, but it might be the best thing you can do for yourself and your dog. And they might think they look pretty sexy in their “bondage gear”.
When I “fostered” Harley (the ruggedly handsome Rottweiler in the pictures above) eight years ago, he was very angry with the world and took it out on a few dogs and the odd human. Some dogs are aggressive, but this doesn’t make them bad dogs and it’s unfair to punish them when a muzzle can allow them to get used to socialising, keep them out of trouble, and keep other dogs and humans safe.
If your dog has shown aggression towards another dog or human, do them and yourself a favour and muzzle them. When you’re walking and an off-leash dog innocently comes bounding into your dog’s space, a muzzle can save a lot of trauma and vet bills.
Needless to say, Harley was a foster failure and stayed with me for the rest of his life until he passed away recently from old age. Over the years he chilled out a lot, and for most of his later life time he was unmuzzled. However, like some humans I know, his angry streak still lurked below the surface, so when he was outside my property, when new dogs or the pool repair man came visiting, or we were on the beach, I popped his muzzle on and we could all relax.
Muzzles can also help if your dog can’t avoid those “delicious” rotting treats or that pile of yummy excrement. And for beach walkers a muzzle can avoid emergency surgery when a piece of kelp gets stuck in their gut.
The best type of muzzles to use are the basket types which have holes in them so you can still give them their treats. They can also happily pant, drink and eat so they can wear this fashion accessory for some time.
To positively associate the muzzle, take a treat and put it in the muzzle so that your dog has to put their mouth into it to get to the treat. Repeat this until your dog happily puts their nose into the muzzle. When you’re sure that they’re happy with this step, you can do the muzzle up and continue popping treats into their mouth.
Start walking your dog with the muzzle on so that they only have positive associations with it. It’s also best to do this training when they’re still puppies so that if you ever need to pop a muzzle on they’ve already been positively trained.
There are definitely some humans I would love to see muzzled, but while this may not gain social approval, I’ve only had positive experience from muzzling a dog when it’s necessary.
