Umm, @why-animals-do-the-thing that IS aggression, right? Because that dog does NOT look like it wants to be petted.

Augh, yeah, this looks like aggression to me. Which makes this video really disturbing, because it’s a very severely escalated response being played off as funny and cute since the dude isn’t actually getting hurt. This is a really prime example of what happens when people think aggressive behavior from little dogs is cute because it doesn’t do any damage and the dog ends up reacting more and more extremely in order to try to communicate that it is serious. 

This looks like an older dog - notice the graying on the face - and it also appears to be missing most of it’s teeth (look at how the tongue hangs out of the mouth - it can only do that at that angle if there are no teeth in the way). It looks fairly comfortable being held, since the few lip licks at the beginning that don’t look associated with being toothless aren’t reflected in the dog’s posture or facial expression. 

As soon as the person actually goes to touch the dog’s head, though, you get multiple repeated bites. It doesn’t matter if the dog doesn’t have enough teeth to make it hurt, it’s still a bite. There’s three things here telling me this isn’t play (which is what I’ve seen a lot of people interpreting this as): hard ridges on the face, full-mouthed bites, and the continuation of the reaction when the guy takes a break. 

Happy playing dogs will still have soft facial skin, even when the lips are drawn back for bitey-face or full-mouthed grabs. You’ll see some skin tension around the lips and maybe even a weird front-of-mouth lip position, but skin around the eyes will still be soft and the tension in the rest of the fact won’t be harsh. This dog has serious, rock-hard ridges both around the muzzle and around the eyes. The ears are also pulled back hard - another sign of stress. 

Second, the dog is biting hard and with a full mouth. Play bites shouldn’t hurt (because then you lose your playmate) so they’re generally soft-pressure and often with just the front of the mouth. This chihuahua is putting the fingers towards the back of the mouth - where its nonexistent teeth would normally exert the most crushing force - and it doesn’t appear to be pulling any punches. 

Lastly, when the guy stops messing with the dog for a second and removes his hand, the dog’s face doesn’t change - it’s still reacting to the hand as if it is a threat (which it is, since he then immediately goes back to bothering the dog). 

That is not the face of a dog that is happy with this interaction or wants that hand to come back. Note the really tight, drawn-back lips, the hard eyes and the tense backwards ears. When he moves his hand sideways, you can see a decent example of what whale eye looks like (although there’s no visible whites of the eyes due to the angle of the video and the morphology of the dog’s skull). 

Notice how it’s still watching his hand with a hard eye and hard face, while orienting the head somewhat away from it? That’s what I mean when I’ve said before that whale eye should be an immediate warning that a bite is probably the next escalation. 

This guy may think he’s playing with his dog or that it’s just a funny interaction, but everything I’m seeing tells me here that the dog is not enjoying this interaction and would like it to stop. My guess is that the animal doesn’t try to get down or leave because small dogs learn pretty quickly they don’t have that sort of bodily autonomy. 

I hate this video for a number of reasons, many of which are so beautifully articulated above.

But I particularly hate it from a veterinary perspective. You know which breed I muzzle most in a hospital setting? Chihuahuas. Because, in my experience, they’re the most likely to bite in a manner that causes an injury.

When you allow, even encourage, a small dog to bite because it’s funny and they’re little and how much harm can they do, you create a dangerous animal. When you pick them up and sling them around and pay no attention to their comfort or their mental state, you teach them that everything can be a threat and that more subtle cues will be ignored - so they bite.

I can’t even count on two hands the number of chihuahua owners I’ve worked with who say that there is literally no way for them to medicate their dog. I can’t count the number of dogs I’ve had to forcibly medicate through a muzzle as they tried to lunge at me.

If this behavior were coming from a large dog, we would be concerned, we would label them as dangerous, speak to the owner about working with a behaviorist. But because it’s a small dog, we think of it as a “breed characteristic” and we grit our teeth and power through. And that sucks.