How to Restrain a Dog

How to Restrain a Dog

Before you can attempt any sort of treatment for an injured dog, you must know how to protect yourself and how to keep the dog from doing damage to itself or escaping before you have taken care of it properly. Restraint of some sort is usually necessary to administer first aid and always necessary when pain is involved. For some unruly pet, sitting is even necessary when the dog is being groomed.

Your dog’s defenses consist of biting and clawing. Your dog must is held so that it cannot reach the handler. Its head must be covered orbits mouth must be tied closed. An injured pet is often panic-stricken. Under such circumstances, even the most gentle dog may bite and scratch when you attempt to help it. Don’t blame it, and don’t destroy it because it’s vicious. Remember that biting is a normal reaction of a frightened or injured dog. Remember, too, that the pain may have subsided for the moment and that in handling you may have caused it to recur with terrible intensity. Don’t expect the dog to respond as it usually does. Expect it to act like it is a dog in pain.

Adequate care and intelligent handling are usually sufficient to keep ado in good health. But even a healthy dog like a healthy child cannot be perfectly guarded against every eventuality. Accidents do happen. Emergencies arise despite every precaution. The most conscientious owner cannot know that his dog will surprise a porcupine Mona particular country path; he cannot prevent his dog from killing and eating a poisoned rabbit that wanders across the backyard.

Two things owners can do. By exercising reasonable and humane precautions, they can avoid accidents resulting from carelessness. They can learn how to cope with emergencies when they do arise.

Every year thousands of pets are needlessly lost simply because their owners have never taken the time to familiarize themselves with a few simple principles of first aid and emergency treatment. The owner who has never learned how to handle common emergencies becomes panicky and does nothing to help his or her injured pet or does worse than nothing, the wrong thing. The person who has no understanding of the normal recuperative processes or powers of animals too quickly assumes that the best he or she can do for a dog that has been hurt is to put it out of the reach of pain and so destroys the pet when it might have recovered easily and completely.

What can you do when you see a dog lying in the street that has been struck by a car probably surrounded by a crowd of sympathetic but helpless people? First, you can call a vet. Next, you can move it out of the street. It has dragged itself several feet. It can move its tail, so you know its back is not broken. The pelvis may have been crushed. Approach the dog from the side, with its head at your left. Put your left hand near its head. If it does not attempt to bite, grasp as large a handful of loose skin as possible, high up on the scruff of the neck, and handhold tight. So long as you hold fast the dog can’t bite because it can neither shake itself loose nor turn its head far enough to reach you.

The dog can be lifted by this grip until it is high enough so that your right hand can reach under the chest just between the front legs, thus encircling its body. The dog will not try to bite your clothing. It cannot reach your hand. It is being held too low to be able to bite your face. By holding it in this position, you can lift and carry even a large dog without much difficulty. Let us suppose you want to carry the dog into your house, or that you want to put it into your automobile. Just push your right arm forward and place the dog gently where it will rest, pulling your hand backward from under as it reclines. We have handled even setters, Collies, and hounds in this manner and have never been bitten doing it.

But suppose that the dog, when you put a hand near it, snaps viciously? What then? That is when a simple piece of cloth, three feet long and three or four inches wide, does the trick. Cross the ends and start to tie a knot, but instead of drawing it taut, let a large loop hang down, while you hold the ends in each hand. You now approach the dog from the front. Your hands are far enough apart so that they cannot reach either one. Slip the loose loop over the nose, about one and a half inches from the tip, draw it tight, and tie a knot. To prevent the dog’s scratching the restraint off its nose, tie another single knot under the chin and then bring both ends around the neck, tying them in a bow-knot behind the ears. When you have done this you can safely lift the dog as described above.

But suppose again that the dog is badly lacerated about the face and chest, and savage. It would be cruel to place a tie around the muzzle. What can you do then? Obtain a blanket and spread it on the ground beside the dog. Then make a slip lasso, toss it around the neck, and drag the dog gently onto the blanket such that two men can pull the four corners taut and make a stretcher of it.

The blanket may be used in another way: fold it to the smallest size that will cover the dog’s chest and head with enough extra to extend several inches in front of the nose. This will probably be eight thicknesses, and even if a large dog should bite through it, the bite can inflict very little damage. The folded blanket should be dropped squarely over the head and shoulders and the dog is to be grasped firmly from behind, with one hand on the back of each shoulder. With this grip, the dog can be lifted with the blanket wrapped around it and held securely in front of the handler.

When the injured dog is safely in the car or the house, the mouth tie may be used for restraint while you examine any broken bones, gashes, bruises, internal bleeding, or other injuries.

Suppose you are handling a dog dazed from a head injury inflicted by a glancing blow of an automobile bumper. You have cornered it, tied its mouth, and started to carry it. Everything goes well until the dog wriggles out of your grip. Then you remember that you neglected to snap a leash to the collar. When you have a hold of the dog again and fastened the leash, remember to take the time to tighten the collar. In struggling the dog will probably slip the collar over its head unless the collar is drawn tighter than usual. If the dog is too large to carry and won’t be led, run the leash backward, encircle the chest behind the front legs, and loop the leash through as if it were in a giant knot. You can then pull forward with lifting force. Usually, this will make the dog walk, even when it is not leash-broken.

By grasping the rope so positioned just above the dog’s back, you can move the dog along almost as you would a suitcase. The double-lasso method is effective for powerful dogs that can inflict damage if not restrained. Two lassos are thrown over the headland around the neck and pulled in opposite directions until the dog is thoroughly subdued. The pullers must be careful not to strangle the dog.

The dog warden’s loop on a pole, or through a pipe, is excellent forbad fellows, because the dogs can’t escape and can be held at a distance.

There are times when you may find your dog engaged in one of those occasional natural affairs in which some dogs seem to enjoy a dogfight. Your dog may be the aggressor or it may be the victim of a bully. In either event, you will want to stop the fight or the mutilation. Don’t reach for the collar of either dog! You are almost certain to be bitten. Quickly catch hold of a hind leg or the tail of the more aggressive dog and pull.

If you are strong enough, lift it off the ground and throw it as far as you can and then use your voice and scold. It must be a severely loud tone or the dog will pay no attention to you. Get between the dogs and hold the weaker behind you until help arrives. Once extricated the loser will heat a retreat. Household pets are ordinarily affectionate and gentle, but there are emergencies when even the mildest of them must be dealt with firmly and even severely.

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