Ear Grabbing?

One of the students in my class this morning came to us with an issue she's been having with her dog.

The dog is a rescue from a hoarding situation where she lived with 50+ other dogs. She is generally pretty non-reactive and chill around most dogs. Sort of Welsh Springer Spaniel looking.

What has happened, on 3 occasions now, is that she will grab a hold of another dog's ear and not let go. There's no growling, no "meeting," and no chewing. She just grabs and holds. This has happened twice on leash - one the other dog's leash was dropped and it ran up to her, the second was just passing by. The third time was at an off-leash park, where she was reportedly playing fine with the group of dogs, but a new one came in and she latched to him.

While she doesn't break or mark the skin of the other dogs, they do scream and whine when this happens - which has now resulted in another person punching this dog.
From what I gather, nothing phases the dog while she's holding the ear - tail/leg pulling etc. And they've had to pry her mouth open to get her off the other dog.


I told the owners I would try to look into things, as I don't have a heck of a lot of insight on this. She was fine with Cobain today, I saw no indications of any sort of aggression or anything off with her then.

Anyone have any ideas???

There is a dog at our puppy social that will grab and hold body parts of other dogs. They have been working on breaking them up, or having the pup hold a toy in his mouth while playing and calling him off if he drops the toy.

That being said, frankly speaking not all dogs are suited to being around other dogs. Ear grabbing is SUCH a dangerous issue to have because it's so hard to stop before it happens. I personally would not allow that dog around strange dogs ever.

Considering that ears are so delicate and she hasn't broken skin, you can probably assume she has pretty good bite inhibition - which is a big relief.

But on the other hand, if the dogs are shrieking and she's not letting go, she either doesn't understand or doesn't give a crap about their signals, which is no good.

How does she respond to snarks from other dogs? Like if they tell her to back off, or are guarding an object, or are just done playing? I wonder if she listens to that kind of signal. Frankly it's only a matter of time before she grabs the wrong dog's ear, and I suppose then her owners will find out if she'll respect the telling-off or if it will just escalate into a scuffle or worse.

It doesn't sound aggressive to me (no precursor, no growling, no breaking skin) but definitely is not safe. I have had a lot of fosters that like to do this with legs in play (gently holding another dog's leg in their mouth) but they have always let go when the other dog yipped or snapped. But the way she is doing it immediately to a strange new dog prior to any greeting makes me think this isn't play either.

Reading Jean Donaldson's Fight! might be beneficial to them. It's covers inappropriate play/interactions in addition to genuine aggression. If the spaniel generally enjoys playing with other dogs, using time-outs might be helpful. The moment she latches on to an ear, immediately issue a time-out cue and remove her from the group for a few minutes. Obviously this will be harder to do if she's passing other dogs on leash so management will be best there. If time outs aren't incentive enough, they may be willing to try an aversive. I'm thinking air-horn, water spray, something like that... as long as the other dogs aren't sensitive to it.

And while they're learning more about her and why she's doing it, I'd definitely limit her meet and greets/offleash play to dogs belonging to people who realize what the issue is and what might happen. In other words, willing participants. That'll hopefully keep her from getting punched again.

Keep us posted on how things go, I'm genuinely interested.

From what I gather she lives with another dog now and is totally fine with him. She's so complacent in class, one of our calmest and quickest learners.
All hell could be breaking loose with the other dogs barking and reacting to each other as she just sits there and stares at her owners.

I did suggest to them though that she stays away from the dog park for at least the time being until we figure this out.

I didn't get to see much of other dog's telling her to back off today. She didn't really acknowledge Cobain at all when we did the meet. Cobain gives excellent body language in situations like that so it would have been really helpful.

I know the head trainer just got a pile of dog books in, I'll see if Fight! is a part of her new collection - I'd be interested in reading that as well.

I have no advice other than the owner should get a breakstick and learn to properly use it to pry her off another dogs ear without hurting her. Not sure what the opinion on this forum is about breaksticks but I find them useful in situations like that. I feel like it might be a dog aggression thing. Does she give off any body language before doing it or is it really out of nowhere? (approaches with wagging tail, playing beforehand, etc) and is it usually with the same/different gender or different genders each time?

I don't know much about the implications of a break stick, just watched a few brief videos.
One stated that they should only be used with Pit Bull type breeds? Not sure if that's true or why?

Do you have any resources I could read over and maybe provide to them? It seems like a much safer way to remove the dog from another's ear.

I did not see her in "action" however her owners seem very convinced that it's random. No body language indicators, just walking along normally not acknowledging the other dog until snap she's on the other dogs ear.
They were not sure of gender, but I know 2 of the dogs were smaller than her, and one was larger.

The more I think about it, the more upset I am with the head trainer for basically volunteering my dog out for an assessment when I knew nothing about the situation. She told the owners that I would go out with Cobain and let them both off leash to gauge the situation. She didn't tell ME this, nor did she offer any input on the situation prior....
I mean, luckily nothing even remotely bad happened, but I didn't know what I was walking into with my dog. Ugh even before then it was one of the worst days I've had in class, thinking of quitting and just dealing with the wrath of guilt /rant.

The reason they're usually only recommended for pit bull type dogs is because they're what's typically used to break dogs up for their scratches in a sanctioned dog fight. That fact alone can make them a pretty unattractive tool for most people. The idea is that they are only used to break a dog's 'hold' on another dog - when they have clamped down and are gripping and shaking, as opposed to snapping randomly or readjusting their bite regularly, which is what happens in most quick dog scuffles.

If she is grabbing and holding and they have to use their hands to get her off, then a breakstick might be a safer alternative. Here's a PBRC article on them: http://www.pbrc.net/breaksticks.html

On another note, I'm sorry you were having a crappy day at work and are feeling low about it.

Thank you so much for the link! I will pass that on to the head trainer.

Fortunately, it's not an actual job. Just a volunteer position, but the trainer is a friend that sort of introduced me to the world of rescue and I feel obligated to tough it out at least a bit.