Ms Nanci Creedon:

What happens is that the body goes into the sympathetic nervous system dominance state. You will often see humans, dogs and Taylor Swift shake it off. When you see dogs doing a shake-off if they were in the water and they are wet, then it is normal. However, if something was a stressor for the dog and its body starts to go into sympathetic nervous system dominance and the hair might be standing up at the back of their necks, you might see them do a shake-off and that is them trying to calm themselves back into the parasympathetic dominance state. These tiny things are fundamentally important. When I teach someone about their own dog, I explain the concept about what is happening and how critical it is to keep your dog calm. They know this in order that if, say, their children are playing football and the dog is getting hyper, they can bring the dog back into the house. That is one of the big triggers I see for dogs becoming reactive and biting. It is when they are having fun with kids in the garden.

I was speaking to my hairdresser earlier. Her daughter got a very bad bite from a collie when she was whizzing around on roller blades that were flashing. That will get the dog all excited and wound-up. Suddenly, a dog that would not normally bite is biting. It is an instinctual, natural behaviour for dogs to bite. Every single breed of dog will bite. Every single dog can bite. It is often suppressed when they are living as pets and they are in front-brain mode when they are thinking logically and being themselves. When they become hyper and out of control they will do things that are more instinctual for the dog. That is when my dog will become dangerous. That is when everybody's dog can potentially become dangerous. It is small things that are potential triggers and catalysts for serious bites and the more that people understand these tiny potential triggers then the more that we can stop these things from happening. That is why education is so important.